Taylor Allen Strickland
8/27/1993 — 9/6/2016
23 years
By grace through faith, I will accept Taylor’s death as God’s will, and by faith accept that God’s will is always good.
By grace through faith, I will be at peace with providence, and by faith, at peace with its every decree.
By grace through faith, I will praise God in the taking as I did in the giving, and by faith, receive from His hand this sorrow as I have so many joys.
By grace through faith, I will grieve but not grumble, mourn but not murmur, weep but not whine.
By grace through faith, though I will be scarred by Taylor’s death, I will not be defined by it. Though it will always be part of my story, by grace, it will never become my identity.
By grace through faith, I will be forever thankful that God gave me a son and never resentful that He called him home.
By grace through faith, my joy in having loved Taylor will be greater than my grief in having lost him.
By grace, I will not waver in my faith, nor abandon my hope, nor revoke my love.
By grace, I will not charge God with wrong.
By grace, I will receive this trial as a responsibility to steward, not a punishment to endure.
By grace, I will look for God’s smile in it rather than His frown, listen for His words of blessing rather than His voice of rebuke.
By grace, this sorrow will not make me angry or bitter, nor cause me to act out in rebellion or indignation.
By grace through faith, it will make me kinder and gentler, more patient and loving, more compassionate and sympathetic.
By grace, it will loose my heart from the things of earth and fix it on the things of heaven.
By grace, the loss of my son will make me more like God’s Son, my sorrow like the Man of Sorrows.
By grace through faith, I will continue to love God and trust Him, continue to pursue God and enjoy Him, continue to worship God and boast of His many mercies.
By grace, I will look with longing to the day of Christ’s return and with expectation to the day of resurrection.
By grace through faith, I will remain steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.
By grace, I will forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead, always pressing on toward the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
By grace through faith, I will lay aside every weight and sin that clings so closely and run with endurance the race that is set before me, looking always to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of my faith.
By grace through faith, I will remain faithful until I have fought the good fight and finished the race and kept the faith.
By grace through faith, I will die as I have lived—a follower of Jesus Christ. Then, by grace, I will go to be with Jesus, and go to be with Taylor.
This is my desire and manifesto for the grace of God and faith in my Lord Jesus Christ.
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Adapted from a writing by Tim Challies. See his book here.
This blog is dedicated to John Woodall, who shared this manifesto with us. John is a man who loves Jesus, has walked this journey of loss with us since day one. John lost his own son seven years later to the day that Taylor went home, and he continues to minister to our hearts today. He is a friend and a brother to many.
Sally says
Everyone should focus on readjusting our thought process to concentrate on using these values in our everyday lives.
Barbara Guill says
I lost my only child, my daughter BBeverly, 17 yrs ago. I wish I could say, I have lived these principles, but I havent. She was so special.