Freedom

"Christ has made us free." Galatians 5:1

Heaven came down and took my husband up on July 4th, 2018. A day representing freedom. And he was given freedom on this day last year that will reign into all eternity as we will be reminded each year as fireworks fill the sky of the trumpet's that blew and a coronation that was given as glory filled his soul as he entered into the presence of God hearing the words, "Good and faithful servant"....and how he would want you to know that heaven is coming again and would like to take you also...for it is in Christ that we are free indeed.

God, the Father of our Lord Jesus, and my Father, through faith in His name, gave to me my beloved husband and God’s hand was surely seen in giving him to me as my life partner in much joy, in sorrow, and service...for 36 years and five months.

My life and my calling from God as a true helpmate to a pastor and man of God, to a husband, grandfather and friend taught me the beauty and fulfillment God gives when we fit into God's plans and therefore the plans of our husband. Carrying through with the plans of Christ through all things in knowing God had given my husband favor in giving him a wife as scripture tells us and therefore it was a calling to help fulfill my husbands ministry and calling. "Whoever finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord" and there was nothing sweeter to my heart than to be his helpmate and be by his side until the Lord would take him or me home. I think of the vows we made, "For better or worse, in sickness and in health, til death do us part". These words I vowed to my husband but also to the Lord. These words I have vowed to Christ in my relationship with Him. The Bible talks a lot about the relationship between us and Christ as a marriage. We can be certain that life will be hard, difficult things will happen and we might not always understand the way God chooses to do things but will can choose to trust God through it.

Our happiness in God, and in each other, was indescribable and not because of us but because of the spiritual foundation that was laid in Christ and one which God had prescribed and written on the pages of His Word. He designed these roles from the beginning of time. The place and yes, the prescription, given for true fulfillment for all marriages. A remarkable blessing God will give to a wife seeking the Lord to be her husband's partner, a wife who is fitted for him, and given to him by God.

Both of us, by God’s grace, had one object in life—to live for Christ. This Godly purpose, and our aim, day by day was to share the gospel with others but not only to share His Word but also to share our lives. God added true happiness and an increase of blessings each day in the happiness we too found in one another. We had in our 36 years together the blessing of having an abundance of work to do, as a husband and wife, in our family as parents and grandparents over time and in our service to Christ and we did that work by God’s grace...always in doing our Father's will is their added tremendous blessings to our soul.

As July came last year my heart was broken and my faith was telling my heart that victory was given knowing I needed Jesus to go on...even when my strength was depleted Gods strength became enough...when reaching out at times with all the strength I had to even just touch the hem of His garment assured me that yes, He is there, He does see and He does answer.

Because of my love for Randy I wanted Gods will for him now more than ever...and I knew that if it pleased the Lord to take him home I must accept that "all" will be done according to His good will. I read the Word to him more and more the last week of his life and how he was convinced even more that "the Lord's judgements are right and yes, he was satisfied with them". Despite the difficulty he had physically he tried to make me understand what was happening and wanted 'the food of Gods Word' to sustain his heart. Reading Lamentations 3 brought such nourishment to his soul as he was often reminded of Jeremiahs distress and his hope through the counsel of God's Word and prayer:

"Remember my affliction...my soul still remembers and sinks within me. This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not, they are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. "The LORD is my portion" says my soul, "Therefore I hope in Him!" The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD." Lamentations 3:19-26

This was Randy's heart and prayer, and utmost belief. God is good, God is faithful, God is our hope...and we wait....and will surely see the salvation of the LORD.

As I sat quietly by his side seeing his faith lived out even through dying I was able to trust God proclaiming too that 'Gods judgements are right and that in faithfulness You have afflicted me'...Psalm 119 and this is all according to Your love through Jesus. Whatever God's will is, all will be well.

As Randy rested, Gods grace gave to me all that I needed. Our grandchildren came on the evening of July 2nd as God provided to me the exact thing my heart needed as seeing the faith of others is always uplifting to our soul as I seen the faith and good works of another generation coming through our doors to encourage our hearts in Him...through this time I seen the faith of these little ones growing stronger and God moving in their hearts in ways that by His grace only He could. They were ministering to me that evening and I was glorying in seeing God holding them tightly. Our oldest grandson had taken the responsibility to ask one of his grandmothers to make us all dinner which was Gods perfect timing...and our granddaughter brought through the door a Word the Lord gave her from John 11:4 "That this sickness will not bring death but glory to God" and that is exactly what God had told me all along. Our youngest grandson brought to me a Word from the LORD marching through the doors, from Psalm 67 "God be merciful to us and bless us and cause His face to shine upon us..that Your way may be known on earth...Your salvation to all nations. Let the people praise You, O God; let all the peoples praise You"

God was truly in our midst as we gathered together around my husbands bed and read the Word, prayed and worshipped our God through song. Nothing but that which is good can proceed from God and what we knew that we had to do was to accept all that the Lord allows from the inmost part of our souls....that we may glorify Him. As we sang, prayed and read His promises Randy assured us all that he was very good...as he always proclaimed...because he was in the hands of His Father and His Father was in control of all. Randy was also sure even then of what our hearts needed...faith that can say..."I know, O Lord, that Your judgments are right, And that in faithfulness You have afflicted me. All this which you have laid upon us is according to that love, with which You have loved us in Christ Jesus, and whatever You will, all will be well.”

