Death should never be a cause of grief for a child of God, but it is.
I have often told my wife that if I should fall very sick because of anything and the doctors say they need to put me in tubes to keep me breathing that she should tell the doctors, in the absence of a written will, that they are to remove those tubes and let me go home to be with the One who died for me, Him who loved me when I did not love Him, Jesus, the sweetest Name in the entire universe.
Today a friend of ours (my wife and myself) went home to be with the Lord.
She was 79, and leaves behind a son, a husband, a loving family, and a loving church.
When we first went to this church we attend and are members of, ten years ago, she and her husband were the first ones, right on the very first day of our attendance, who extended a warm hand of fellowship, welcome and love for us.
They invited us to their home, to sit down with them at dinner.
Two pairs of people, complete strangers to each other, feeling a kinship that transcends anything human, because we were bound by the love of an Eternal God who said our love for each other was how the world will know we were His children.
Since then we have visited with them countless times.
Dinner. Lunch. Snacks.
TV. Watch the Gaithers. Watch the Christmas Lights.
Drive around Maryland, visit the Amish folks, lessons in history all over Gettysburg, Antietam, Pennsylvania, Bull Run, Manassas.
And always this friend of ours was like a mother hen brooding and hovering over her little ones, if you could call a difference in years of 20 that, but that's exactly how she was, her strong West Virginia twang something my wife and I never mastered, sometimes sending us arguing about what she really said, but, no matter, her actions always said more than her words.
Even when I left the ministry, and the church, over some doctrinal and practical dispute, this couple and us remained the best of friends, their hugs and handshakes when we visited the church just as warm as if there had never been an issue, and there never was, really, come to think of it, between us.
Last Sunday, the 2nd of August, 2009, they had just come from church, having enjoyed the message a visiting minister had given, and since he was a deacon, they were the last to leave, and she was the one who closed the church doors, according to their present pastor.
They got on the highway, made a right towards home, past this restaurant that they had taken us to many times.
A really busy street, this was.
Vehicles turning left and right to either a Mc'Donald's or a 7-11 or a few Mexican restaurants, and our favorite restaurant, slowing down traffic from behind the turning cars, causing the more impatient ones to risk it and pass in full acceleration, when this vehicle came out of the restaurant they so often took us to, hit the car ahead of our friends' vehicle, then bounced off to hit our friends' car.
Perhaps it was the impact, could have thrown her up the seat because the seatbelt, designed to protect, broke her legs, and the airbag, also designed to protect, hit her so hard that the doctor, they said, had to rearrange her insides.
We didn't know about it till this morning, Tuesday, August 4, 2009.
Our pastor emailed us.
We went and visited at the hospital.
And she was laying there, this friend of ours, face all puffed up, tubes coming out of her body, breathing labored, heartbeat way high.
And her husband was there, and their son, and their grandson, and my wife and I looked at them, and we felt their pain, and felt theirloneliness, their sadness, and we shed our tears for them, and for her, our beloved friend.
Normally they wouldn't let you in to an ICU unit, but when they allowed everyone who wanted to visit in, in the back of my mind, I knew she will soon be gone, and the doctor, this young, compassionate, loving professional, came in, and took us all out the room, and in as gentle a way as he can, told us, we were going to lose her soon, the damage has been intensive, her age so advanced, the most modern of hospitals and the smartest of doctors just were no match.
We sang Amazing Grace, her favorite hymn, and said our prayers.
And my mind went back to that scene a long time ago, when the Creator of the Universe groaned in front of a cave holding His friend Lazarus' body, and He groaned, and the shortest verse in the Bible was written: Jesus wept.
Sometimes when I read that verse I wondered why He wept.
Wasn't He Omniscient ? Wasn't He Omnipresent ? In the future, as well as in the past, and in the present ?
Why weep, then ?
Now, looking at our friend, I thought about it again.
Could it be He was not weeping for Lazarus, but He was weeping for his friends, because without Him, none would see the other again, and this was not what He wanted for His people. He understood the pain they felt, the anguish they had, the sorrow they were going through, He understood, and understanding, He wept.
Sin had devastated His people, bringing death, corruption, separation, pain, loneliness, and soon He will bring sin to its knees, at the cross, and weeping shall turn to joy, and despair to hope.
I look at my friend again, and around at everybody, and see the numbers in those instruments going down, steadily and surely, and knew soon she will be with her Joy, her soul's Lover, her Creator, and I bent down and whispered to my wife to take note of the time she expires.
I don't know why that was important.
It just seemed so to me.
And I left the room.
She went home to her country, and mine, and my wife's, and her husband's, and the country of everyone bought by the blood of the Lamb of Glory, at 1445H, 2:45 in the afternoon.
By God's grace and mercy, she never felt the pain of her injuries, never having awaked from after the operation.
She left us peacefully.
Goodbye, Elizabeth, dear friend.
To your memory I dedicate this blog, and this song:
We Shall Sleep, But Not Forever
There will be a glorious dawn!
We shall meet to part, no, never,
On the resurrection morn!
From the deepest cave of ocean,
From the desert and the plain,
From the valley and the mountain,
Countless throngs shall rise again.
Refrain
We shall sleep, but not forever,
There will be a glorious dawn!
We shall meet, to part, no, never,
On the resurrection morn!
When we see a precious blossom,
That we tended with such care,
Rudely taken from our bosom,
How our aching hearts despair!
Round its little grave we linger,
Till the setting sun is low,
Feeling all our hopes have perished,
With the flow’r we cherished so.
Refrain
We shall sleep, but not forever,
In the lone and silent grave:
Blessèd be the Lord that taketh,
Blessèd be the Lord that gave.
In the bright eternal city,
Death can never, never come!
In His own good time He’ll call us,
From our rest, to home, sweet home.
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