Phil,
Thank you so much for sharing this.  It is powerful.
Kathy


At 04:16 PM 9/21/2005, you wrote:
>This will become a new chapter in my booklet called The Deceitfulness Of Sin
>which is on my website.  I still have some proofreading to do but for
>posting, this will do for now.
>
>Phil.
>
>
>Where there is pain, there is belief.  Truth has no pain.
>www.SafePlaceFellowship.com
>
>
>Grief
>
>
>
>
>
>      He stood respectfully by his mother and listened, without hearing
>the preacher's words.  This was called, he had learned, a graveside
>service.  He stared at the casket, knowing his father, his now dead
>father, lay inside.  His hands would be properly folded, of course,
>just as they had been at the funeral home.  The funeral home part was
>called the viewing of the body.  He had, of course, been in the
>funeral home for many hours as friends of the family stopped by to pay
>their respects.  He had done pretty well with it all, too, not crying
>except for the time he freaked out.
>
>      As he stood on the other side of the room, he heard his mom and
>sisters talking but he wasn't listening; he was just staring at his
>father's lifeless body.  His dad had died just days before and he
>didn't know why.  Well, they had explained it to him, without a doubt,
>but he had not understood why his father was now gone.  Oh, sure, they
>said he was in Heaven, to be sure, but nobody could explain why he was
>there and not back on earth where he could be the little boys father
>again.
>
>      Children, in those days, were not allowed by hospitals to go and
>visit any of the patients in any of the rooms.  So every time they
>went to the hospital during those three weeks, he and his little 7
>year old sister, had to stay at home with a baby sitter, or if they
>went along to the hospital, they had to sit by themselves in the
>waiting room on the ground floor.  So, he had not been allowed to see
>or say goodbye to his father before he died.  Somehow, this made him
>very sad as well as angry.  This, unfortunately, he wouldn't realize
>until almost 40 years later.
>
>      How well the little boy remembered the day his dad died.  It was
>when he came home from school one day that he was told by his mother,
>the room full of friends sitting all around, that his father had died
>that very day.  He didn't understand death, of course, but he knew
>enough to realize his father was never coming back.  He was alone now,
>with three sisters and a mother, and he had no idea how to act or
>feel.
>
>      As he stared at his father's inert body in the funeral home,
>laying stretched out so neatly in the open casket, dressed in a nice
>suit, he stared fixedly on his father's crossed hands.  Suddenly, one
>moved and he burst into tears.  His older sisters and mom came
>hurrying over and asked what was wrong.  The little boy tried
>explaining that he saw his daddy's hand move.  He just had to be
>alive!  He knew it hadn't really moved and that he had willed it to
>moved but everyone did their best to explain how his dad was really
>dead and that he couldn't move.  It would, again, be almost another 40
>years before he learned that his father really wasn't dead after all.
>
>      A 50 year old man stood near the casket of his 80 year old
>mother.  She had just died of a stroke a few days earlier.  It had
>taken her 9 agonizing days for her to die in hospice.  Not agonizing
>perhaps for her, since they kept her fully sedated and regularly
>administered her pain medications, but certainly agonizing for those
>who remained and came to watch her die.
>
>      It was a typical beautiful Colorado November morning.  The fresh
>crisp mountain air felt good to breathe.  It was a perfect day for a
>funeral, if there is such a thing, and the people gathered near the
>casket prepared to be lowered into an underground volt where dirt
>would cover it.  The sun had just slowly risen over the Rockies and
>provided the little bit of warmth needed to keep the chill away.  A
>friend, knowing the woman's favorite flower was the rose, had
>purchased a spray of beautiful roses to place in her casket.
>
>      Her pastor offered a brief review of her life in a pleasant voice
>and then silence fell.
>
>      Soon a man began talking in a conversational tone.  "these
>beautiful birds are called homing pigeons.  they know where they live
>and have no problem finding their way home.  When I release them from
>this first cage, they will home in on their permanent dwelling place
>and will fly effortlessly and gracefully to where they live."
>
>      bending over, the man released the latch and the birds waddled
>out of there cage.  Then, almost in unison, they flapped effortlessly
>and gracefully into the air.  With their wings beating the fresh
>mountain breeze, they rose into the morning sunlight.  Rounding a
>nearby tree, they turned and headed off; rising higher and higher into
>the blueness of the bright Colorado morning sky.  Soon they were lost
>to sight.  As I stood and listened, I would have given a million
>dollars that day to have seen them with my own eyes.
