This past Wednesday evening at our “Still Waters Praise and Prayer” gathering I was led to talk about Matthew 9:35-38. The preceding days had been one of the most emotional periods of my life. Someone who in a few short days at the end of October had become a dear friend, died, and most assuredly went home to be with the Lord. It was in the end of October that she and her husband had generously befriended my son Joel -- who was still receiving chemo treatments following a brain tumor surgery in September, 2004 -- with a special trophy deer hunt at their high-fence hunting ranch in mid-Michigan.
The day before New Years Eve, she received the disconcerting diagnosis of having a rare and very aggressive form of cancer. She would, as it turned out, only live 8 more days. I had been contacted and invited by the family to serve as the clergyman at the forth coming funeral service. No one expected it come as soon as it did.
My son Joel and I had the privilege of traveling up to their home and being with the family on New Years Day. I also had the great blessing of baptizing this dear woman the following Tuesday.
Here is what still amazes me. If it were not for their generosity, and the working of some family and friends, I would never have had the opportunity of knowing this couple, much less have the privilege of sharing Christ, baptizing a friend, and quite frankly, be changed for life myself.
More to come in subsequent posts …