As there is still life and a heart that still beats it is still my duty to 'daily perform my vows' and love and serve fully and completely the best that I could do. Randy was the Lord's and God gave me a vision of Mary at the foot of the cross as she cried out to God in seeing her son suffering on the cross as His death came only to bring glory and salvation for all mankind. Mary's plans for her son were very limited to what God would do...to bring salvation and advance His kingdom. A vision God gave me of great love that always comes with great suffering... but then it promises deliverance in Christ Jesus. God's will comes with Gethsemane, the Cross and then the Resurrection.

My husband fell asleep in Jesus and he received a new body in the presence of God July 4th at 1:15 am. I knew that we shall be reunited again...this is our hope and glory. My soul was sustained and Gods peace unexplainable at that moment...as I momentarily forgot my pain only to glory in a God that was so great that promises that death does not have the final say but must bow down to a God who has a plan for all who believes that plan goes beyond this world and enters into a place that is everlasting. Your will Jesus in this all I cried...not mine...were the words of my heart.

My husband's life was one with Christ who hung on the cross for us and how God's grace instantly reminded me of the joy he now had because of the love His Savior had for him. In this my soul would rejoice...rejoicing in his joy. And although I miss him in many ways and will miss him more and more but I know more and more I must accept the will of my Father and seek submission to His holy will to glorify Him and embrace the God who has afflicted me and say in my heart each day that I will see him again and spend all of eternity with him.

In finishing the race put before him...Randy would want one thing to be made known through his life and death, the Lord Jesus Christ. He would wants us to ask the question "What is your only comfort in life and death?" The answer, his answer, "I am not my own, but belong - body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood..because I belong to Him, Christ, by His Holy Spirit, assures me eternal life". (Heidelberg Confession of Faith

Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and all who believe in Him, shall be saved; but without faith in the Lord Jesus we cannot be saved. I pray for all those who are as not yet reconciled to God, by faith in the Lord Jesus- to be in prayer about their souls, that in the interruption of life that brings death or in the Lord Jesus' returning again, they are prepared to meet Him.

Gods grace enables me to glorify God only by my submission to His will, despite the pain my heart feels. The loss great and the wounds go deep because he was always with me but this is were my faith is manifested in the God whom I have trusted in for so long. “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him,” His love and faithfulness in the times past convince me yet again that He will never leave me nor foraske me."

God had been preparing for him a home in heaven..."as a wife prepares for her husband"...and as I had prepared for my husband each day for 36 years....as the Word tells us. John saw with his same eyes that saw Jesus' miracles, Jesus crucified and buried, risen from the dead, ascending into heaven...Johns eyes also seen heaven open. Heaven so prepared as a bride preparing for her husband...a chosen day a chosen place with the most perfect details thought of in advance. In heaven every detail is prepared.

"Come the angel said to John who then carried him away in the spirit to a great and high mountain" as Revelation speaks of this great city he seen - having the glory of God upon it shining as a Jasper stone, clear as crystal, with high walls and twelve gates with twelve angels at the gates, and with the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel written there...the walls of the city had twelve foundations and on them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb Jesus...he saw his name John. John saw...the same John who preached and established the church and wrote of Jesus...the same John who was beaten and persecuted with his life ending in Patmos....this same John looks at this city. In seeing this city so beautifully prepared he must of thought of every hardship and every sacrifice made here on earth was very much worth it just to be in this city and in Gods presence forever. A city with walls of Jasper and streets of gold and clear as glass...the walls of this city decorated with precious stones and the gates made with precious pearls...a city that has no need of the sun or the moon because the glory of God illuminates it through all of eternity...a place prepared for all those who are written in the lambs book of life.

I thank my Savior for this blessed hope given to my husband that promises 'this sickness does not bring death...but for the glory of God that the Son of God may be glorified through it" John 11:4. Although we all want freedom from our worldly sorrows and sufferings how much more important is it to have freedom for our soul. Not only had he taught me how to live for Christ but he was teaching me how to die for Christ for the glory of God that the Son of God would be glorified through all that God laid upon us..to advance Gods kingdom...and....

"still I will follow...…."

Michelle A. Guerra