One Year.

One year.
How can one year feel like a lifetime but yet one day at the same time?
I cannot put into words what I am feeling right now. I woke up this morning with a million thoughts in my head-all related to Joshua Steven Eddy . Thoughts of how I missed him, thoughts of how I could be praying for his family and close friends, thoughts of how it felt like just another day to wake up...but yet....it's different today.
It was exactly one year ago that I got the news that one of my dearest friends, Joshua Eddy, had slipped and fallen into the Rogue River and drowned.
You can never be ready to lose someone you care about.
I miss Josh. So much. And I know so many others do as well.
I also know that God's plan to take Josh home when He did could not have been any more perfect. God took Josh home at JUST the perfect time. It may seem too soon for those who were close to Josh...but God's plan for everyone, when they are born, when they die, is SO SO perfect. Planned from beginning of time.
Josh left behind a testimony of what it looks like to truly follow of Christ. Anyone who knew him can tell you how he constantly would encourage and challenge you in your walk with the Lord.
Since Josh has passed, life has gone on. But the memory and testimony of Josh still remains. If he could see how many lives his passing has impacted in the past year, he would be so humbled.
A reminder of so many things: a reminder of how he isn't with us anymore and the deep pain that comes from missing him, a reminder of the life he lived-for Christ, and a challenge not to live our lives 'like Josh did', but to follow the same path he did in living for Christ, a reminder of how short life is and most of all: a reminder of how God is in control. Always.
I miss Josh. I miss him far more than I did a year ago. I miss receiving his famously long emails encouraging me to do what was right, so stand firm in the Lord and to always always keep my focus on God. I miss seeing new photos that he had taken where he learned a new photography technique and he would get so excited about it. I miss reading his heartfelt blog posts that always encouraged me. I miss his smile, his laugh. I miss him.
And a year later, through tears, I am praising God that He had this planned from the beginning of time. Because even though I miss him, I can rejoice that I will see him again.

Here's a part of an email I once received from Josh, it seems all the more appropriate now(As this was an extremely personal email, I replaced any names with '----'):

"No matter what happens, you need to trust in Him, and live for Him. Never live the complacent life. If you believe that God is in control of every single aspect of creation; not even a leaf falls from a tree without God allowing it to, then God has a purpose for every event in your life, and your job is not to say “oh, well, that wasn’t fun”. Your job is to say “Blessed be the Name of the Lord, You give and take away. What do you intend for me to learn from this, Lord? How can I grow from this experience?”  
Can I ask you a sensitive question? Do you love God more than ----? If God took ---- from you permanently, would you still love Him? Of course yes, I know that you’re far stronger than to turn your back on Him. But would you ever “forgive” Him? Would you resent it and always look on it as a curse? Are you willing to lay your friendship with ---- on the altar and “Lord, it’s yours, use it for you greatest Glory”?"

So many of the things Josh said, God knew how they would effect others after his death. Things about losing someone, about always trusting God...things that relate to Josh now.
It's amazing to see God's plan.
 
 
"Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look no at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." -2 Corinthians 4:16-18