Gone but not forgotten!

To Dave Butler

A Great friend who left too soon

NO matter what the mood he could always lift you up

He was blind, full of arthritis, liver problems and full of pain, but even through

all that the guy had a permanent smile and a positive attitude.

And I really missed the times we sang and played guitar at church together .

Where ever he's too he is putting a smile on someones face in his usual way.

Hi Dave: Nice tunes- sounds good.jim

As I began to think about Loss & Greving - Phil 3.7-14 comes to
> mind. The passage begins by talking about ³loss² and in verse 8 it mentions
> ³gain.² In verses 12-14 the language (from the NIV) speaks of. ³I press on to
> take hold of, ³forgetting² and again ³press(ing) on.²
>
> I find it interesting in that as I have learned to appreciate the grieving
> process at the stage of acceptance, it seems that the main and most difficult
> task to do is to be willing to ³let go² of the thing that is already lost or
> gone. Though the object is gone, we continue to hold on. The fear that
> motivates us is that we will forget the loved one. That they will slip away
> from us as if they never existed.
>
> The process is that we start out by continuing to hold on though the loss is
> defined as gone. In effect there is nothing left to hold on to. But as we
> empty our grip we are then in a position to take hold. For actually the
> relationship to the one lost is ready to take on a new dimension of
> relationship to our lives. We find that the loved one did not really leave us
> at all. I found this as being true with the loss of my Mother years ago.
>
> We often get real attached to the person of our loss meaning the fleshy or
> physical part. I read in a paper about a gentleman who continues to go day by
> day to the graveside of his deceased wife. When asked why does he go he says
> that he knows that the real person he had been married to is not there but
> that ³the hand he use to dance with² is there.
>
> My contention is that our bodies are the containers. The real gift that those
> we love give us is the time and attention and the love that they gave us while
> we were alive. It was the deposits and the investments that they gave us
> while they were living. To use the analogy of a Christmas present, we keep
> the gift and we discard the wrapping and the box that the gift came in.
>
> Certainly this is true for Christ. Christ could not be fully appreciated
> until after His death, burial and resurrection. Its his words and his
> teachings that do mean so much to us. And of course if we believe in Christ
> we realize that these separations are only temporary.
>
> But even more this line of thinking takes on a much deeper meaning to me. It
> is one of grand themes that I think are in the Bible. To be direct about it,
> sometimes in life we have a tendency to hold on to things a lot longer then
> what we should be doing. I think of a fighter pilot, which is what for a long
> time; I wanted to be when I grew up. There is a thing among fighter pilots
> known as ³target fixation² if I am not mistaken. This would be particularly
> true of a fighter pilot in one of these supersonic jet planes. That at the
> point of release of the weapon it is time for the pilot to immediately turn
> his attention back to flying his aircraft rather than watching to see if the
> weapon hits the target.
>
> From a Biblical standpoint, I am impressed by the story of the Exodus. Israel
> was released from captivity in Egypt after four hundred years of slavery and
> of harsh labor. And it says that God brought them out by a mighty hand and
> delivered them. The problem however was not their coming out but their coming
> to the land of promise.
>
> I find that we often consider that the two concepts are one and automatic. As
> soon as we come out of one thing we automatically enter in to something else.
> But, for humans, we have the ability to linger right at the door way of having
> come out but not yet willing to enter in. As a result, God waited for a whole
> generation (40yrs) for the one generation to die off so that he could bring
> the next generation into the promise. Actually in forty years it was more
> like two generations had to die off before those who were 20 yrs old and young
> to grow up and to enter in. For they did not seem to have that strong memory
> of Egypt pulling at them to want to go back.
>
> For the older generations the pull of what they knew was stronger than the
> promise of a better life ahead of them. Compare Deut. 4.37-38 and Deut 6.23.
> It is clear that God¹s purpose was not just to bring them out. He brought them
> out in order to bring them in.
>
> In the 13th and 14th chapters of the Book of Numbers we see that God had a
> very difficult time with bringing Israel into their promised land. They did
> not believe. They would not trust God. They kept holding on to the land of
> bondage and would not let go. They lacked faith that the same God that took
> them out of a bad land could settle them safely in a good land. In Num.
> 14.15-16 says: ³if you put these people to death all at one time, the nations
> who have heard this report about you will say, ŒThe Lord was not able to bring
> these people into the land he promised them on oath, so he slaughtered the in
> the desert¹.²
>
> When I think of grief process and of recovery and even of a life of faith,
> this principle continues to speak to me. Bringing people out of distress is
> only half of what God is willing and wanting to do. The other part of it is
> to bring us in to what God has already promised us ³on oath.²Blessings
> Forever!RJM ( The Devil picks the battles, The Bible gives the answers)
Be Blessed In AllYou Do, No One Is Promised Tommorrow!