A worship leader who encouraged the church to pray for the resurrection of her toddler has posted about the 'aching lack of her not with us' after burying her over Christmas.
Kalley Heiligenthal, a musician at Bethel Church in Redding in California, wrote on New Years Day that she had felt resistance to move into a decade without her daughter Olive in it.
Olive Heiligenthal died on 14th December and Bethel church hosted prayer events to raise her back to life and the hashtag #WakeUpOlive was used widely on social media.
On 21st December the church announced its decision to stop praying for Olive to come back to life, saying they were moving towards a memorial service and celebration of her life, which took place on 27th December.
Co-founder of Bethel music and friend of Kalley Heiligenthal, Jenn Johnson, wrote on Instagram that she couldn't wait to see Olive in heaven.
Kalley Heiligenthal wrote on Thursday: "Last night around 11:55 I felt the tension. The resistance to move into a decade without Olive. I can access the searing shock of the last couple weeks and stop there, but if I push one step further, 2019 is overwhelmingly saturated with treasured memories I would never trade and will fight to cherish."
She told her followers that she is looking to the future and to eternity: "So I choose tender thankfulness. As for the future, as I feel the noble aching lack of her not with us for a lifetime, the better truth is I can look just beyond and know so vividly that this life is only a breath, and for all eternity we’ll be close again. Jesus bought that for us. So I choose triumphant thankfulness.
"And the more I do it the more I feel it. There is a heaven that is more real and vivid than what we have here and it’s pressing in on us. Jesus is alive, Olive is alive in Him, so we press back and live fully alive too."
She wrote on Saturday: “Olive, we miss you, love you so much and we’ll see you soon. We know now more than ever that King Jesus is good and His every word is worth believing and following at any cost. That’s the song we’ll sing until we’re with you again and we finally sing it together. We cannot wait.
"It’s a new day, and we’re awake for it. This is a victory story.”
For a blog on this, click here:
The tragedy of Bethel's #WakeUpOlive: Why it isn't always God's will to heal
