This World is Not Our Home...In Memory of Hartley Joy Morris

This last week my world was shattered again as our dear friends, Katie and Caleb, lost their sweet little girl. Katie was almost 24 weeks pregnant when her daughter, Hartley Joy, went home to be with the Lord. My heart is broken and hurts for them so deeply! I feel all over again the depths of my sadness on the day they told us Timothy would probably not make it. The day that my hopes for a baby were shattered. I feel the hurt all over again and my heart breaks for them. At first there was shock and unbelief in hearing about Hartley Joy, then there was anger, and then there were tears. Tears that did not want to stop. Tears for Katie, Caleb, and their precious son Zach that have lost the hope of a daughter and a sister here on this Earth. Why??? Why is this happening again???


I search my heart  and I cry out to the Lord again. He speaks truth to me through His Word...

• For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come. -Hebrews 13:14

• For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. -2 Corinthians 4:17-18

• He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. -Revelation 21:4

• “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the  LORD.  “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." -Isaiah 55:8-9

This world is broken. In the beginning when sin entered the world, death entered the world. Death and disease and sickness. So often I want to ask God why all of the bad things in the world are happening. Why the cancer? Why the car wreck? Why the murders? Why the death of Hartley Joy? Why Trisomy 13? The answer is sin. Sin entered the world and now the world is utterly broken. We have to hold onto the hope that this world is not our home. Our time here on Earth is only a fleeting moment compared to the eternity that we will spend with our Lord and Savior and with our loved ones that have gone home before us. We will spend eternity with Timothy and with Hartley...this time here on Earth without them is only a moment. I must keep telling myself that and hold onto that hope. That doesn't make the pain of loosing them hurt any less, but it gives us hope. A hope for the future home that God has promised to those who love him, to those who believe in His name. This world will never be perfect. There will always be disease, there will always be sickness, there will always be death...but praise the Lord that this world is not our home! 


1Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” -Revelation 21:1-4


Dear Hartley Joy,
 We mourn the fact that you will not be here with us on Earth. We mourn the loss of a daughter, a sister, a granddaughter, a cousin, and a dear friend. You are dearly loved and you will be dearly missed. But we rejoice in the fact that you are with your Heavenly Father, your Creator, who loves you more than we ever could. Our lives will be forever changed by your short but precious life, Hartley Joy. We look forward to the day that we will be with you again! We look forward to our new home with you where there will be no more death, no more mourning, no more crying or pain. We love you!