What happened to Levi Lusko's daughter? The Fresh Life Church pastor paid tribute to Lenya on what would were her thirteenth birthday.
For Pastor Levi Lusko and his family, Sept. 8 is both a joyous and somber day. The date marks the birthday of his and wife Jennie’s second daughter, Lenya, who died all of sudden in 2012.
Tragedy struck the Luskos on Dec. 20, lower than a week after 20 young lives have been cut short in the Sandy Hook Elementary School taking pictures. "How on earth could you possibly plan a funeral for your kindergartener? There’s no way I could do that," Levi recollects pronouncing to himself. He would quickly in finding out.
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What happened to Levi Lusko's daughter?
The 5-year-old died from a severe asthma attack, which occurred whilst the family was once wrapping Christmas presents. By the time an ambulance arrived at the Luskos’ Montana home, Lenya’s center had stopped beating and she or he kicked the bucket in her father’s hands.
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"It was the absolute, most treacherous thing you could imagine," Levi recalled in a 2017 interview with Relevant magazine. But he still delivered a Christmas Eve sermon four days later. "Lenya is alive this moment, more alive than she has ever been," he informed his congregation at Fresh Life Church. "She is on a distant shore with Christ!"
Levi and Jennie, who've four other youngsters in combination (daughters Alivia, Daisy, and Clover, and son Lennox), trusted religion in the middle of their grief. "It’ll either smash you against the rocks, or you will stand on the rocks and be who God’s called you to be through the pain," the church chief noted.
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"We’ve not felt destroyed by it; we’ve felt deepened by it. We feel honored, privileged that God would allow us to suffer," Levi added in his interview with Relevant. "We felt like He trusted us with this trial, and there was a sense from the beginning that God didn’t grace us with the pain, but He graced us with the power to go through it."
One factor that helped Levi cope with his heartbreak used to be writing. The 38-year-old’s essays sooner or later turned into a memoir referred to as "Through the Eyes of a Lion," which is called for his past due daughter (Lenya way "lion" in Russian).
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"I was trying to be as open as possible so God can use the pain, but it’s not pretty; it’s a mess," Levi said of writing the book, which used to be printed in 2015. "Hurting with hope still hurts."
Levi Lusko celebrated his daughter on what would have been her thirteenth birthday.
In a long publish on Instagram, the writer allowed himself to consider what could have been. "There would be such drama in our home with two teens. And it would be such a beautifully messy treasure," Levi admitted, referencing his eldest daughter, 14-year-old Alivia.
"In [Lenya’s] absence there is a void and a longing and a melancholy. But in that emptiness there is grace and that is a beautiful messy treasure too," he endured, musing, "How tall would you be now? What would the chemistry be like with you there in the mix... loving and laughing and playing? I wish I knew and one day I will."
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