I pray everyone had a beautifully blessed Christmas as we celebrate the birth of our savior Jesus Christ. Me and my three boys had a very low key Christmas full of tears and laughter as we remembered our beautiful Boey. It wasn’t much of a Christmas without Boey’s infectious radiant spirit and laughter filling the house, but we still managed to get through the day. Boey would’ve been very proud of her mommy.
I made the boys an incredibly delicious Christmas meal and listened to worship music the entire day. Jesus carried us through and there were many times we could feel Boey’s presence, we knew she was close. It was a blessing to have our hearts focused on the most awesome gift of all, eternal life. Celebrating the true meaning of Christmas and what eternal life means to us was the best Christmas present any of us could ever have received.
This Christmas all of us were even more grateful than ever for the gift of eternal life knowing the blessed hope of being with our precious Boey again. Just knowing she is more of our future eternity than our past is so comforting through the heart wrenching pain of not having her right here with us.
Praise God that in Christ there are no goodbye’s and this is only our temporary dwelling. We are all detached from this world and the things of this world. Our hearts are in heaven with Jesus and Boey. They are what we live for now and forever until we are home in heaven.
When Boey went to heaven she took my heart and a huge part of who I am with her. I was born to be her mommy and I thank God that I always will be and nothing will ever take that away from me. We will be together again and nothing will ever take my baby girl away from me. My mothers heart longs for my daughter. God made us as eternal beings that live forever, death was never a part of God’s plan. Praise God that before the foundations of the world he set a plan of redemption in place through his son Jesus so we could be with him for eternity in heaven.
I know that I would never ever be able to survive without my faith and love for Jesus. I am just so grateful for who God is and how much he loves us.
It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since I’ve held my beautiful Boey, talked to her, heard her adorable laugh that shakes the heavens, had mommy and special shopping Boey time(Boey never had enough shoes, she was a shoeaholic lol), baked cookies and cakes for the nurses, acted silly together and laughed until we peed our pants, shared make up, sharing makeovers together, jumped on the trampoline so high she would go flinging up in the air and the entire neighborhood could hear her laughing, prayed and worshipped the Lord together, dress up Tia in her build a bear outfits, stuff Bella in her bed, watching her take out her brothers with wrestling, singing karaoke with Chris and Joe and always singing over them lol, talking with excitement about helping her friends in Uganda and holding the babies there and praying for them, looking into her daddys eyes and saying “look at me daddy, look at me, are you looking at me?? I LOVE YOU!!”, hearing her call her daddy “my special muscle man daddy”, laughing hysterically as she went up to people that were smoking and would say “hey! Do you see this bald head?” They’d instantly put their cigarette down and she’s help them stomp on it LOL, sewing pillows for her warrior friends in the hospital, being the cutest CEO ever and writing down her goals and dreams for the foundation, hearing her adorable voice say “mommy can you buy me a lipstick? I wont pick out a dark one mommy I promise. Oh mommy, look at these cute nails can I have these too?”It was always a tradition whenever we went to the store she’d always ask for those two things and we’d just look at eachother and start cracking up. She knew I couldn’t say no whenever she flashed me her adorable signature boey smile.
My all time favorite memories are the ones where we were together just holding eachother and I had full access to her sweet soft beautiful precious cheeks. I could never get enough of those awesome Boey cheeks! They were sooooo kissable. She’d start laughing as I’d tickle her with my kisses..then we’d both start cracking up and try to outkiss eachother. The best arguments I ever had in my entire life were the ones where Boey and I are argued about who loved eachother more. And as always we’d end up in a kissing war and laughing our butts off. I am so lost without my best friend, my hero, my perfect princess warrior, and at the same time so grateful that God gave me my Boey to experience true heavenly love here on earth.
We were and always will be best friends that share a very deep and special connection. We could just look at each other and know what the other was thinking..most of the time we’d just blurt out what we thought the other was thinking and start laughing hysterically. It was especially funny when she’d get kind of sassy and I’d make her laugh no matter how hard she tried to keep a serious face. She was always so much fun, pure joy, laughter, non stop excitement and pure heaven on earth.
I thank God every day that he chose me and Rob to be her parents. If I don’t do anything else in my life, I will always be perfectly content knowing the eight and a half years of pure heavenly joy I experienced through my daughters love. I thank God every day that he chose me to be her mother. All good and perfect gifts come from our father in heaven and Boey was my perfect gift. She unlocked places in my heart I never knew existed and brought me closer to Jesus than I ever dreamed possible. She showed me what true unconditional agape love is.
