Be Who You Are...a Tribute to Emma

Emma, Karmen, me, and our daughters after singing
together at a Christmas concert many moons ago

The phone rang at 4:45 in the morning with the news that my sweet Emma had gone Home.

She beat cancer.

I imagine her today bathed in light, rediscovering her rich alto voice, getting a bear hug from Jesus, sitting down to a feast, moving (flying?) without pain or fear.

She said dying was like "faith becoming sight."  She had to take every biblical truth she'd professed in her 40 years of life and really BELIEVE.  But she didn't have to try.  The Spirit did the work, and because of that, she became the comforter to the rest of us who miserably watched her decline.

I am an only child, but God has given me a handful of Hand-picked sisters.  Emma is the sister who could speak truth with love, exhort, encourage, and inspire.  Godliness oozed out of her...but not as shallow platitudes and Christian-ese.  She embraced the messiness of life and faith.  She taught me to drop Christian facades and to live authentically.  And because of that, she directly inspired numerous songs, four of which are on my Songs With Wings album, and several more of which I hope to record someday.  She gave many gifts to people around her.  I know this, because I have been reading their tributes to her.  To me, she gave songs.

I'd like to share three "Emma phrases" that resound in my ears this morning.

"Be who you are."  I heard her say this ALL the time to her kids; just about every time they walked out the door.  At first, I thought it was strange to tell two little boys and a girl to "be who you are."  They were so little and feisty and not who they were going to be yet.  When I asked about this, because I COULD ask her stuff like this, she said her kids understood the phrase to mean, "Be who God made you to be."  Now I understand.  I tell it to myself:  BE WHO YOU ARE.  Rise above your littleness.

"All I Have is Christ."  This phrase from the worship song crushes me.  It's the last song Emma was able to record at my house before a tumor stole her singing voice.  We had a list of 12 songs we were going to record together as a legacy project.  I still have her hand-written list taped up in my music room.  We procrastinated.  We only completed one.  This list stands as a cautionary tale.  Move when the spirit says move.  

"We do this single file."  If ever I am tempted to take a seat on the judgement chair and declare someone's failure at this or that, I hear this phrase in Emma's cancer-scraped voice.  She said this a lot toward the end.  We do death single file.  We do life single file.  We do faith single file.  Be tender and patient with yourself and others.

Emma's final gift to her beloved church was to die on a Sunday morning so that her people could be together worshiping and grieving and talking and remembering.  Several times my tears mingled with another's as we hugged cheek to cheek.  Emma would have approved.  

I leave you with Emma's final recorded song if you'd like to listen.