For a Little Girl Named Erin

Christopher Columbus tested the edges of the earth by sailing on the sea with men who had nothing more than the moon and stars to guide them.

And they found their way to a new home.

Centuries later, from that same moon came the voices of a new breed of brave explorers who would find themselves not alone on an ever-reaching sea but traveling to the farthest place man had ever gone - behind the moon. Isolated from even earth itself, it must have been the loneliest kind of alone any human had ever experienced.

And yet they found their way home.

Decades later, we see photographs of the edges of the universe, bear real-time witness to milestone events half a world away and tweet for anyone who wants to know that we’ve finally made it home at the end of a long day.

Technology makes it possible for us to feel the presence of friends and those who love us like never before. It folds in the corners of this vast world so that we can touch the hearts and lives of people we’ll never stand next to.

And they can touch us back.

Sometimes the world is not a big place – thanks to technology, sometimes it’s as small as the space taken up by a little girl. Like a brave girl named Erin we got to know through her mother’s blog and my friend, Cheryl, at MSW. Erin had a cancerous brain tumor. Last night, she left her earthly troubles behind. We keep her family close in our prayers because they feel the loneliest alone without Erin.

But she suffers no more.

Erin found her way home to heaven among the angels.