I am going to try to put a few letters on this forum that I wrote during times of great trials to help some of you climbers.
Remember this letter was written just before my mother passed away here in Brazil 2 years ago...
Post Office Box 797
Jonesville, La. 71343
Those that are born of the Spirit will live forever.
Dear Friends in the Homeland:
The deepest joys are not born in Paradise, but in Gethsemane. Mother’s stroke has become her springboard to glory but my agonizing garden experience. Seeing her suffer days that became weeks, weeks that became months…bills mounting up but yet no way to leave her and go travel in the states to try to meet the needs. Her insurance would not work here so it served for nothing. All seemed to come tumbling down on me seemly in a moments time. Yet I am assured of a time tested fact: No place is so deep, that He is not deeper still… I have found myself in the depth of sorrow and despair….It is at these times the devil likes to scare us and tell us no one really cares. He likes to bring the fears of debts and pains of sickness before us.
F. B. Meyer said, “He never puts His sheep forth without going before them…No ascent so steep that we cannot see His form in advance: no stones so sharp that are not flecked with His blood: no fire so intense that One does not go beside us, whose form is like the son of God: no waters so deep that Emmanuel does not go beside us.”
This has been the hardest time in all my life. I never remember another time in my life so surrounded by people yet feeling so alone…watching mother slowly die for the last almost nine months has took its toil on me physically. I can not even imagine what it would be like without the prayers of Gods people. I am drained physically, in debt over my head as mother had no insurance that would cover expenses in Brazil and the only thing that has kept me going is the strength I have found in prayer.
Someway I know prayer is going to reach out and touch hearts to help us in this situation. Many have been the boxes of diapers, creams, and others things that have been sent to help. It looks like mother’s departure is any minute now. She was in the ICU for over a week and now is in a special room for the dying. They call it dying she has really started her journey to the city she has worked so hard for.
Life is filled with paradoxes: You love and you sorrow…there comes seed time and harvest, life and death…it is always thus…but in the mist of it all our Jesus is the Rose of Sharon the Lily of the valley. It is these valley experiences that bring us closer to knowing Him. For He was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief…
In God’s kingdom there is something we can all do to help for He spoke of giving a cup of water….Perhaps you cannot give the cup but you can give the water that is in it…If you can give as much as the water in it to a thirsty soul in the capacity of a disciple, you will not lose your reward.
America is full of people who live their whole life buying “things”…How pitifully poor some Christians are…wasting all their time on perishables. There are so many people who just live for today, live for shopping trips and things. When they die that all they leave behind is things. No living stones, no silver, gold but hay and stubble…When brought before the Judge of the earth and burned up they will find ashes only…All they labored and struggled for, worked two jobs to obtain…will perish in a moments time.
We know God never makes a mistake. I will try not to think about what I cannot understand I will rest in the unexplained and some day in the land yonder I will the answers to all my questions.
Pain, stress, tension and grief are never eradicated from this earthly life. Reading the Bible I have learned that the saints of old were flesh and blood human beings with real problems. They too, laid down and wept on their pillows as I have so much lately. But thorough it all they were faithful…that is why they are called the heroes of faith.
We must live with an eternal perspective in mind. Life passes us by so fast. We are all just a heartbeat from eternity.
God uses for His glory people and things which are the most perfectly broken. They are the sacrifices in which He delights. This time of mother’s sickness has surely been a time of brokenness for me and helped me realize the limitations of humans. I know the Lord is with us and His presence is recognized in times of crisis.
The scripture in
Isaiah 40:29 He gives power to those who are tired and worn out; he offers strength to the weak. 30 Even youths will become exhausted, and young men will give up. 31 But those who wait on the LORD will find new strength. They will fly high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.
NLT
We are confident God is in control. We are assured His plan is always best and trust that He is using all of these circumstances for His glory. I'm reminded of
Romans 8: Because of sin, the entire creation has been subjected to "futility" and "slavery to corruption," yet one day God will restore all things. In the meantime, we as humans have the OPPORTUNITY to HOPE IN GOD for that which is yet unseen. I am so glad that Biblical hope is not a wistful thought but an unscheduled certainty.
Thank you for your faithfulness to us and the work here in Brazil and our many other outreaches.
All funds that are donated to South American Missions are tax-deductible and can be sent via check to our homeland address.
Thank you for the part you have in our ministry.
Together in our Savior's Service
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