Titus 2 Men And Women

Our son Joe graduated to heaven and my husband, my daughter, and myself choose NOT to say that we 'lost' a loved one…we know perfectly well where Joe is. We choose to tell others that God graduated our son/brother on October 8, 2001…for a perfect healing in a perfect place-Heaven. Rev 14:13 And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them. Joe is perfectly well and very happy now.

I waited almost five months to write this text so that I could tell others what I knew to be true five months ago…so that I could tell you from even a seemingly short five months experience, that God's amazing grace is absolutely sufficient for hearts severely broken.These past months have been both a time of grief…and a time of tremendous blessing as we have experienced our God in every hard place and teardrop. We have wept, we have questioned and we have experienced a peace that truly passes all understanding.

"It seems that God often faces us with the prospect of losing the one person or thing we love the most. He does this to teach us to love Him supremely. Do you remember Abraham and Isaac and that long Climb up Mount Moriah? We are to love the Master of the work more than we love the work of the Master. We can get along without the gift. We could never get along without the Giver." --David M. Atkinson

Our long climb up Mount Moriah began when our son was born expected to die within hours. But God……………..

Life was exciting and full of blessings until Joe was diagnosed with a brain tumor at the age of twenty-four. In the last eight and a half years of Joe's life, the climb became almost impossible. All of us, Joe's closest family members, at different times almost slipped and fell to the canyon floor below. But God…!

In the tough days of sadness and grief of lost dreams for our son and brother, God gave us strength and mercy and enveloped us with His unqualified love and grace. We all reached the top of that mountain: For Joe the top was Heaven with his blessed and loved Saviour. For us, his family, the top of the mountain was the bottom of the canyon floor where all we could do was lie on our backs. All we could see was up to God and all we could do was trust only in God and in His name Jehovah-which means all that we need, exactly when we need it. Was God-His Name--enough? Abundantly so!

Ephesians 3:20 "Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,"
Romans Chapter 8
:35 "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
:36 "As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
:37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
:38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
:39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Sometimes verses are just text on a page to us...an attitude of "they come from the Bible so they must be true"...we guess. However, from the day that our son Joe was born, God placed us in His school of grace. As we began that long steep climb up Mount Moriah, God gave us valleys as classrooms to learn that He really loves us. He taught us that His Word and every verse in it are alive and powerful and can be absolutely trusted in every circumstance of our lives…even in death.

There were moments…when from our broken hearts we were tempted to question our Sovereign God. When those moments came we chose to remember our landmarks. We remembered that precept upon precept, line upon line; we had learned that depression never has to engulf us, sadness never has to control us, anxiety never has to confuse us, and hopelessness never has to cause us to despair. God has enabled and entrusted all of us to learn that it is our choice whether or not life's negatives overwhelm us. In Psalms 42, God tells us it is our choice which way we choose to put our "cast"-our focus. We can look down and inside of ourselves causing a pity party that ultimately leads to depression, or we can look up to God and out of ourselves to others, which gives us vision…the hope we need to live and be a testimony to the Glory of God in the land of the living. Giving up our son and brother to Heaven was a time when we realized that all of the lessons in our lives were learned well. All Glory to our God.

"Hurts put a song in the human spirit that can be learned no other way."  --David M. Atkinson

There is a rhyme which goes, "Love wasn't put in our hearts to stay, love isn't love 'till it's given away." Hurt puts a song in our spirits and that song is a love for others…and it is not heard until we give it away. Joe gave away the song of his hurt. He had a passion to help other people bear their burdens while never complaining about his own. His dad called Joe, "a sweet and gentle man", and he was. Joe learned the rest of the verse so many Christians only half quote, "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death. Joe suffered with dignity and strength that caused all who knew him to call him a hero of the faith.

Just before his graduation to Heaven, Joe had a burden to start a ministry to hurting men because he cared and so wanted to comfort them with the comfort God had comforted him with through many, many, brain surgeries, radiation twice, and chemotherapy. Joe's living epistle gave Glory only to his Saviour and Lord.

In my article "Till The Storm Passes By" I tried to relate to others in a definitive word picture where God puts His children, and why, when He chooses to teach us and grow us by allowing a deep trial of our faith: He takes away our control and puts us on auto pilot using His instruments to safely guide us in the storm-- that we may learn the truth of 2Corintnians 1:8-9 "For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: That we might learn to trust only in God. Joe trusted his God and I beg you to learn to trust Him with your whole heart, soul, and mind…for He is absolutely trustworthy to guide you and to provide for you in the "all things" of life.

Some days are extremely difficult, for our family is still grieving-but that grieving is carried out with hearts full of joy in the Lord and hope that gives us vision. We miss our strong, sweet and gentle Joe. But we have all purposed to use the song that God put in our spirits through this hurt of life to reach out to others…. "of some have compassion, making a difference.", Jude 22. I pray that God may cause my words today to make a difference-- to help someone understand that in spite of anything that life may hold for us God is Good-Always.

Deuteronomy 31:8 "And the LORD, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed."

Lord, many years I begged You for a son to love and one day give to You. A physician's hand made tearful pleas a possibility so remote.

But God…

Birthing cries! Then both our lives in peril of death…husband and father but two months Your child, faced alone the truth--both his loves were going to die.

But God…

An infant son… faced dark and grim tomorrows…You raised a brilliant man and pianist extraordinaire…a man who turned lost men to You and loved his wife like most men…never would.

But God…

Temptation often whispers, "rather say….. but why?"
An infant son we at an altar gave back to You …trusting Sovereign care. You grew a loving man.

But God…

With hearts laid bare our son was given back to You for glory for your grace. Glory was provided when for his God Joe played piano concertos in lengthy suffering…and face to face You stood with open arms at Heavens gate.

But God…………….

There can be no giving to temptation to ask….but why? In awe we stand before our God Who every plea has heard…and answered sweet. Our son is well! And with the Lovely One we gave to take his charge.
~~Joe's mother

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