We did an activity called “cardboard testimonies” at church on Sunday. When Pastor Cyndi first asked me to do it, I agreed right away. It sounded like a great way to share what God has done through tragedy in my life. Yet, when I stood in line waiting my turn to walk up on stage, a flood of emotions hit me all at once, and I wasn’t sure what I had gotten myself into, after all.

There are a lot of examples of cardboard testimonies online, but the gist is simple. On one side of a piece of cardboard, you write in bold marker print a brief phrase or a few words that describe your past – a tragedy, your life before Christ, a struggle, etc. On the other side, you write the outcome – new life in Christ, how God has changed you, blessings that came from that situation, etc.

There are several things I could have written about, but I needed to narrow it down to one, so I thought about Nathan’s death and how it has affected me. My cardboard read:
“BURIED
MY LIL’
BROTHER”
on the front side. On the back side, I wrote: “MOM5” in gigantic letters (the 5 was superscript, like mom-squared, only with the number 5). At this point in my journey, having the privilege of raising my two nephews is the greatest testimony of how God has overcome (and continues to overcome) the inexplicable tragedy of losing my baby brother.

I hope that someone who saw my cardboard that morning was touched by how God has moved in the lives of our family, and that Nathan’s death was not the end. Jan. 23, 2009, will always be a placeholder in time, but I would argue that Nathan’s death marked the beginning of a new book in this epic saga we call Life. Just imagine what God can do.