When Anna was little, she carved her name into a desk at St. Mary’s Academy. “She did it because she wanted to be remembered,” said Anna’s mom, Denise, the day after what would have been Anna’s 15th birthday. “For her valedictorian speech upon graduating 8th grade, Anna shared how she’d learned being “here” wasn’t about her at all.

It was about something bigger than you. About the people around you. About making a difference in your community,” Anna’s mom explained.

In a hundred signs. In a hundred ways. Anna was here making a difference on her birthday.

We’d all been dreading Anna’s birthday without her, but when the day arrived, something special happened. I was working my regular farmers’ market in the Sam’s Club parking lot when Anna’s Grandma Marolyn, my Aunt Marolyn, brought over the sign.

“Hang this up,” she said with a teary smile. “These signs are going up everywhere.”

“We thought it would be a brutal day,” said Denise, “but then the pictures started coming to us. Nobody had planned the “Anna was here” thing. It just kind of happened and took off on social media.”

Anna’s friends on both coasts began writing Anna’s name in the sand in Maine. On the sidewalks back East. On the Golden Gate Bridge on Anna’s birthday. Anna’s little girl wish had come true. She was remembered.

“When I die, I want a candy bar at my funeral,” Anna had told her best friend the week before she passed away. The best friend had moved to another state, and told Anna not to talk that way. These girls weren’t strangers to tragedy. Their sweet friend Sophie had died two years earlier in a summer boating accident. All the girls had attended St. Mary’s in Grass Valley, California where Anna had carved her name in the desk. This small Catholic school where the students were like family to each other. Anna’s funeral was held right across the street from St. Mary’s at the Catholic Church. In the fellowship hall, they set up Anna’s candy bar. It was so like Anna to think of others this way.

Anna had also written a will in her diary. Down to requesting her soccer socks be given to one of her teammates at Forest Lake Christian High School.

Some people are born “old souls.” Anna was one of these people. And she carried an unsettling conviction she would die young. When I saw her candy bar, I smiled and cried at the same time. Our boys were delighted by the candy and filled their pockets. “Can I go back and get more,” seven-year-old G2 asked me as we ate dinner at Anna’s reception.

“Get as much as you want,” I told him. “We are celebrating how much we love Anna today.” I found it amazing that Anna was loving us back. I imagined her at the candy bar whispering to G2, “Come back again. And again. I’ll help you fill your pockets, Garry James.”

As heart-breaking as Anna’s funeral was, the beauty of it astounded me. In a way, it felt like we were at Anna’s wedding. The Bridegroom Jesus coming for Anna.

The day of Anna’s funeral, I gave Denise this devotional. The morning entry couldn’t have been more perfect. “There is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out fear.” 1 John 4:18. The entry spoke encouragingly about losing a loved one and the happy reunion that awaited in heaven.

In all the details of Anna’s death, God was so present. My faith has been strengthened in all this, but not without a battle because two months before Anna died, I’d said a prayer in my kitchen with my arms around Anna’s dad, Sean. He and two of Anna’s siblings were at our house for the twins’ 73rd birthday. Sean and I are more like siblings than cousins with Marolyn and Carolyn for our moms. To Anna, I was Aunt Paula. During this birthday party, Sean had gotten a phone call from Denise. Anna was in the emergency room being checked out for a concussion she’d suffered in a soccer game that day. They weren’t at the birthday because of this Saturday tournament.

“Please God, heal Anna’s concussion and keep her safe for the rest of the soccer season,” I prayed that day in the kitchen with Anna’s dad.

Two months later in May, Anna would die in that car crash in her soccer uniform on the way home from a playoff game. The day after her death, after a sleepless night absolutely dark with the shadow of death, I stepped out onto our front porch at dawn and howled up at God, “How could you take her like this! I prayed you’d keep her safe! How could you do this to our family!”

Tears splashed down my cheeks. My knees felt about to buckle. My heart shattering in a million pieces.

“Anna is safer than she’s ever been. She’s with me.” I didn’t hear this still, small voice audibly, but I knew with every fiber of my being the Lord was speaking to me that morning. This impression was so tender, so warm and true, so full of love, I stood there with my sobs turning to soft weeping with peace washing over me. Light rose behind the dark hills beyond our front yard. A few minutes later, I walked back into the house, grabbed my iPhone and snapped this picture.

I wanted to freeze this faith marker. I wanted to remember: God was here.

The first month after Anna died, God gave me all kinds of signs of of how alive Anna’s spirit was with Him. Then the signs began to fade in the reality of our first summer without Anna. The boards never came off the doors and windows of Anna’s family’s cabin. On Father’s Day, I stood at the window of our cabin looking up at Anna’s family’s empty cabin and the pain of losing Anna felt unbearable.

“I asked You to keep her safe during soccer season, and she died,” I accused God on Father’s Day in June, and again in July when neither Anna’s family nor our family gathered at the cabin for our annual 4th of July camping trip. It felt like God’s response to this was: Do you believe about Me what you say you believe? That the goal is heaven and Anna has finished her game and won the victory. You sing it. You speak it. Do you truly believe it? 

By August, my heart felt battered and weary, and I just wanted to be done with this sad summer without Anna. Then I read the book: Choosing to SEE, and it broke something open in me. Was I willing to see God was doing something really special here? Was I willing to taste and see God was good even in the midst– especially in the midst– of our great heartache? Was I willing to accept this wasn’t really about Anna, but about God making Himself known to everyone who’d loved Anna? And Anna was loved by so many. She was such an amazing girl.

The truth was, God had taken Anna’s life and boldly wrote, God was here on it. And now sweetly and tenderly on her birthday, Jesus was allowing us to see Anna was here, too.

Thank you to all those who prayed for us last week. Anna’s birthday was an unexpectedly beautiful day filled with God’s peace and Anna’s sweet presence. I said in an earlier post I didn’t know how we’d get through Anna’s birthday. Now I know. Anna was here. And God was here.