A hero's death, a heroine's life

Today will be the funeral of a hero.

It should also be a salute to a heroine.

On June 24, I opened my Facebook feed and braced myself for the posts both celebrating and decrying the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Instead, I found at the top of my feed a post from Hayley Waldron, saying that her husband Harrison had died. Harrison's parents attended my church for several years. They've been missionaries both in Mexico and now in Honduras.

Harrison was 30. Hayley is 29.

They were married in 2014, right out of college, and at the time, I thought, "Isn't Harrison a little young to be getting married?"  (Bear in mind, I was a week shy of 30 when I got married. :-) )

Fourteen months after their marriage, on August 14, 2015, Harrison and Hayley took a trip for a friend's wedding.  While there, Harrison was involved in an ATV accident that left him with a devastating brain injury. At the time, Harrison's parents posted that they needed a miracle from God.

I'm sure the miracle everyone would have liked would have been for Harrison to be totally, physically healed. 

God, in His sovereignty, did not grant that miracle.

Instead, He gave us two people that showed the world around them, this is how you faithfully follow Christ in the midst of severe trial and hardship. 

Harrison would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair and would communicate with an iPad. Through that iPad, he would tell Hayley that he loved her. 

Hayley would spend the rest of Harrison's life loving him well. 

She also went back to school and became a nurse. 

I don't know if Harrison and Hayley would refer to themselves as "heroes". 

But there are those who, in their circumstances, would retreat into themselves and build up a wall of self-pity and resentment. (I know myself well enough to know that I'd be tempted to do just that.) 

From what I read of Harrison and Hayley, they did not do that. 

Yes, they had their struggles. They had struggles that many young couples do not have: health struggles, financial struggles, a struggle to find a niche when their lives turned upside down. 

They also had a God who did not leave them and whom they would not leave. 

Harrison endured to the end. I believe that when God saw him, he told him, "Well done, good and faithful servant." That's why I call him a hero.

Hayley, his partner in life, held true to her vow to be faithful "till death us do part". She exercised her faithfulness in her doing for Harrison and in her love for him. That's why I call her a heroine.

Today, Harrison will be laid to rest. His family and his friends will speak of him, tell memories of his life, and say goodbye. 

Today, Hayley begins her journey without her husband. She will cry at times and maybe she will even be angry at God and shake her fist at Him. 

And I also believe that she will remember the faithfulness of God.

So as we remember a hero today, let's also remember the heroine. 

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.