My husband never got to know my twin, Maria. Mike and I met about a year after Maria was killed in a car accident.

My twin’s death has tattooed an awareness of life’s shortness on my soul. I will never again be able to slip into that intoxicating delusion that death is not coming for me too. Maybe my slicing awareness has something to do with the fact that she is my other half, and now my other half is no longer on earth. The reality of my mortality is tied to me in a way that I will never be able to fully escape.

Trusting that someday my joy would return helped carry me through my grief after my twin died.  While in the worst hours I couldn’t even think past the next pain-filled moment, somewhere in the midnight of my sorrow, a hope light glimmered. This hope light was my belief that the Bible is to be trusted when it talks about suffering lasting only for a time.

The beautiful mystery of it all is that while on earth, God allows us to have tears. In heaven, there will be a new economy where tears are not part of the equation. We have been promised this in Revelation. “He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever” (Revelation 21:4).

I honestly just want to share my story, in hopes that it may, in some small way, be an encouragement and comfort to someone. I want to offer the same comfort and hope that I have received.