He Who Promised is Faithful

For those of you reading this, I must preface it by saying that it will make more sense if  you've read my previous post, "For My Brother...", which you can read here. 

I was caught off guard at the incredible response to the post that I wrote for my brother.  The only people that I shared that letter with is a group of women who share at least two things with me:  homeschooling and a love of Christ. I shared it only in a closed loop Yahoo group that you must be accepted into by a moderator.  No one can read our posts outside of that group. I knew that they would pray, and keep my family in their thoughts.  I also knew that they would love me, regardless of the words that I needed to say.  It's a wonderful thing to know I have that, by the way, and I'm so grateful that I do.

One of those sweet ladies, Roxanne, attached that post to her Facebook wall because she has a heart for the hurting, and an understanding that some things just need to be shared. I was unaware she'd shared until two days later when God began to work and use His power to reach people who needed to hear. Within 6 days that post had been reshared at least 15 times, and by at least 8 people who I have never met or spoken with. My sister, Kathy, had seen Roxanne's post because my name was tagged in it, and she shared as well.  I received a large number of emails from people who I have never spoken with, and many of them shared their heart wrenching stories with me.

This is the story of a faithful God, who works in ways that we cannot begin to fathom.

On Wednesday, January 4th, I spoke to my Pastor, Mark Williams, about my brother.  He was lying in a hospital and I had not seen him in almost 18 months.  I did not want to see him. I wanted to "reason" with God and frankly, that reads as I wanted to argue with God. I felt God nudging my heart to visit my brother, extend forgiveness, ask for it in return, tell him that I love him and allow God to work. I didn't want to respond. The flesh is a wicked thing, isn't it?  Being the godly man that he is, Pastor Mark told me God didn't ask if I'd like to forgive my brother, he lovingly reminded me that my forgiveness is tied to my willingness to forgive.(Lk 6:37) He urged me to do what God was requiring of me, and reminded me that obedience is honored in God's house. My heart responded to that.  I love Jesus, and I know He loves me. He loved me before I loved Him and He loves me while knowing I am nothing without Him.  But, I still didn't want to go.

I visited my brother on Saturday, January, 7th. That's right...I had waited three more days before I entered that hospital room. I'm so thankful that God didn't have Ken's date of departure on His kingdom calendar before those three days were up! I am so thankful that God's time, and heart, was patient with me. And here's where the miracles began to pour in...He is so much more patient with us that He has to be!

I wrote that post for my brother on January, 10th...the day he died.  By January the 13th, I had received more emails on Facebook about that post than anything I'd ever written.  Hands down. It had been shared over and over and over...many times by people I had never met.  One of them was from a man in Clinton, S.C., who oversees a Christian rehabilitation center for men.  The pastor of his church read my letter to those men and his congregation. He was so precious and humble in his email.  He, like myself, was awed at the power of God's grace and intervention.  

I received emails from people who simply wanted to send their condolences and I received emails from people I didn't know, but who were also living out my story.

And then, I received this email from a godly lady named, Susie.  I've known Susie, and her husband Earl, since I was in high school, but Susie had seen my post on someone else's Facebook page and didn't even know what it was about until she read the entire blog.  Here's the email that Susie sent to me:

 Kristi, 
 I just wanted to tell you I am so sorry to hear about your brother. I just read your blog about Ken and I just had to tell you... My girls play in a band with Thomas Mossburg. We were at Brookview Nursing Home in Gaffney playing Christmas songs for the residents & a man in a wheelchair had a nurse push him over to Earl & me & he started talking to us. He told us he was from Chesnee. We told him that we were from Chesnee too so he kept talking. This was on Dec. 16th & I'm not sure how it was brought up but, he told us that he had just gotten saved the day before & Earl told him how important it was to be saved & live for the Lord. He said it sure is(with a big smile on his face) & then he teared up. He told us how he hadn't lived right. But, that he was saved & how good it felt. It took me reading what you wrote about your brother to realize that the man we were talking to was your brother. I thought this might be some comfort to you and your family.
Susie


How AWESOME is our God?!  My brother was an addict by the time I was three and I have never seen him healthy and whole.  I WILL see him in heaven and Christ makes all things new.  I am genuinely overwhelmed at the thought of seeing Ken happy and free. God is good...


What's just as incredible about Susie's email, that she could NOT have known, is this:  My brother's birthday was December 15th.  Re-read Susie's email now...she spoke with him on December 16th.  My brother was born on December 15th, 56 years ago...and he was also Born Again on December 15th in 2011.  God had allowed us to know that my brother was saved.  God had allowed us the comfort of knowing that Ken is with Him, and has used my brother to reach so many others.  Ken's life has blessed others.  A life filled with addiction, self-loathing, selfishness and hurt has been used by God to bless others and reach them. My heart toward Ken was filled with bitterness, hurt and self-absorption, but had been used by God to bless and reach others. Through Ken, and a simple blog post, God has shown Himself and His willingness to reach out to us.  He is FAITHFUL!

