losing a friend...

This morning a man who has been very dear to my heart since I was in high school passed away. He was our associate pastor at church, and one of four men that my dad had a mens group with once a week for a couple of years. Eventually, he became much more like a father than a pastor, a confidant in, not only spiritual matters, but life lessons of patience, waiting, and trusting.

Through the years, after Scott moved to California to pursue a doctorate, we stayed in touch. Our emails weren't frequent, but they always came at just the right time. In moments of crisis, or exhaustion, severe stress and elation. Scott always had the perfect things to say, the best ways to keep me on track when life was both a high or a low (especially a low!) I still have every email that Scott ever wrote me, always with inspiring words of hope, truth and ways to persevere even when I didn't want to. I will always cherish his memories: his rendition of rainbow connection by kermit the frog at talent shows, his Richard Dahlstrom impersonation, the afternoon we spent together in california when i went down for spring break in undergrad, and many more...

While we, down here, ache with a knowledge that it will be some time before we see him again, all of heaven rejoices because one of God's beloved has return home. And I have to hold on to his words of wisdom that always were so poignant. I think one lesson he taught me, that might be useful now, in a time such as this, is that sometimes you don't feel like thanking God for what's going on, well thank Him anyways, sometimes you don't feel like singing, well sing anyways, sometimes you don't feel like praying, pray anyways, for it is in discipline that we come into the habit of going to him in every situation, and come to worship him in both the good and the bad.

Thank you, Scott, for being such a steady force in my life, for being the voice of God in a world that often times didn't resonate His will into my being, thank you that the lessons you've taught me don't leave this world when you're earthly body passes away, thank you for making me be one person of many who were touched by your incredible life.

Grace and Peace,
Ana