>
>      The man was speaking again.  Pointing to a single remaining bird
>in a smaller cage, he said, "Some of us are left behind to continue on
>but when it is our turn, we will know exactly where all of our friends
>are and who has passed on before us."  Bending down, the man released
>the latch on the cage and the lone pigeon slowly made his way out on
>to the low cut grass in front of his cage.  "As with the one who has
>recently died," the man continued speaking, "we are freed to join
>those who have gone on before us.  It is now time for our loved one to
>join the others."
>
>      Just then, the single pigeon flapped his wings and sword into the
>air.  Strangely enough, he took the exact same route his companions
>had taken moments before.  He knew the way.  Winging his way around
>the same tree, he began to climb, higher and higher, soon to catch up
>with those going home.
>
>      Comments On Grief
>
>      This is something a part of the human experience or so we are
>told.  Furthermore, it is strongly suggested that Christians have a
>leg up on this, because, if their loved one was a born again
>Christian, then there's no need for grief or at least no need for
>prolonged grief.  A day or two, perhaps a week, is plenty for the
>spiritual.  Unfortunately, even adults facing the grief generated by
>the loss of a loved one are told to just "Learn to live with it," or,
>"Time heals everything."  This worthless and compassionless advice is
>generally from those who have never experienced the loss that comes
>from the death of a loved one or by those super Christians who have
>experienced it successfully by the suppression and repression of their
>horrible feeling of loss.  Those who are left alone, or those who
>have little children to raise, see this loss, or should I say, feel
>this loss, quite differently.  Why?  Because they know, after all the
>friends and relatives leave, the truth of death comes crashing in on
>their lives.  They have to be strong, however, lest other Christians
>think they are weak in their relationship with the Lord.
>
>      The 11 year old boy and the 50 year old man in my story was me.
>My parents are both in Heaven now and no longer do they physically
>suffer.  I was 50 years old, however, before I was set free of the
>grief I carried from the loss of my father.
>
>      I sat in the large church and watched my mother, about two weeks
>following my father's death, stand to her feet, when the invitation
>for testimonies was given.  I woodenly sat and heard her empty words
>as she spoke.  She probably felt the necessity to give a testimony.
>My dad, after all, was a preacher and he had been the chairman of the
>deacon's board of the large Baptist church we attended.  I often
>wonder now, what that pastor and those deacons, and the thousand
>friends and relatives who attended the church service where his
>funeral was conducted, would have thought if they had known my father
>suffered from depression and anxiety and had even been on medication
>for it.  Back then, in the fifties, such was never even talked about
>by Christians, and those who were treated medically were, at the best,
>weak Christians, and at the worst, failures.
>
>      Mom was saying something about how the Lord had blessed her with
>two children and that she would continue serving the Lord.  That was
>all I remember hearing.  Everyone thought it was a wonderful testimony
>except for me.  I simply did not understand what she was talking about
>nor did I feel she believe a word she was saying.  I knew it wasn't
>true because I lived at home with her and knew that she was hurting
>and nobody really cared about us since we were now a broken family.
>
>      "Phil, your dad is in a better place now, son.  Isn't that
>wonderful?"
>
>      "Son, we don't understand it but God called your dad home."
>
>      "Philip, God's ways are not our ways and some things we just
>can't understand now.  Your dad is in a better place, though."
>
>"He's better off now.  No suffering in Heaven, you know!"
>
>      "Your dad is just rejoicing with the angels in Heaven now,
>Philip.  Don't let this get you down."
>
>      "I know your dad suffered terribly in the hospital, son, but he
>isn't suffering now."
>
>      Let me tell you the true story.
>
>      Dad went to work one day and felt fine.  Half way through the
>morning, he told his boss that he wasn't feeling right.  "Willie," his
>boss said, "you look terrible.  Get over to the infirmary right now."
>Dad began making his way across the building to the infirmary but it
>was a long ways away.  As he walked, he felt worse and started to run.
>As he burst through the doorway into the infirmary where the nurse
>was, he announced he was ill and began vomiting blood.
>
>      Rushing him to the hospital via ambulance, they lost his pulse
>twice, we were told, and thought he had died.  In the hospital, they
>began giving him blood transfusions because, for some unknown reason
>at the time, he was bleeding internally.  Over the course of three
>weeks, they gave him 21 pints of blood.  It never helped.
>
>      After a day of being in the hospital, dad called our pastor to
>come and visit him.  They had my mother leave the room for some
>reason.  When the pastor left, and mom entered dad's room again, he
>told her that he had planned his funeral and that he knew he would
>never leave the hospital alive.
