Dear Broken Chariots followers and friends,

Thank you for your thoughts and your kind and comforting words.

And for those of you who truly know and follow, worship and serve, trust and obey, love and adore, experience and desire our Creator, our Master, our King, our Good Shepherd, our Mighty God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit…thank you so much for your prayers to Him and through Him. They sustain me and grant me peace and strength right now. 

The fact that Annie is now with Jesus is as sure and as certain as the fact that she is no longer with me. However, the process of me realising both those things is incomplete and slow and may take a long time to root and flourish. But I know that as the Lord helps me to accept the pain of the one, the joy of the other will increase.

Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. – Psalm 63:3

I will invariably refer to Annie as ‘my’ Annie and ‘my’ wife and I want you to know that I mean it in the past tense because I have now fully released her into the hands of her first true love; the perfect bridegroom, Jesus Christ. She always did belong to Him first. He entrusted her to me for a period – a season – just as He entrusted me to her. As a husband He gave me head responsibility over Annie and what a wonderful honour and privilege it was. The best I have ever had.

The memory of the righteous is a blessing – Proverbs 10:7

Letting go of my Annie does not mean I let go of the memory of the great blessing that she was – a blessing which effects and enhances even the present and the future for me – and many others. The Lord actually commands me to remember and count that blessing! Not exactly a tiresome, difficult command!

But then, that is the essence of every one of His commands to me. Jesus said:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” – Matthew 11:28-30

All I want to do is listen to Him, trust Him and obey Him. Because I love Him.

One of my final responsibilities is to prayerfully prepare the funeral and thanksgiving service for my dear Annie. It’s an opportunity to honour our Lord with worship and praise for the life and new eternal life that He gave and graced my Annie with.

It’s weird that ‘funeral’ has the word ‘fun’ in it. I wouldn’t know the etymology behind that word but I know that as followers of Jesus we:

do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. – 1 Thessalonians 4:13

Plans are now underway for the funeral and thanksgiving for my dear Annie. The thanksgiving service will be an opportunity to pour out the blended tears of grief and joy, and voice the harmonies of pain and praise all to the glory of our God and King.

If you are a known friend or family member, no doubt you will hear – or be able to contact someone – about the details of the service as they surface. However, we would like to open the invitation out to those who may only know us via this blog; or those we knew of in the past but have lost touch with since (I’m including our Banner of Truth friends here as well!) If you would like to come, please send us your details via the form below and we will gladly pass on further details as soon as possible.

We hope that a buffet tea will follow the thanksgiving service but I am afraid you will have to make your own transport and accommodation arrangements for the event.

Thank you.

My love in Him,

r&J