she was beautiful

She was an orphan girl raised in Cuba. As a young adult, she used substances that abused and racked her body and her health. She lived with the scars from it. She had children out-of-wedlock. And lived with those scars as well. She was a mother whose teenage son ran away, whose daughter turned her back on her.

She was a person who desperately needed a reason to live, who needed a hope in her heart. She was a person whom my dear father led to the Lord years ago. And she was a person whose life was completely and utterly changed.

She was the person you’d call if your car broke down on the side of the road. She was the person to tutor you in Spanish – for free, driving almost an hour one way. She was the person who lifted your spirits without you even realizing she was doing it. She was the person who prayed as she breathed and loved as if her life depended on it.

She was the wife of a godly man. She was the person who went to China with a sister-in-law who was adopting an orphan and who had no intentions of adopting herself. But God brought along a special little girl who won her heart and her husband’s and they adopted her.

She was a huge supporter, both financially and spiritually, to every single mission trip or purpose you were called to do by the Lord. She was the person who was in the kitchen cooking up a storm to raise money for your Romania trips. She was the person who inspired you to learn Spanish. She was the person who really encouraged you to think deeply about why you did mission trips and about your relationship with God.

She was the person with cancer and brain tumors while in her forties. She was the person who lost all of her gorgeous hair. She was the person with the distorted body. She was the mother to a Chinese orphan for not even two years.

She was the person who was a dear, dear friend, sister, Sister, and second mother to me – all rolled up in one.

She was the person who went Home four years ago on December 6, 2006. She was the person over whom many tears were shed. She is the person whom I envision dancing happily for her King in heaven.

She was beautiful. And that’s putting it at the simplest description possible. No photograph could ever capture her.

She was Mireya.