For the two years fighting for my precious daughter’s life I lived out the true meaning of perfect love casting out all fear. Boey showed all of us that no matter what your circumstances are, it can’t take away our joy, our love for others and most importantly our faith in Christ. What a blessing to have a child with the faith to heal a nation and a heart of pure heavenly gold. She was a pure innocent perfect precious vessel the Lord chose to glorify his name. I know with all my heart and soul that my daughter is beaming while looking into the eyes of her savior and saying “all the pain was worth it Jesus, look at how my story and my faith in you has brought people to your Kingdom, it was all worth it Jesus”.
Boey has changed our life forever. We are all transformed by her agape love, faith in Jesus Christ our savior and the way she chose to live her life despite her ongoing suffering. Boey’s light will always shine bright. She has changed the world forever. She believed the CCCA Bill would be signed despite the odds and fought for it even while she suffered from a recurrence. She believed and knew in her heart that the bill would be signed by the president allocating 150 million dollars in funds towards pediatric cancer research and a cure. On July 29th, President Bush signed the CCCA Act into law. We are so proud of our daughter for writing to her senator and asking him to sign the bill. Once he signed it and spoke about Boey on the senate floor, it caused a snowball effect and senators from all over the nation signed on to the bill. To say we are proud is an understatement.
The Lord is continuing to amaze us with the way he is using her story to bring others close to him. Extreme Makeover Home Edition continues to air our show all over the world and every week her guestbook is bombarded with messages of how her faith courage and love for the Lord has brought them back to God. All glory to you Lord! The show airs everywhere from Norway, the UK, Belgium, Sweden, Canada, Brazil, Iraq(soldiers write the most heart wrenching beautiful letters saying Boey is their hero..incredible), Germany, Netherlands and of course here in the US. God is using her story in the most powerful ways and it’s very healing and comforting to us knowing that our daughter’s story continues to be told and always will be until we are reunited with her in heaven.
We are so grateful for all the Lord has revealed to us during the last year of intense and unbearable pain. When we draw close to him he draws close to us. Even when it feels like we are suffocating in pain, we know he is right here with us mending our broken hearts and using our pain to make us more like his son. We are so grateful for the healing dreams, visions, him speaking to us, our boys on fire for the Lord, and him drawing us deep into his heart during this time. God is continuing to write The Believe The Boey Byers Story, we can’t wait to finally get the entire story out!! The blogs that Rob and I write don’t even begin to touch all the Lord has said and done in our lives. It’s an honor to write a book on our daughter, who she is and all she went through. We plan on including our experience with EMHE, Chris Daughtry her rock star friend who gave her so much encouragement and love, her biggest dreams and passions for the foundation, her intense love and faith for the Lord despite the horrible pain she was in especially at the end with a broken spine, hip and brain surgeryL, and so much more. It’ll be quite a novel and we are honored that we are able to write it in honor of our beautiful and brave princess warrior.
We thank God for all of the amazing people he has brought into our lives. We cherish all of you and can never thank you enough for all the words of encouragement, support, prayers, love, ornaments sent for Boey’s perfect pink tree, and the thoughtful letters sent to the boys. As we move into a New Year, I pray God’s blessings on each and every one of you. I pray that your walk with the Lord will draw you closer to him than ever before and you will experience him in ways you never dreamed of. We are excited to see all that God is going to do through the foundation and how he is going to use our family to minister to other families experiencing the nightmare of cancer. We can’t wait to see how God is going to use our boys gifts to advance Gods Kingdom here on earth and bless others. This has been an extremely surreal painful and heartwrenching year, we are looking forward to being a part of God using all we’ve been through for his glory. We look forward to the joy, restoration, peace and joy that only God can bring to our broken hearts.
I would love to hear how Boey’s love and faith has changed your life. Please include what specific changes you are making for 2009 and what part you’d like to play in the Believe For Boey Foundation and making all of Boey’s dreams come true. Please leave a comment on this blog, I am putting together a beautiful scrapbook in her honor and I would love to include your beautiful messages.
Please light a candle tonight as we remember our warrior princess and her entrance into heaven. If you’d like to take pictures of the candle we would love to have that for her scrapbook. We will be staying up crying and remembering our precious angel baby until 12:14 a.m, the exact second Jesus carried her home to heaven. Just like Boey said in her you tube video, I WON CANCER I WON!! You sure did baby girl, cancer never touched your spirit and you never stopped believing or fighting…all the way up until your very last heartbeat. You are our hero sweetheart, always and forever.
May God bless you and your families richly in 2009
Have a safe and blessed New Year,
In Christ,
Rachel
