A Gift from Jason

A week ago Monday Jason was leaving the house to go to our high school Christmas concert.  Just before he walked out the door he handed me a piece of paper and told me to read it when he left.  I told him later that he could not have given me a better Christmas gift.  I wanted to share this with all of you.

Watching

Over the years I watched him talk to God.

Consulting Him every step he did take,

Asking for guidance down the path he trod.

He prayed about each decision he’d make.

I watched when his reputation was bruised

When it seemed there was nowhere to turn,

As by his friends he was wrongly accused.

How to live down a lie is what I learned.

I watched as he showed me how to forgive.

I saw him in trials turn to God’s Word.

When facing death, he taught me how to live,

As in that sickness he looked to the Lord.

He was the example for me God had,

And that’s what I learned as I watched my dad.

Jason Daniel

“…but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.”                                                      I Timothy 4:12b

One of the greatest gifts we can give to our children is the gift of a godly example.

The Gift of Joy

I woke up sick during the night so I was not able to go to church today.  I missed the fellowship and the message from God’s Word but staying home gave me the opportunity to get some much needed rest and to spend some time remembering and grieving for Layne.  Tonight I got out three snowflake picture frame ornaments and put pictures of Layne with me, Jason and Krista in them and hung them on the tree.  It was an amazingly hard but comforting thing to do.  We miss him so intensely.  I have been thinking a lot today about last Christmas and how different things were just a year ago.  Layne was in the middle of his battle with the brain tumor but our house was full of hope and thanksgiving simply because he was still with us, our family was still whole and we were able to celebrate together.

Things are so different this year.  Trust me, the celebrations, the decorations, the shopping, the presents don’t do anything to fill the hole left in your heart when you lose someone you love.  It is hard to find the joy of the season.  But in my moments of intense loneliness and grief I have learned to pour my heart out to the Lord and allow Him to comfort me and help to fill the void in my life.  He is always there for me.  He shows me how to still have joy; not the light hearted, dizzily happy joy of Christmases past but a new kind of joy.  This joy is deep and grounded because it is resting on the promises found in His Word.  This joy is triumphant because it still exists in spite of the intense pain of grief.  This is the joy found, not in the frenzy of the season, but in the One Who came to earth to die on the cross for our sins.  This joy gives hope because the same Savior Who daily lifts me up and comforts me has promised that this life is but a moment and after this there is all eternity.  Layne is not gone, he is in heaven waiting for me.  We still have forever!  What joy that will be, when our family is together again in heaven with our Lord.

Remember this Christmas morning, amid all the excitement and celebration, that the best Christmas gifts God has given you this year are not the ones wrapped up under the tree but the precious family sitting around it.  Most of all remember that the greatest Gift ever given was the Gift that changed the whole world, the Gift of God’s Son; the Savior Who gave His life so that our sins could be forgiven and we can have a home in heaven with Him.  This is the real joy of the season!

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”            John 3:16

The Gift of Grace

This Christmas season has been so different for me so far.  Usually I get caught up in all the excitement, Christmas programs, shopping, promises of family gathering etc.  It’s amazing, but this year my whole focus is altered.  I realized through the Thanksgiving holiday that finding joy in this Christmas season will be difficult.  The holidays always magnify the grief because we wish so fervently that we could share the joy of the season with the loved one we lost.  Everything changes.  Family traditions are never the same again because they are centered around family and the center of our family is gone.  It is a difficult situation.  I began to pray and asked several close friends to pray that I will be able to help Jason and Krista still have joy this season.  The Lord is beginning to answer that prayer.  He is helping me focus more intently than ever before on the true meaning of Christmas.

It began right after Thanksgiving when we were listening to a Christmas CD we purchased last year.  (This CD was difficult to listen to also because my mind immediately went to traveling with Layne to Philadelphia and listening to this CD together.  Every small thing brings a memory.  Sweet memories but they make the loss so intense again.)  When we were listening to “Silent Night” this phrase captured my attention, “With the dawn of redeeming grace.”  What an incredible description of the gift that Christ gave us.  His birth was the “dawn of redeeming grace”!  The grace that redeems us, the grace that changes our hearts, the grace that forgives our sin, the grace that forever settles our eternal destiny, the grace that gives us the blessed hope of a home in heaven forever with Him, the grace that makes Him our ever present, compassionate Savior and Friend.  When He was born in that manger in Bethlehem He set in motion the events that had been planned by God to redeem us from the beginning of time.

What a unbelievable gift!  I am daily amazed now by the depth of  His grace.  I understand, better than I ever have before, how dependent I am on His amazing grace.  Several years ago I was reading a book that explained it something like this.  God’s grace is daily given to us.  It is poured out on us but when all is “going right” in our life we often stand erect before God and His grace runs over us like rain on a statue and pools around our feet.  But when He sends trials into our life, when the load is too much for us to bear, when the grief is so great it threatens to overwhelm us; then we fall prostrate at His feet. Then as His grace pours down upon us we find ourselves swimming in a sea of grace.  What a beautiful picture!  That is the gift that He desires to give us all.  The “sea of grace” that surrounds us, drenches our parched souls and bears us up.  This is the grace that I am finding.

What a gift He gave that night in Bethlehem, the “dawn of redeeming grace”.

“And the angel said unto them, Fear not; for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.”                            Luke 2:10-11

Thanksgiving

“In every thing give thanks:  for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”
I know many of you have been wondering how Thanksgiving went for us.  We spent the holiday at my brother Mike’s house.  There was lots of activity, fun and fellowship.  We had a great time but it was still very difficult.  Every evening when the house settled down and everything got quiet I was left with a deep sense of loss and longing for just one more minute with Layne.  I would trade every material blessing I have to have him back again but that isn’t God’s will for me.

Pastor Sasser quoted the verse above in his message last Sunday and the Lord used it to really get hold of my heart.  I thought, “As many times as I have quoted that verse I never understood the challenge of that command until this minute.”  God wants me to give Him thanks in everthing. I found myself wrestling with the Lord about this.  “Lord, you want me to thank you for this? How can I?  This is the hardest thing You have ever asked me to do.  I am struggling Lord.  I am trying to rest in You and trust You, but thank You, Lord.  How can I thank You for taking Layne away?”  This battled raged on and on in my heart.

Then I remembered something Layne said.  He even wrote about it on the blog.  He said that he came to the place that he could thank God for the brain tumor.  He saw that the Lord was using this trial to draw our family closer to each other and to Himself.  He saw that the Lord was changing us and teaching us through it all.  If you go back and read Layne’s entries on this blog you will find a tremendous amount of gratitude and praise for the trial. Amazing isn’t it?  God sends trials to strengthen and shape us, walks with us through the trials to teach us Who He is, sustains us with His grace and gives us faith in the darkest hours when we cannot understand to trust that His way, this difficult path, is what is best.

My way is dark now.  I do not understand.  I struggle every day for strength to continue on.  But Layne taught me something important.  He taught me to run to the Lord, to kneel at His feet, to give my sorrow and fears to Him and trust that His way is best.  I must give thanks in every thing because the last part of that verse promises that “this is the will of God, in Christ Jesus concerning me.” I must learn to rest in His promises.  In the most difficult hours I must look to my Savior and know that He is always the same.  He is near even when He seems to be far away.  He loves me and His love would never allow anything into my life that is not for my good and His glory.  Faith must trust Him even when I do not understand.  Please pray the Lord will give me that kind of faith.

“In everything give thanks…”