In loving memory of Ash Good.

*Warning, some distressing information*

I got the news this morning. 

I had a little sleep in, waking with Figgy snuggled into my left arm pit. 

I opened my phone to text a friend because I’d dreamed of her in the night. Soon after I did…

Bzzz

Bzzz

Bzzz

Several buzzing notifications at once. 

“I just saw about the Sydney stabbing and saw it was Ash. I am so sorry.”

“It can’t be true!”

And more along the same lines. 

My heart started beating out of my chest. Ash? Which Ash? A few friends called Ash ran through my head as I tried to figure out what on earth was happening. 

What stabbing? What is happening?!

I opened up safari and searched ‘Sydney stabbing’ and there it was. 

A photo of Ash.

I read several articles hoping one of them would tell me something different. That she was in hospital and actually ok. That she was in critical condition but improving. Something else has to be true!! Surely!!!! 

Not Ash!!! Not like this!!! 

Ash was shopping on Saturday afternoon in Bondi Junction— the shops that used to be our local when we lived over there. She was with her beautiful 9 month old daughter Harriet. 

A deranged man with a knife entered the shopping centre and stabbed several people, mostly women. These people included Ash and her baby. 

The reports say that while bleeding, Ash ran to two men and gave them her baby, in the hopes that they’d be able to help her. Ash saved Harriet’s life by doing so. 

I can’t help but play this over in my mind. Ash’s final moments are just too cruel to comprehend. Ash handed her baby over likely knowing she was dying. Her brave, loving, motherly instinct, especially then. 

Ash was transferred to hospital but died soon after. 

Harriet is recovering after several surgeries and needs all of our prayers. 

Lord, be with this family with more might, love, strength and comfort than we can fathom and this goes for all victims.

I can’t stop thinking about how Harriet will ask for her mum when she wakes from her surgeries and all the days to follow this one. This thought is nearly unbearable. 

I can’t stop thinking about the immense shock and grief her partner Dan must be feeling— navigating both the loss of his partner, and Harriet’s mum but also the recovery of his young baby. 

I can’t stop thinking about the thousand questions I have for God— questions I’ve always had, but am wrestling with all over again. 

I have been texting people all day— friends who are pastors, friends who pray like warriors when asked to, friends who also knew Ash from the Isagenix community, friends who didn’t know her but are rocked by it all. 

We went to church this morning and our Pastor lead the church through prayer for Ash’s family. We got there late because time stopped this morning. I coincidentally wore black and sat at the back bawling. Everyone was so beautiful, kind and generous with their prayers. These are people who really mean it when they say “I’ll pray.” 

This is something we should do when we say it. I have made a point of it in the last year— when I say I will pray for someone, I do it. It’s never just lip service. In times like this when we read condolences and words that say ‘please pray for the family’ etc…

Let’s make sure we do. 

Prayers matter, especially in times like these where most everything else we can do feels helpless. Praying doesn’t undo the tragedy but grief needs comfort and eventual peace and this is what we pray for. We also pray for support for the logistical aftermath of tragedies— that small miracles can show God’s love when people feel totally hopeless. 

Also, when tragedy strikes, perhaps it can remind us that we haven’t been praying for our world quite enough, or with quite enough boldness. Maybe? 

A woman in the church Kate, asked if she wanted her to pray with me right then and there. We went into the prayer room and she prayed prayers for Ash’s family, especially for Harriet and Dan, for all those who were there, for the other victims’ families, for all who are grieving.

She prayed also that our children are protected in these times of shock and grief, as it surely affects our parenting for a moment. 

She prayed with so much faith but also with the innocence of ‘Lord we do not know why’. I learned from praying with her today… 

I was reminded that I can and should take my wrestling to God.

My anger. 

My confusion.

I pray for the tragedies of our world often. It’s hideous and horrific what is happening overseas. I pray for it, pleading with God to take over and put an end to it. 

