Dear Fred,
I was about to go off to bed when I saw the title of this post, and I thought to myself, please Lord not another death in his family so soon...
But alas, the Potter is wiser than I, and while I do not know how things will work out for you, I know that he means even this difficult trial for your ultimate good, for when He says "All things" in
"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose" he means both the good and the bad.
Brother, I know that the burden of this loss will be hard to bear, in fact I know that it will be impossible to bear if you try to bear it alone, therefore all I can urge you to do is to seek help from the Savior whose yoke is always easy and whose burden always light. He will help you to carry it, if you will but ask Him.
More times than I would have wished, I have shared the following passages with those who have lost relatives in the Lord. Both are from the letters of Samuel Rutherford, who like his Savior was a man well acquainted with grief. They were written to members of his congregation who had lost loved ones, the first a son, the second all her children and then her husband. I hope the eternal truths he expresses will be equally applicable to you, my friend.
Your Lord may gather His roses, and shake His apples, at what season of the year He pleases. Each husbandman cannot make harvest when he pleases, as He can do. You are taught to know and adore His sovereignty, which He exercises over you, which yet is lustred with mercy. The child has but changed a bed in the garden, and is planted up higher, nearer the sun, where he shall thrive better than in this ground. You must think your Lord would not want him one hour longer; and since the date of your loan of him was expired (as it is, if you read the lease), let Him have His own with gain, as good reason were. I read on it an exaltation and a richer measure of grace, as the sweet fruit of your cross; and I am bold to say, that... where your Master has set you now shall find it.
Dearest brother, go on and faint not. Something of yours is in heaven, beside the flesh of your exalted Savior; and you go on after your own. Time’s thread is shorter by one inch than it was. An oath is sworn and past the seals, whether afflictions will or not, you must grow and live and triumph and reign and be more than a conqueror. For your Captain who leads you on, is more than conqueror, and He makes you partaker of His conquest and victory. Did not love to you compel me, I would not fetch water to the well, and speak to one who knoweth better than I can do what God is doing with him.
"And I dare say that God’s hammering of you from your youth is only to make you a fair carved stone in the high upper temple of the New Jerusalem. Your Lord never thought this world’s vain painted glory a gift worthy of you; and therefore would not bestow it on you, because He is to gift you with a better portion. Let the temporary go; the inheritance is yours. You are a child of the house, and joy is laid up for you, it is long in coming, but not the worse for that. I am now expecting to see, and that with joy and comfort, that which I hoped of you since I knew you fully; even that you have laid such strength upon the Holy One of Israel, that you defy troubles, and that your soul is a castle that may be besieged, but cannot be taken. And withal consider how in all these trials (and truly they have been many) your Lord has been loosing you at the root from perishing things, and hunting after you to grip your soul... for the Son of God’s sake, let Him not miss His grip, but stay and abide in the love of God, as Jude saith (Jude 21)."
Fred, let me leave you with the Lord's blessing to you and your family, I pray these things will be yours through His grace:
"The LORD bless you and keep you;
The LORD make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you;
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace." '
Your Friend and Brother,
Andy Webb