>
>      Eventually, doctors removed more than half of his stomach trying
>to stop the bleeding but it didn't help.  Dad began going into violent
>convulsions.  Once he told my mom, "I want to die and nobody will let
>me die."
>
>      By the end of the first week, he was in a coma and two weeks
>later, the hospital called mom and told her, "You better get up here
>as fast as you can; your husband is dying.  He probably won't survive
>the day," they told her.
>
>      Mom called her oldest sister to meet her at the hospital.  I
>often wonder what that drive to the hospital must have been like for
>my mother.
>
>      When she arrive, she stood by his bedside and sang hymns and
>talked of her love for him.  She told him not to worry about their
>children because she would take care of them.
>
>      Then she said, "Willie.  You said once that nobody would let you
>die in this place.  It's time for you to go home to be with the Lord."
>
>      Dad had double IV's in his legs because the veins in his arms
>were nearly collapsed.  Mom slowly and gently removed the needles from
>his legs.  she and her sister then continued singing quietly to him
>and listened to his breathing eventually slow.
>
>      Sensing a presence, mom looked up.  A man was standing on the
>other side of the bed directly across from her.  It was Jesus!  I
>asked her once if Jesus appeared ghostly or hazy, or unreal in any
>way.  "Oh, no," she replied.  "He was as real as any human body.  I
>could have reached across the bed and touched him.  He was that real,"
>she concluded.
>
>      "You have come to take him?" mom said out loud.
>
>      Jesus said, "Yes.  I have come to take him home."
>
>      Mom stepped back and she and her sister watched and listened as
>dad's breathing grew slower and longer until he stopped breathing all
>together.  He was instantly in Heaven.
>
>      After learning of his death, the house never felt the same to me.
>My yard, where I spent so much time playing, seemed somehow empty and
>I couldn't explain it.  I mowed our large grassy yard as always, just
>as dad had taught me, but I was alone as I pushed the mower through
>the ocean of green.  The house, even from the outside, didn't look the
>same to me either.  I washed the car, his car, just as he had taught
>me but I was alone and he was no where to be found.  Going back to
>church was weird.  I didn't know how to act around my friends and my
>friends didn't know what to say so they said nothing.
>
>      Returning to school after about a week, I was given about 33
>dollars from the kids at school.  They had collected it.  I was amazed
>at such a gift but somehow it didn't seem right.
>
>      It was probably four or five days following my father's funeral
>that I decided I would get out and do something with friends.  I
>walked down to Danny's house and saw him, along with his brother,
>playing in a big pile of crispy fall leaves they had raked up.  I
>joined them without saying a word.  We played and rolled and covered
>ourselves with the crunchy leaves and played like everything was
>normal but it wasn't.  Finally, Danny's older brother, Chris, said,
>"Phil, I'm sure sorry about your dad."  I can't remember what I said
>but I was grateful because someone finally broke the ice.
>
>      A few days later, I asked my mom if I could ride the three blocks
>over to the Macpherrson's house to play with Mike and Steve.  My
>father car pooled with their dad and my father had led Bob to the Lord
>many years earlier.
>
>      I remember we were playing tetherball when Steve, the younger of
>the two boys said, "Phil, I'm sorry that your dad died."  Again, I
>can't recall what I said but I appreciated his remarks because it
>helped me begin to face the deep loss I felt in my life.
>
>      Soon things returned to almost normal.  My little sister and I no
>longer slept with mom at night as we had the first couple of weeks.
>Play was back to normal, or so it seemed, church was no longer
>difficult to attend, and I think I was happy again.
>
>      One day, while running around the grassy elementary playground, I
>stopped to tie my tennis shoe.  When I stood, I absent mindedly looked
>up into the sky.  I loved watching the clouds, thunderheads rolling in
>across the expansive Iowa skies bringing their rain, birds winging
>their way around the ubiquitous blueness of space, and the sun blazing
>overhead.  I loved the sun.  I couldn't study it carefully, of course,
>due to its brightness but somehow, and for some reason, I love seeing
>it climbing into the sky in the early mornings and slowly dropping
>down below the horizon; its translucent illuminated colors painted
>across the vastness.
>
>      Noticing the few puffy white clouds that hung in the sky that
>day, something seemed wrong.  I looked down at the green grass, but
>couldn't see them any longer.  I looked back to the white clouds and
>there they were.  I twisted my head away from the clouds into the
>blueness of the noon day sky.  They were gone.  The clouds were
>floating slowly across the expanse and I stared at them once again.
>They were back.  tiny faint brown spots floated in my vision.
>Shrugging my shoulders, I ran off.
