Welcome to another podcast of Struggling Well. We're glad you're here with us this morning or this afternoon or Maybe it's in your afterwork drive. But regardless, we're glad you're with us. I wanted to express my thanks for the many of you that either texted or sent a card in regard to my brother's passing. it's definitely been an interesting journey. he, as you heard his testimony, had a journey of dealing with terminal illness for two and a half years. And a lot of those years, it was extremely painful. And yet through it all, I know from firsthand that he honored the Lord and wanted nothing more than to use his weakness to be able to share the gospel. And he did that all the time. But I will tell you that I miss him terribly. he was outside of my husband, he was probably my second best man and he and I were close and were able to talk about a lot of things. But what was interesting to me at his service was to be able to talk to other people that had been impacted by his life. And that was really such a gift to be able to hear how my brother's u boldness for the Lord and his love for other people, how he encouraged young people and whatever they were doing. He particularly encouraged a young girl named Isabelle. she's part of his wife's side of the family and I love to hear those stories. it was just that was really really cool to be in a church that where Warren worked and dedicated his life to sharing the gospel with people of all ages was phenomenal. And so I'm thankful for that. The crazy thing about grief though is that it is it's not one and done. Like you don't lose someone and then you move on and get over it. So I expect that his wife that he adored Y and his kids Lori and Sherry that they will experience a many seasons of grief as I am and Jimmy is. but I'm thankful that we do not grieve without hope. And in the two years of Warren's illness, he never lost hope. And that was something that was amazing. I toward the last three weeks of his life, I would FaceTime with him and take pictures And one of my favorite pictures is him smiling in the midst of excruciating pain and also just thanking the Lord for being able to see me as his sister and to see Jimmy as his brother. So
how about you babe? What was it like?
It's been a whirlwind of emotions. and I find it interesting. I don't know. He's now in the presence of Jesus
and we're in the middle of Holy Week and this will be the first Easter for Warren in heaven.
Wow.
And I don't know if time is marked the same way in heaven that it is for us here on this earth. Will they celebrate this as being the resurrection Sunday like we do? but it is a comforting thought for me in the midst of the loss to know that he's in the presence of Jesus. Whether they mark it as Easter Sunday or whether it's just what we do here on this earth. we're in the middle of Holy Week and it's a lot of the culmination of Jesus life and ministry here on this earth. And in the midst of what we've dealt with and are still dealing with the grief of losing Warren, we God gives us I think little gifts along the way of ways in which people in our lives are moving closer to him. And one comes from a granddaughter who sent us a devotional. I think she's had a revival in her life. I do too.
And in her devotional that she wrote, she's said this talking about love and how we casually use it in our conversations today. that God's love is a love that has a never disappearing promise. You'll feel unlovable or you'll feel you have no one to help you. But that feeling is defeated by understanding and this is what I love that someone loved you so much he died on a cross for you. He went to hell for you so you don't have to. He's on your side. He is seeing you because he loves you. And I mean For me, that's a beautiful statement from coming from anybody, but knowing that it comes from a granddaughter of ours was especially warming to my heart as I've watched her grow in her faith in recent days.
And here's the thing about that just kind of makes a full circle is one of the things that Warren was famous for is he every time he would call us or we would call him, he would ask about every member of our family. And he'd want to know not salacious details, but he wanted to know details so he could pray. pray. And we as grandparents pray for our grandkids. I hope you as parents or aunts, uncles, grandparents, whatever you are in someone else's life that you're praying for them if they don't know Jesus that you pray that they would come to know him. But pray for them along the path. And so for us with our grandkids, when we see them growing and we see them yearning for Jesus, it's incredible. And we've been praying for this particular grand her for quite a while. She's amazing. I don't know if she thinks she's amazing, but she is. And she has just turned like she's become rekindled in her faith. And so when she's sending us devotionals a couple of times a week, that's what we're anticipating. So this was so exciting. And here's the cool thing, y'all, is that we received this on our way to the funeral.
Yeah.
So this was like we're on our way to honor someone who has gone to be in the presence of the Lord and then we get this text I should say from someone who is on her way to knowing more and more about Jesus. I mean it doesn't get better than that.
No. And her devotional that she sent reminded me of a phrase that I've used it I've heard it used for years, the hound of heaven. And I didn't understand where it came from. Well, in 1893, a man by the name of Francis Thompson wrote this poem. And in it, he describes the hound of heaven. God's relentless pursuing loving pursuit of us, chasing down humanity with grace and mercy.
And I thought, what a great picture of this cuz that is true for all of us that God will is a pursuing God.
A relentless pursuing
relentless pursuing God. And if you ever have any doubts about that, all you have to do is look at the events of this week in the cross and the resurrection to the extent that God pursued us to put us in a relationship with him through his doing, not ours.
And you think about that from the beginning of time, he has been in pursuit. And as I'm reading through the Bible, and probably take me 5 years, but as I'm reading through it and see the consistent pursuit of God, even when his people went way off base, way off base, he still pursued them. And the phrase that is repeated over and over again in the Old Testament is he heard their cries and he answered them.
Yeah.
So we want you in this week leading up to the good our Good Friday which is a somber time but an important time. Don't rush to the resurrection. Sit with Good Friday for a while and then don't rush after Easter. There's still more to come after Easter. But the fact that God the Father so loved the world that he gave his son. And then the Son so loved us that he gave his spirit. So he's always looking for you, always wanting your heart, wanting you to know him more deeply. And that thrills my heart to know that God is after my heart so I can become more like his son.
And we encourage you to find a service on Good Friday. Maybe your church has a Good Friday service. If your church doesn't, find a church that has a Good Friday service to just sit in the reality of God's love for you. Have a good week.