A young mother – a sister in Christ at the church I attend – perished this morning in what is described as a freak handgun accident.

She was a stunningly lovely and achingly spiritual person.

She was an assistant instructor in gymnastics at the Christian school where my children attend. She leaves behind a husband and two children, the same age and gender as ours.

I’m at home with my kids today because little Laura is sick with a fever. But we’re all sick at heart from this turn of events, and a little empty in the place this sweet young lady uniquely filled in our lives.

Tonight we’ll gather on their lawn with our church family to pray.

Tomorrow we’ll look at each other differently, with renewed love and passion for life, thinking of hers.

Sunday morning I will deliver a call to worship, a call to submission, a call to draw closer to God. I will pray for the words that need to be said to my church family.

But today I mourn.

postscript:
Gun slips, kills Maumelle woman
By Daniel Nasaw, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Saturday, July 9, 2005

A Maumelle woman was killed Friday morning after a shotgun she was retrieving from her attic slipped from her grasp and discharged, police said.
   Kim Evans, 38, was packing items for her nine-year old daughter to go to church camp at about 7 a.m. and was unloading belongings from an attic over the garage at the family’s home at 24 Chicot Dr. when the accident occurred, said Maumelle police spokesman Lt. Mike Wilson.
   Evans had asked her husband, Travis, if he wanted her to bring down a shotgun stored there. He replied that he did, at which point Kim Evans partially removed the gun from the case and began pulling it down, Wilson said.
   Travis Evans told police he then turned around to set down a cup of coffee and heard his wife gasp, suggesting she’d lost her grip on the gun, Wilson said. The gun then discharged a round of birdshot, striking her in the neck at close range, he said.
   No one else was injured, and when police arrived they woke the still-sleeping children and took them outside the house before beginning their investigation, Wilson said.
   The couple moved to Maumelle with their son and daughter about two years ago from College Station, Texas.
   About 200 friends, neighbors and relatives gathered Friday evening for a tearful vigil on the Evanses’ front lawn on a quiet street in the Little Rock suburb.   Wilson said an investigation has turned up nothing that would lead police to suspect foul play, although “we’re certainly not ruling anything out.”
   “It was a very tragic and very horrible scene,” Wilson said. “It was the perfect family and the perfect couple.”