>
>      In the classroom, I noticed the brown spots again when looking at
>the white paper laying on my desk.  Looking up at the blackboard, it
>was actually a greenboard, the spots were gone.  On the paper?  They
>were back.  I mentioned it to mom that night after school.  She made
>no comment but I felt she was worried.
>
>      A day or so later, the eye specialist confirmed nothing was wrong
>but prescribed drops.  Odd.  If nothing was wrong, why the drops?  A
>week later, the faint brown spots in my vision were now dark brown and
>swirling thick clouds blocking my vision.  I couldn't even see the TV
>through the swirling brown mess before my eyes so I put a small piece
>of paper under my glasses so I could watch TV out of my other eye.
>six months later, after a dozen eye operations, I was totally blind.
>
>      My experience of going blind blocked out everything about my dad
>or so I thought.  I had many new things to focus on.  I had to leave
>home during the week and live and go to an educational institution for
>the blind.  I had to learn how to use a white cane.  Braille was a
>totally new way to read and it took months before I could even read 90
>words per minute.  I never did learn to read very fast even as a
>sighted person but this was ridiculous.
>
>      Fast forwarding through my life, I found myself approaching 50
>years of age.  My wife and I were both totally blind and had been
>married over 30 years and we had three grown married children, and at
>that time, four grandchildren, soon to be 6, and all of them could see
>normally.  I had preached, pastored a couple of small churches, taught
>Sunday school, traveled as a guest speaker in churches for several
>years, served as an assistant pastor in western Colorado, started a
>high speed cassette duplication business for churches and other
>preachers, and overall, felt life had been ok.  I somehow wasn't
>satisfied, and as the number 50 approached, I took stock of my life.
>Many nights, over the years, I had lain on my back, crying myself to
>sleep, and thought of my dad, wishing he were alive, so I could talk
>to him and ask for his advice.  Now I was 50 and as I examined my
>life, I felt as if nothing was there.  I was a failure.  I had
>accomplished nothing and I never would.  somehow, deep down inside, I
>knew my dad had felt the same way.  Fear and anxiety and panic attacks
>rushed in upon me like an angry summer storm.  I began hearing voices
>and they often told me to kill myself because I was a failure.  Then
>it got worse.
>
>      sitting in a man's office one day, we were praying together.  I
>was there because I had emotionally crashed and burned.  The memory of
>my father came to my thoughts as we prayed.  Although I had never been
>to see my dad, I saw him in my mind's eye now.  He was unconscious and
>laying on his back.  I could hear, almost hear, what he was saying.  I
>looked to my right and saw a illuminated man.  "This is your father
>now," I heard my dad say.
>
>      The man, whom I could not see clearly, but knew was there, said,
>"I am your Father now."
>
>      I felt it so strongly, it would have been impossible not to
>believe.
>
>      Then he said, "Your father is not dead."
>
>      I knew, as I had never known before, what He meant.  Dad was
>alive in Heaven with the Lord and I was hearing the Lord speak to me
>at that moment.  Although I knew this theologically already, now I
>knew it because I was presently experiencing it and by the Authority
>of the universe.
>
>      "You must say goodbye to your dad now," I heard Him saying.
>
>      Tears came to my eyes and the emotions of a little boy overflowed
>into reality.  I had never gotten to say goodbye to my earthly father
>and now the Creator of all things was giving me that chance.
>
>      My prayer partner was talking but I interrupted him and told him
>what the Lord had said.  "Go ahead and pray, then," he encouraged, "in
>your own words."
>
>      My body began to shake.  I knew I was a grown man but at the same
>time I felt 11 years old and I cried 11 year old tears as I prayed.
>"Goodbye, dad," I said, hardly able to speak.  It was over and I was
>free.  I had a new Father now and one who would never leave me.
>
>      Grief is so misunderstood by the church today, few people ever
>are freed from its devastating effects.  It is possible, however,
>because I experienced exactly that, after nearly 40 decades of
>suffering from it.  furthermore, if you would, as Paul Harvey says,
>like to read the Rest Of The Story, read my booklet called, "I Flew
>Kites With Jesus."  It will explain how the Lord made up the
>difference of all the lost years I had without a dad.
>
>      Those suffering from grief due to the loss of a loved one should
>keep one thing in mind.  sorrow isn't the same thing as grief.  You
>can cry, as I did writing this testimony, because you feel sadness due
>to the physical and emotional absence of the one who has gone on
>before us.  Grief, on the other hand, isn't something you have to live
>with and it won't go away with time no matter who tells you otherwise.
>Jesus can heal the pain of grief for you and He does it through a
>simple thing called prayer.  If you need to know how this form of
>prayer works, call me.