And yet, I know there is free will, and evil, and that these two things answer my burning question of… 

How? 

“Faith does not eliminate questions. But faith knows where to take them.” 

― Elisabeth Elliot

I am still in disbelief as I write this so excuse how poorly it may read. My morning has been full of tears, texts, reading news articles to make quadruply sure they haven’t gotten it wrong.

Not Ash. Not like this. 

I’ve been reminded that there’s nothing like tragedy to bring people together, and I’ve gotten to have text conversations with so many that I haven’t spoken to in so long. I’ve been reminded of relationships I want to nurture more, regardless of the busy-ness of life. 

I first met Ash over a decade ago when she joined my Isagenix team through Anna. We were always a very close team— we travelled together and spent countless hours in training and events together and formed friendships as a result. She was an Osteopath who dreamed of more freedom to travel the world. She did just that, before settling in Sydney and starting a new family with Dan. 

Ash is the beautiful blonde woman on the left. X

Ash was so devoted to life— a true lover and appreciator of it. Thinking of her in this way inspires me to be as genuinely grateful as she was. She was grateful for everything, even just a simple text, and she meant it. 

Ash was one of the fittest women I knew too—  part of that crazy persons club who run at 5am in the mornings in Bondi. She was kind, generous, humble and one of those rare gems who never made it all about her. She listened more than she spoke and she was as smart as she was totally sweet. 

I look back at photos to find some of Ash. 

I find one of her holding my eldest daughter, Sol in 2018.

It was one of the last in person conversations that we had, at Orchard St in Bondi. 

She dreamed of being a mum. 

As gentle, kind, loving and solid a woman that she was, I always knew she’d be simply an amazing one. 

And indeed she was, right up until her very last breath. 

It hurts so much to write that. 

I am contemplating some things I could do in Ash’s honour… because it feels important to do something. A long run event (that only the crazy fit like Ash could do), or doubling down on Krav Maga, becoming an even more joyful and grateful daughter/sister/mother/wife/friend… all of the above. There’s so much I want to offer to the family, especially as her daughter grows up, but I also know how loved and cared for Harriet and Dan will be by their families and that there are people much closer to her than me.

Please pray bold prayers for Ash’s husband Dan as he grieves and processes while also caring for Harriet under these tragic circumstances. Pray for strength, bravery and comfort that is beyond what we can imagine for him. 

Please pray for Harriet and that she is protected, comforted, blessed and favoured with all of God’s might for the rest of her life. 

Please pray for Ash’s family-- she was so exceptionally close with them. 

Please pray for all other victims and families and those still recovering in hospital.

Please pray for all the mothers who are now experiencing heightened fear and anxiety (me). May we not let fear take root, nor our joy be robbed. “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” 2 Timothy 1:7

Please pray for our countries and our world with as much boldness as you can muster.

May plans for evil be thwarted by the loving power of Jesus and may these prayers matter and prevent MANY tragedies in the future. 

I have so many contemplations, reflections and questions. 

Ash’s passing has made me want to take stock of my life with even more intention. When I close my eyes and think of who Ash was, I want to be better. I want to love and appreciate life and those in it even more, like she did. Life is precious, and fragile, and while I know God wants our eyes fixed on the eternal, while we are living on His green earth, we have work to do yet, people to love yet, joy to experience yet. 

I wish I could be more articulate in this moment but for now mostly I am still in shock. 

A friend just called to check in and I could barely string a sentence together.  Seems this post is going a bit that way too. 

I just wanted to honour my friend, Ash Good.

The circumstances in which she was taken are horrific. But she was absolutely wonderful. 

May her legacy continue through her beautiful baby girl and may we all be reminded to really live and to really love. 

Pk xx 

“Faith's most severe tests come not when we see nothing, but when we see a stunning array of evidence that seems to prove our faith vain.” 

― Elisabeth Elliot

“It is today for which are responsible. God still owns tomorrow.” 

— Elisabeth Elliot