Amazing Love and Heart Prints, Rev. Sandy Taylor
November 13, 2009
Holli knew she was loved, by each of you. She knew about Amazing Love.
I’m forgiven,
because you were forsaken.
I’m alive and well,
Your spirit is within me.
That’s it! Holli had a spirit within her that leaves heart-prints in all of us. The death of Holli’s physical presence alters each of our souls. Each in a different way. For those of you who loved Holli, You will miss her, because when someone dies that we care about, our hearts hurt. Death is very final. and it hurts when we love someone and they die. We want that hurt to go away, it feels like a bad dream. And we want to wake up, and have Holli back! Grief is the price we pay, when someone dies that we love. I’m glad I have been part of her life, I’ll take the grief. This parting with someone we love is where the scriptures help us, “I go to prepare a place for you and I will come again and take you to myself.” In the meantime, Jesus said you are to love God with all your hearts, with all you soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. That’s what you felt when you worked with Holli, she wanted us to praise God, with our whole being. (Heart, Soul, Mind, Strength!)
She sang
I have a Maker,
he formed my heart.
Before even time began,
My life was in His hand.
He knows my name.
He knows my every thought
He sees each tear that falls,
and hears me when I call.
Yes, God knows Holli’s name. And Holli helped us to remember God knows each of our Names. We do not have tears of despair; we have tears of love for knowing Holli. We will remember Holli, for she has left Heart-prints of God’s love on each of us.
Both in her life and in yours there have been other valleys, but the valley of the shadow of death is of a singular kind. Men and women are not prepared to walk it, nor to endure it. We cannot walk it alone. We are to believe the promise. She sang that promise:
Nothing on earth or Heaven
Can stop the power of God
into our hands is given
the call to take it on
No ocean can contain it.
No star can rise above
into our hearts is given
the power of God’s love.
Holli would ask you, do you believe the promise? In all her songs of praises, have they brought you closer to God? Did she leave heart-prints, and helped you be closer to God? It is her testimony, each and every song she sang, each and every song she directed, each and every song she helped you learn. She could sing of God’s Love Forever! And you felt God’s love, when she sang.
When we planned music together for worship, it was an all day affair, every Wednesday for 3 years. And each Sunday became an Easter Sunday with praises like no other for our Lord! She meant it when she sang
I have decided to follow Jesus,
no turning back,
I’m gonna live,
like a believer,
turn my back on the deceiver,
gonna live what I believe.
She did that! Has she worked so hard while she was living---that you now would turn away from God because of her death? Her prayer would be
In the arms of His love, I find rest.
In the arms of His love there’s sweet quietness.
Nothing can harm me, no reason to fear;
Safe in the arms of His love.
That’s where Holli is. Safe in the arms of His Love.
Only you (God) are worthy of praise, (she sang)
only you deserve all the glory.
Only you have the highest of names,
I lift my voice to worship only you.
What a voice – she gave to us! Could you and I life our voice to worship God? As I come to a close Greg Ferguson wrote a song Holli loved:
There’s a healing river flowing somewhere.
It’s gonna take me home to the place for me.
There’s a healing river flowering someday
It’s gonna take me away to the place prepared for me.
Where every tear will be washed away
and every fear’s gonna melt away.
I’ll look into my Savior’s eyes
And everything gonna be alright.
It is your faith in God, that provides you with a trust to give your questions, your doubts to God. When you do that, you are able to keep going forward. In my prayer for Holli before she died, I gave God thanks for the heart-prints, she gave to all of us. That we are a better person because of what she has left behind. In your sharing about Holli, remember that a part of Holli is inside of you. She has affected you. What she has left inside of you and out of such love for her, and celebration for what she has meant to you, and in celebration of God’s love for us; we can indeed reflect upon and be grateful for the life of Holli Susanne Hempel White.
Memorial contributions may be made to the The Allison Foundation. The mission of the Allison Foundation is to provide funding grants to individuals for autism therapy, treatment and care in Charles County, Maryland. Please make payable to The Allison Foundation.
The Allison Foundation
P.O. Box 393
Port Tobacco, MD 20677
301-659-5900
info@allisonfoundation.org
www.allisonfoundation.org