Phil,
I read this message with tears in my eyes for the little boy that was
hurting, and could not understand this event.
I understand completely how you felt.
It is wonderful that we have Jesus to lean on and to strengthen us.
I know he has comforted you and helped you to understand this very tough
experience for a little boy.
Huggs and blessings,
Virgie and Hoshi
----- Original Message -----
From: "Phil Scovell" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2005 4:16 PM
Subject: Overcoming Grief


> 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.