To Love Completely

Sunday, 25 Aug 2002

I sit back in my chair and close my eyes. I relax and still the spirit within that seems to get so easily distracted with the things of this world. And then... I find my God.
He is there waiting for me, always.
Sometimes I can feel Him, sometimes I cannot.
Sometimes He speaks to me, sometimes He does not.

The question isn't if He is there, the question is if I will believe He is there.

John 6:24
"I assure you, those who listen to my message and believe in
God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins,
but they have already passed from death into life."
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Jesus assured us!

The Spirit of God is alive and well. The question is, is He alive and well in us? When He is, there is no question about our future, we have already passed from death into life, in this life. Our destiny is secure. The question remains, what will we do with the days God gives us on this earth? Will we use them for Him, or will we use them for our own selfish desires? Will we miss God's offer of peace and joy, and live each day in stress and strife? We can choose that if we want, or we can choose God's way.

What sometimes seems to be the easy choice is to go our own way and not give God a second thought. The result is difficulty down the road if we have veered from His path.

The hard choice may be to bend our will to His. To surrender ourselves to God and let Him have His way. The result is a steady and sure path that leads us home. That is not to say there won't be trials, but our spirit will be calm in the midst of the storm with our focus on the One who can save us.

We don't understand God's ways. They seem to take too long at times, they seem unclear at times, we'd rather hurry it up and find the answer we're looking for in our own timing, doing it our own way.

I asked God the other day to help me remember some things about Phil that I have forgotten. Is there anything that I am missing in my memories? It was sort of a strange request, but I made it anyway wondering what would be revealed.

Does God hear us in our ponderings? Will He answer? He did!

As I sat in my chair after making this request, I glanced over at the couch and what God brought to my mind was that Phil rarely slept. As he spent hours upon hours on that very couch, wearing some spots thin with use, he usually wouldn't sleep. I would suggest it. I would say "Phil, why don't you take a nap. Rest awhile.", but Phil would refuse to do that. He would wake early in the morning like he always had and enjoy his cartoons or whatever, and spend the day from couch to bed to chair and back and not sleep until late in the evening. I had forgotten that. I remember at the time wondering why he did this? If I was not feeling well, if I was having chemo treatments, I think I would sleep to make the time pass by more quickly. But he didn't.

Then it came to me as I glanced at the floor that Phil didn't mind going underneath the house. Why you might ask, would he do that? Well, we live on shifting ground that swells with rain and shrinks in summer. There are jacks under our house to accommodate for those changes. Someone has to go under there to adjust the jacks. Chris (middle son) says NO WAY!

The crawl space is too small for Jim and I don't have any interest in getting under there with the creepy crawlers!! But Phil would happily volunteer. In fact, one time he had recently gotten out of the hospital and he still had his port accessed. (There was a port in his chest that was used to infuse chemo or draw blood and it still had the needle and tube inserted in case we needed to use it.)

Phil got under the house and had crawled the 20 or so feet to the front door to lower the flooring so we could open our front door completely. When he got there, he ran out of energy! I was laying on the floor with my head through the opening coaching him back to the crawl hole with thoughts going through my mind of what the front page news might say the next day!!:

"Pleasanton Mother sends ill child under the house to do the dirty work!!"

What would the town think when they read of my neglect?!!

"Come on Phil, you can make it!! Come on back! Don't worry, I'll crawl down there and finish the job!"

Which I did as soon as Phil got up out of there, because a mother hen will do anything to protect her child, even it if means getting down there with the creepy crawlers!!

These thoughts about Phil came to me as God answered my prayer...God, help me remember something about Phil I have forgotten.

So I remembered...and then I wondered why? What difference do these two memories make in my world? It doesn't help me know Phil any better because now I actually have more questions. Why did he do these things? Why didn't he nap? Why was he so willing to go under the house? Now I really am puzzled. I have more questions than when I started. Maybe I have too much time on my hands for thinking!!

Would God work that way? Would He answer my prayer only to leave me more puzzled than when I started? He didn't. In His timing He was teaching me. I believe that's why He had me ask the question in the first place. All along, He had something He wanted me to know, to share, to bring me one step closer to loving Him no matter what.

I am re-reading a book called "Windows of the Soul". I picked it up shortly after God had revealed these things about Phil and this is what I read...

Ken Gire writes:

I read 'A River Runs Through It' at a time when I was trying to connect with someone I lived with and loved and should have understood but suddenly didn't, with someone I wanted with all my heart to help but even with all my heart, couldn't. The loss of that relationship was like a death. It filled me with grief and sadness and questions like the ones the father asked his son in Norman Maclean's story.

"Are you sure you have told me everything you know about his death?'" he asked.
"Everything."
"It's not much, is it?"
"No, "I replied, "but you can love completely without complete understanding."
"That I have known and preached," my father said.

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What spoke to me about this was the line that says, "you can love completely without complete understanding."

Oh, that's how I loved Phil...

Oh! That's how we're supposed to love you God!

Isn't that what we are called to do when we love God? There is no way we can understand Him completely or understand the why's or even the how's of things He does, but we are called to love Him completely.

I love Phil completely, but I don't know why he did some of the things he did. It didn't really matter that I didn't understand it all, it only mattered that I loved him. No one would question the sanity in that. That is a normal relationship between a mother and a child. So why in this world do we question loving our Father God when we don't understand all the things He does? Why does that seem so far-fetched? Why does it seem foolish?

