The Best...

Edmund Gates, Jr.
June 15, 1919-October 3, 2015

        As I write, I am sitting by my father as he laboriously breathes. Mother has  told him he was the best husband. Angie and I have told him he was the best dad and recounted what a giving father he has been. The three of us have agreed that the congenial, warm person viewed by the public was also the person Dad was at home.
       Over the past days, precious neighbors, dear relatives, and a former pastor and his wife have come and shared with Dad what a blessing he has been in their lives. Prayers of thankfulness for the godly impact he has had with his life have been offered by his bedside.
       Yet we are facing death square in the face, and the grim reaper image in no way conveys the actual viciousness of death. Early this evening, we reflected on the soul-sapping experience of watching life wrung out of this man we dearly love. I reached for the scriptures, locating I Corinthians 15:26 that states "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."

       Then I continued in that chapter to verses 54-57 that reads:

So when this corruptible shall have put on in corruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written,
Death is swallowed up in victory.

O death, where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory?

The sting of death is sin; and the strength of  sin is the law.

But thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord.

       What we are facing is the excruciatingly painful "sting" of death, but Dad, after returning from World War II, made a commitment to trust Jesus as his Savior and Lord. For that reason, because of his life-altering faith in Jesus, Dad will have the ultimate victory over death. 

      Paul concludes that chapter with verse 58 to those of us who remain:

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, inasmuch as ye know your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

How important it is for us to do all we do in the Lord. If every action we do is motivated by our "steadfast, unmovable" commitment to Him and not by pride nor to earn right standing with Him, He will be honored and it won't be "in vain."

If we have a firm trust in the Lord Jesus, when our time to die comes, our loved ones can sing as I did tonight the old hymn dating back to 1860 :

My latest sun is sinking fast, 

My race is nearly run,

My strongest trials now are past,

My triumph is begun

 O come Angel band,

Come and around me stand!

O bear me away on your snowy wings

To my immortal home!

O bear me away on your snowy wings

To my immortal home!

Then this seldom-heard verse that provided comfort and strength:

O bear my longing heart to Him

Who bled and died for me;

Whose blood now cleanses from all sin,

And gives the victory.

       May these scriptures and song lyrics provide inner peace and courage as we honor and emulate with our very lives a man who so greatly impacted many.

This post was written in the wee hours of October 3, 2015.