God loves each of His children so deeply and wants them to know Him. His desire for them is to find peace and to come home to Him when He calls. It is wonderful to watch the lengths to which He will go to make that happen. He gives us ample time and uses the everyday gifts we have had all our lives to help us find Him. Mary Anne was gifted with great curiosity and determination, which she had used in her successful business life. God enabled her to use those very same gifts in searching for and finding Him. What an awesome and loving God we have at our disposal all the days of our lives.

One day Mary Anne asked me why I thought God had left her here on earth so much longer than her doctors thought was possible. I said I thought that maybe He wanted to give her all the time she needed to find Him. “Have you found Him yet, Mary Anne?” I asked her one night. “Oh yes,” she replied with the same confident assurance she had reflected in business all her life, but this time peace and contentment covered her face.

More than two and a half years had passed since Mary Anne first visited with me. It was Christmas Eve, and once again you couldn’t miss God’s presence and precious love for her as little children gathered in the snowy night outside her bedroom window, singing “Silent Night.” They sounded like angels straight from heaven, and Mary Anne was baptized that very evening by the young priest she had come to know and love very much. Once again God was visiting her Himself through the person He had sent to comfort and guide her on her way home to Him. She died peacefully in the early hours of that Christmas morning.

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Excerpted from Glimpses of Heaven by Trudy Harris; copyright 2008 Trudy Harris. Reprinted with permission of Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

Originally published August 6, 2008 in resposne to Professor Randy Pausch's death.