Freshman in Heaven

Friday, November 11, 2005

This evening we are having something at my house called a “sing-a-long” where a bunch of us gather with a guitar and sing songs and just enjoy each others company. This is something we have done off and on for several years. A family that has always been part of our sing alongs, and was planning on attending this one, just lost their youngest child, Timothy in a car accident a few days ago. I haven’t put my thoughts into the journal because I would start crying again, and I have a house full of kids that just wouldn’t understand why Miss Dee is sobbing over there in the corner.

It’s hard to know the right words to comfort the family, there are no human words that are big or deep enough. I have watch Tim grow from a 5 year old, through all his years as a scout. He is… was a freshman in college, and now he is a freshman in heaven.

It just doesn’t make any sense… none. We all want to find reasons, something to blame or conditions that put it all into context. But the truth is, random accidents happen to all of us, good and bad, the result of living in a fallen world. It still hurts, like a soul ache that throbs.

Sunday, there will be the service… pray for this family? I don’t want to give out personal info on other people on the net. It’s enough to tell you that his name is… was Timothy, God knows the rest. Pray for the family, to be buoyed during their grief, pray for the family and friends who will be asking God questions on their own mortality, but most of all, pray for softened hearts, that draw close. I think that grief, has the ability to clean us out and make us stronger, but it also has the capacity to harden us and turn us away from what is best and good. Pray for protection from the enemy while they are vulnerable, and for them to remember that nothing can snatch them from the
Father’s hand. Not even death.

I am posting a poem that I wrote for another dear friend, who died of Cystic Fibrosis last year. This is the song my heart sings at death…


For Sheri

Flowers fade
And willows weep
For the season that has passed.

We the creation
Whom God has made
Are like unto the grass.

We have our place
In time and space
Set in the frame work of
His hand.
His breath within
Despite our sin
To pursue His bride
The plan.

The time is short
For man is frail
And cannot count tomorrow.

So seize the day
And grasp the hand
That was wounded unto sorrow.


Look closely now
At the flower that was
And peer at the myst’ry revealed.


For the shroud, of death
Is the afterbirth of life
And there, are the seeds of eternity sealed.


I will leave you with a closing thought. Call your loved ones today, the ones you don’t see often, and remind them that they are loved. Talk to that one person who you have a problem with, you know the one, and make it right. We aren’t promised tomorrow. Seize the day!