This concert event was very surreal for me in many ways. The concert was orchestrated by Prince William and Prince Harry Windsor in honor of the late Princess Diana, whose 46th birthday would have been today.
For a few brief days.....we would have been the same age. I guess that fact alone took me back to the time of her sudden death. It will always be one of those moments for me where when someone mentions an important event and suddenly you remember EXACTLY where you were and what you were doing at the time. I can't really tell you why that happens either......except that this unexpected death was such a sad thing for me and like many of you....I didn't even know the woman.
I think we all felt a "connection" in some way to her. She was a Mother, she was vibrant, she loved people, she was beautiful and then abruptly, without any expectation of it she was gone at age 36. It just was a terrible shock to my system. This was something that I didn't see coming on a Saturday night while ironing clothes, and it was happening to such a seemingly successful and "good" person.
I guess I always felt that she was such a very sad and troubled lady you could see it on her countenance.
She truly was a person very much in the spotlight, not because she wanted to be.....but because of "who" she was connected to.
However, you could not then and still can't today deny that this woman had a big heart and she was genuine and she sure was "seeking" something not knowing what she was looking for. I think she thought it was "love" that she needed, to feel validated. We all knew then things in her life weren't going so grand despite the fact that she was "Her Royal Highness." She became "Royalty made by marriage."
It's the thing fairy tales are made up of, but her life was no fairy tale as we were all learning, we had been witnessing first hand over the past few months and years just what terrible "rejection" the poor woman had gone through.
The night she was killed, I was doing my "Saturday night ritual" of getting my family's clothes ironed and laid out for church. The house was very quiet and for a change....everyone was in bed asleep.
About 10:30pm one of the Board member's wives from the church my husband and I were Pastoring at the time called me and said...."Are you watching the news? Princess Diana has been in a terrible car accident."
I always thought that it was so odd that this particular lady called me that night because she never did like me. Ever. In fact she rarely called me. Though had this lady never of called me, I wouldn't have known the life and death struggle that Diana was going through at that moment. I wouldn't have been a part of seeing and participating in history.
I immediately turned on the TV set and began to watch the news reports on all the channels, switching back and forth looking for new, news and I remember that the incoming reports were scattered. Information was conflicting but it seemed that at the time of these first reports she was alive but in very dire condition. I prayed. I made some phone calls and prayed some more.
I know many people did the same thing this thing at this same time.....this accident didn't didn't happen undercover.
This was Diana's last shinning moment, and many of us, all over the world would unwittingly be a part of her going down in history and into eternity.
Not long after I had turned my TV on began watching the news coverage of terrible accident that she had been in .....the news reporters finally confirmed that Diana had died at a Paris hospital.
I was so GRIEVED. I remember I became totally OBSESSED by the news. I went to my bedroom and lay beside my then sleeping husband, and watched the TV reports and literally wept all night long.
The next day I HAD to go to church. I couldn't just stay home even though I hadn't had any sleep all night long. My heart was so heavy for Diana's sons William and Harry and for the British people because I knew they had suffered a loss and that her children and her people would never be the same again. We had to pray for them. We had to pray they could see God and His loving kindness through this event despite the tragic circumstances that had happened at the end of Diana's life.
During our Sunday morning church service, at prayer time, my husband asked the people to "please pray for the People of Great Britain and the children of Princess Diana".....I could not believe the weeping I was hearing in our church. This of course made me cry even more because I can't stand it when someone is hurting. It hurts me for them too.....even though I myself was hurting terribly on the inside as well.
All of the next few days, me and my family and friends joined all the rest of the world. We watched and mourned with the people of England on the loss of Diana.
Time has now told her story, along with countless book authors, and we all know the good, the bad, and the ugly about her now don't we? Still to me, regardless of how she lived her life, it's all about how she took those last few breaths in her final moments.
You see, she wasn't killed instantly..... she had time. That my friends was the GRACE of God! She was allowed precious time to get it everything "right" in her heart which was at that very moment damaged, and giving up life...yet it was still beating, even after the terrible accident she had just been in.
She had time to make peace with herself and her God and only He knows what happened in the end.
Earlier in this writing I stated:
"This was Diana's final shining moment, and we would all be a part of her going down in history."
In my heart of hearts, I think Diana was a "good person"....still that wouldn't be enough on that fateful, last night of hers in Paris. Not enough to get her into heaven, because being a "good" person or a "charitable" person, or a "loving" person, just wasn't enough for her and it will never be enough for any of us to be guaranteed Heaven.
No matter how many AIDS patients she had encountered and no matter how many Angolan land mine survivors she had held and loved on. It didn't even matter that she met with Mother Theresa, those good things were not going to "add up" for her when it came to eternity.
Diana did alot of "Good deeds" in her lifetime.....probably more than you and I. Yet even though she was a Royal Princess, it couldn't gain her entry into the gates of heaven and it will work the same way for each one of us. We must ask Jesus to come to us, to forgive us and to live in our hearts, even if our heart is like Diana's was...damaged and beating it's final beats.
This final ride of her life lasted only 5 minutes.
Her "life clock" was already ticking once she left the Ritz and sat down in the back seat of the ill fated Mercedes that whisked her and it's three other occupants away. When the Black Mercedes crashed, Diana's "expiration date" was fading fast......the Princess was now slipping into eternity
Yet she still had time.
Time to make the biggest decision of her life. That is why it was so important for those who were praying to have done so during those crucial last few seconds that she had left. Many were interceding on her behalf, praying for her to call out to God with one of her last breaths, to ask Him that she be ushered into heaven and into the presence of "The KING of Kings."
You know what?
I think she got it right and made it right those last few moments of her life.
I really feel that she cried out to God in her pain and despair, passing into eternity and into the arms of the person whom she had been "seeking" for all her life and didn't even know it.
In that Paris hospital, after her heart stopped beating, I think that for the first time ever Diana felt genuine PEACE and love. She then was on her way to her new home one that wasn't built by human hands.
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