TOP's Tuesday: An Anniversary & Easter This Week

For the first time since 1994,to my memory anyway, the anniversary of Heidi's kidnapping falls on Easter weekend. This year, April 3rd is the same as Good Friday. Some asked if we are having a candle light vigil or gathering to remember Heidi on the 21st anniversary of her disappearance. We appreciate your thoughtfulness but out of respect for this Holy Weekend, there won't be a formal gathering of remembrance for Heidi. 

Our family, like many of yours, will gather with our community for a Good Friday Service. If you find it in your heart to remember Heidi this Friday, we thank you. It's important to remember there is joy and light coming on Sunday, but a time of darkness is necessary before pure joy can be experienced.

Ideas and ways to remember Heidi, more than two decades since her abduction, while respecting the Holiness of the Easter and its redeeming grace, mercy, and love.  

Ways to remember Heidi 
this Friday, April 3, 2015...
on the 21st anniversary 
of her abduction...

*Say an extra prayer she is found

*Light a candle at home

*Light a candle at church

*Donate a lily or tulip at church in her name

*Wear your "Heidi" button on Friday

*Share Heidi's Missing Poster on your Social Media pages with a note 

Thank you for following this blog. Thank you for remembering Heidi every day, since that tragic April day in 1994. Your prayers, friendship, and hope are a blessing to me and my entire family. If you'l like to tag me or share your remembrance on the "Where's Heidi?" Facebook page to encourage others, please do. May HOPE FOR HEIDI shine on a day filled with much darkness, Good Friday. 

HOPE is the theme in Jesus crucifixion and on the anniversary date when an eighteen-year-old girl lost her life. For we know that on Easter Sunday, HOPE is revealed as Jesus rose from the dead and moved to life in Heaven. I'm not saying Heidi's kidnapping and death are in any way similar to Jesus' death, my only intent is to encourage you. Jesus overcame the cross. Each of us have a cross to bear, that event or situation that breaks our heart. 

The good news, with Jesus in our life...we will survive and victory will prevail! The most important thing we can do is REMEMBER...how would the world and our faith be different if we forgot the pain and agony experienced by Jesus on the cross? How would my life be different if I forgot the eighteen years God blessed us with Heidi's presence before taking her home to be with him? Let's not focus on the what ifs but on the sacrificial offering of life and death on a cross...so we might have life...eternal!

Thank you for remembering Heidi as you prepare for this weekend's Easter Joy.