"Windows..." Page 80

It was not required of me to understand. It was required of me to love, and to go on loving, completely.
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That is what I did with Phil. That is what I am doing with God. I am learning to love Him more every day even though I don't understand. I don't understand the whole picture as to why my son lives in heaven now. I don't understand why it has to hurt so much even when I know that Phil is better off where he is. I don't understand the length of grief or even all the reasons for grief, but God does. He understands it all and He knows everything about us and why we do what we do, and you know what? He loves us anyway!

We are called to love Him even when we don't completely understand. That is our part.

He loves us even though He knows us completely. That is His part.

Which is harder? I believe God has the harder part. He sees all the dirt and grime and pride and selfishness and mistakes we make. He says, it doesn't matter. I love you anyway.

It reminds me of a conversation I had with my sister the other night when we were talking about Phil and his physical abnormalities toward the end of his life and how as a mother, you don't really see them. You love your child from the inside out. She experienced the same thing when her baby son was in a hospital during a vacation in Hawaii. When she was with her child, she tended to him and loved him, from the inside out. Not really seeing the exterior. Not seeing his sickness as others might have. When the vacation pictures came back, she was astonished at how ill he looked. When I look at pictures of Phil's final weeks and days, I can barely look at them for the pain it causes to my heart. That is not the way I saw him. I loved him from the inside out.

My sister said that was a great analogy of how God sees us.

Just think of how we see each other, from the clothes that another might wear to the hair style they have or the weight they've lost or gained. You name it. That is what we see unless we really take the time to get to know that person on the inside. And yet, God knows us on the inside. He doesn't look at the outside.

He created us. He has been with us every day of our lives, and there is no secret we can hide from Him...and He loves us anyway!!

And what did He do when we were in the worst possible shape? He swooped in and saved us! He sent His only Son to this earth to clean up the mess we had made. Sin after sin had been adding up since that "incident" in the garden and it was time to do something. God didn't use just anything to help us, He used what was most precious to Him, His Son. And He didn't do it the easy way, which He could have, but He sent His Son to suffer for us and to die for us, because He loves us that much.

Romans 8:31-32
What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?
He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also,
along with him, graciously give us all things?
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Does God give us all things? You may say "no", there's that new car I want or that big new house or that leather jacket or that diamond ring, but that is not what is being said here.

Whatever we are needing, God will provide it. In His timing, in His way. He knows what we need, we do not. He knows our thoughts, yes even more than we know our own. He knows our needs even more than we know our own.

We can lie to ourselves. God we cannot lie to. He already knows.

We can fool ourselves. God cannot be fooled. He sees the darkest places and brings them to light.

Sometimes that is painful for us, but God knows our needs. He knows what's best for us, when we don't.

Would I ever, ever choose for my son to become sick and die? NEVER! Was that what was best for me? For Phil? It would be easy for me to say there was an easier way to learn what needed to be learned. My human way of thinking would choose anything else, but my trust in God says He knows best. When all is said and done, there are good reasons for what has happened.

Where does that trust come from? How is it possible to trust like that in a world where things we can trust are hard to find? It comes from getting to know God in the most personal way possible. It comes from spending time just sitting there, if that is what it takes, and closing my eyes and relaxing and drawing close to Him until the rest of the world has been shut out and it is just the two of us for awhile.

Sometimes it seems as if nothing has happened at all as I sit there. It seems as if I will get up from that chair the same as when I sat down, and that the verses I have perhaps just read have not sunk in, but that is not true. Something has happened and the world seems to have been put back into a proper order and my spirit is calmer and my thoughts are more peaceful. It seems as if God is thanking me for taking the time to acknowledge that He is here, and remembering that He is always here even when I am too busy to notice. It makes me want to go running back to Him as often as I can to catch maybe just a piece of the peace that He is offering to me anytime I will come and drink from His well.

He is ever faithful. He is always giving, but He is never forceful. He waits for us, and in the meantime he loves us completely.

We can pass from death to life, while we still live. When we do, we find out what true living is all about. The things of this world are only distractions when we get to the final moments of our life, when the veil is so thin we can see right through it to heaven.

Phil was surrounded in his room by his goodies. Things like Gameboys and electronic chess sets and a color TV and all kinds of gadgets and things to entertain a teenager who lacked energy for other things. He enjoyed each and everyone of them but when it got serious, the things of this world held no value whatsoever. He had a collection of watches, but there wasn't one on his wrist when he died. He didn't even wear his glasses so he could see clearly. He only wanted what God had to offer. It was the only thing that brought him comfort. He wanted to hear about heaven. He wanted to hear about Christ and His death on the cross and the thief who hung next to him who would be with Him in paradise. He wanted to hear about the resurrection and eternal life. It mattered to him like it had never mattered before. Nothing he had cherished could be taken with him, he was going to meet his Maker. He wanted to be ready.

Pastor Dave will end some of his prayers with the line "Until we meet again or until we meet God". When I would sit with Phil in church and hear that said, I wondered if Phil would be sitting with me next week when I heard it, or if he would be meeting God between now and then.

One week, he met God.
One week, we all will.
We have no idea when, where, or how, but it is a sure thing.

What will be important then? Only one thing. Our relationship with the One who created us.

Luke 21:34-35
"Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness
and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap.
For it will come upon all those who live on the face of the whole earth."
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Phil had the chance to stop and listen to God's word before he left here. God gave him that time for whatever reason. He used it wisely and it brought him comfort. Some are not afforded that time for whatever reason. We may be one of those, but we have the time now. Let's use it wisely. Let's get to know God and love Him completely, even if we don't have complete understanding.

Psalm 22:5
You heard their cries for help and saved them.
They put their trust in you and were never disappointed.
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Love,
Diane