Earlier today I thought I would blog about a revelation I got during class, but even as I began to think about and study that word out, my thoughts changed. The revelation I received was on a passage of scripture concerning Adam and Eve and as I thought about it, I couldn't help think about some of the people I've loved and lost, in one form or another. One especially, K'Anthone Kelley.
During my freshman year of college I had the pleasure of meeting and falling in love with an amazing man. Not many people know the whole story of what happened, but many know that he died.
Days after breaking up with the first person I truly loved, I met Prince Charming, by accident. K'Anthone and I met through a mutual friend who was dating his brother. We had this crazy connection almost instantly. After the second conversation we ever had, I knew I wanted to marry him. No questions, no doubts, no hesitations... I just knew. I felt it, and the funny thing is; a few weeks before, I swore I'd never get married, never have a family, and that I was staying single forever. I guess this was God's way of restoring my faith in love.
Although our love for one another was something special, our romance was anything but a fairy tale. He almost died 3 or 4 times before he was murdered. Within 6 months he lost his father, had pneumonia (almost died from it), recovered (only to receive a dose of penicillin that cause his throat to close up and he almost died for the second time), and had a head on collision with a truck, hit the guard rail, flipped over, lost the feeling in his legs for 4 days and had to learn to walk again. Needless to say, my knees stayed a little ashy. The day after he took his first steps, he asked me to marry him from his hospital room and of course I agreed. We made plans to make it official in the following couple of weeks when he was released from the hospital, but that day never came. While on his way to KY, he was car jacked, shot in the head twice and left for dead.
In the time between our last conversation and the day they found his body a lot happened. Short version goes like this.... My prophetic gifts kicked into high gear, I saw him driving and turn off the road (on the day he went missing) but couldn't pinpoint where or why, I could hear his voice in my room, feel his presence, and 3 days before his car was found i had a dream that we found him in the woods with a head injury, but he was alive, and on top of all of this (and the other things that happened) I was an emotional mess flunking out of my college courses. The crazy part is, the night I got the call telling me his body had been found, the description of where and how he was found was " in a wooded area off the side of the road. He'd been shot in the back of the head twice." Imagine how I felt having seen it days before but not knowing what I was seeing...
In the days to follow, my dreams turned to guilty torment, everything around me was wet with tears, and I was forced to go through the situation with no real support from my family. This is when I truly got to know God for myself. I met the healer, the mind regulator, the comforter, the center of my joy, the refuge, the strong tower... I met Him in all of His beauty and wonder... Nobody could comfort me like Jesus did
How do you tell someone you see your dead fiance standing beside them in front of your car without being fitted for a new white coat with lots of buckles? How do you explain that you hear his voice whispering wake up when you fell asleep driving across a bridge? Or that he showed up in the delivery room when his cousin's babies were born asking her to tell me that in loving me, he had found his purpose? I know it seems crazy but I couldn't have made this up on my best day of creative writing. One day I'll write a book and tell the whole story of the things that happened but until then, I treasure the time we shared and would do it over again in a heartbeat, without changing anything.
Why? Because God gave me beauty for my ashes. During the process of loving him, losing him, losing my mind, being healed, restored and released God has done a marvelous work. He gets all of the glory..
I could have and probably should have been somewhere on psychotropic drugs to help wrangle the pieces of my mind, in a state of deep depression and despair, angry at God, bitter, and a thousand other things. BUT GOD!!
I'm here in my right mind, a college graduate one semester away from completing my masters, completely and totally in love with Jesus, filled with so much joy and peace I can't even explain it. I'm waiting on the mate God has for me and standing on the promise that is to come. I've been able to use these experiences to help someone else handle a loss, and God has so richly blessed me to love and be loved... but most of all I've learned to treasure the time you have with those you love and to let them know how you feel. You never know when you might not be able to. So tonight I thank God for the things I lost that allowed me to gain so much more. I thank God for K'Anthone Kelley and the love he poured into me, the love he pulled out of me and the seeds he planted.
Isaiah 61:3 To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.
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