Ten years ago today, my mother was ushered into heaven by her family’s songs of praise.

Four years ago this week, I bravely opened the boxes I’d been avoiding for six years. Inside one opaque plastic tub, tucked next to her Bible, I found a worn folded paper — creased and holey at the edges from ten-ish years of folding and unfolding.

It was a Gospel Contemplation she had written, with my name next to healing scriptures in her familiar 1950s elementary school teacher cursive:

“Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” Mark 5:34

She prayed for my healing for decades. She never knew the diagnosis came — Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, Spring of 2022, six years after her passing.

Thirty-some years ago, she gave me a book inscribed: “To my author-daughter,” and for the last three years, I’ve been authoring a book — pairing my medical anecdotes with her prayerful antidotes– pairing my journal entries filled with “Why God why?’ and her “PTL” and “TYJ.” Thirty years of my crying out, held up by her hallelujahs–a perfectly paired lament.

For Cryin’ Out Loud is for anyone on the medical mystery tour who is weary in the waiting, hoarse from petitioning God and needs an easy laugh.

At her Celebration of Life, she chose a song that declared: “I wanna leave  a legacy…”how will they remember me?

If you knew my mom, it’s likely your name is written in her prayer journal making you a part of her legacy.

Thank You. Jesus. Hallelujah!!

Ephesians 3:20 (TLB) Now glory be to God, who by his mighty power at work within us is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of—infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, or hopes.