I couldn't begin to describe all that's happened in the last few days from that post, but I can say with absolute faith that if you believe that anything in your life is bigger than God...you're wrong.  He is willing to forgive and heal you.  If you've believed that somehow, anything you've done is bigger than God's ability to forgive...Can I just lovingly say that, thankfully, you're wrong?  He loves you right where you are.  Seek Him and you'll find Him.  Ask Christ to come into your heart, because He's willing.  He's already died for every sin you've ever committed, and you're not going to suddenly surprise Him now.

And for those of you out there like me...stubborn and argumentative, but your heart genuinely loves Christ...God honors obedience, too.  He didn't ask that you love everything he asks of you.  He's never written anywhere in His Word that you have to do cartwheels when he commands something of you.  What he DID say is that He's faithful, and He sees.  What He did say is that those that love Him hear His voice and walk in His ways.  If there's something...anything...in your life that God has been urging you to do, but you have hardened your heart to His voice, please let Him work.  It's for your good, and His glory.  He deserves it and what's more, He's so generous with His children that He blesses you for your obedience.

Frankly, writing some of this has been hard...very hard.  I LOVE to talk, but I really dislike sharing personal things about myself with people I don't know very well.  I am, essentially, I very private person who rarely shares very personal things, even with people who do know me well.  But, God asked something of me, and I responded.  His graciousness needed to be shared because it's really that incredible.  So I'll say it one more time:  If there's something that God has been laying on your heart, and you know it's what He's asking of you...go do it.  Seeing Him in action is worth any pride that must be laid aside.
  
"Let us hold unswerving to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful." 
Hebrews 10:23

For my Brother...

My oldest brother was an alcoholic and an addict.  He passed away today, January, 10th 2012; he was only 57 years old.  He'd been an addict since he was 19. The story that follows is an ode to his life, his choices and ultimately his addiction's affect on me. It's a story that I hope others will read and if they're bound to addiction, they'll seek help and grasp it with both hands,  because it isn't just your life you affect, but everyone around you. Mostly it's the story of how God moves and works in your heart...if you'll let him.

When I was eleven years old, and my brother was 27, I played softball with our church team.  Slow pitch, underhanded softball, where little girls get together and show their prowess, and marvel at their cool new hair ribbons that perfectly match the stripes on their cool new softball socks that are encased in tiny little cleats.  We were cool, and we were friends.  One Saturday after softball practice would be where my brother's actions would affect me for the first time outside of the tension that permeated my home anytime he came around.  My friend, who we'll call "Andrea", wanted to come home with me after practice to play.  We converged on her father to beg for his permission for her to come over.  I must have been less than 4 feet away when she excitedly asked to come over to my house to play.  After all, we had 148 acres of fun stuff to explore over at my house.  I had parents who'd been married over 25 years, at that time, and neither of them so much as smoked a cigarette.  His answer was this, "You can't go to her house.  They're dope heads". I suppose he thought I was also deaf?   I'd never heard that word before and wasn't entirely sure what it meant, but I knew for sure that it wasn't good.  I remember thinking that something wasn't quite right, but at eleven, it was pretty tough to peg down what it was.  "Andrea" never asked again, and frankly, neither did I.

When I was sixteen, I got my first job at a little fast food place called Hardee's.  I worked all summer for the express purpose of purchasing myself a 3/4 length leather coat.  They were expensive and my parents didn't spend that kind of money on something as frivolous as a coat, but they had no problems with it if I earned the money myself.  So, I did.  Can I just say that coat still has a warm place in my heart?  I loved it.  It was all the thing, and I'd bought it myself.  One night, I came home from work and left the coat laying on the passenger seat of my old Mustang.  Later that evening, for whatever reason,  my brother came by for about 20 minutes and left.  The visit didn't go well because he wanted money and my parents refused.  Addicts rarely respond well to the word "no" and this visit was no different.  He didn't want to work for money, he wanted someone to give it to him, or he could always just steal something.  This time, my leather coat was as good as anything.  We found my coat at the local pawn shop, and my father refused to pay the pawn shop owner for it because he'd told the owner multiple times that if my brother brought something in it wouldn't be something he had the right to pawn.  After all, if you don't work, and you're an addict or not, it's pretty tough to buy a 450.00 coat, or anything else of value, right?   So while we recovered the coat,  we couldn't recover the anger that I felt toward someone stealing from me.  I'd worked hard and he had no right to put me through that...and he was my brother.  I felt cheated in more ways than one.

I could write a book with stories and instances of the interactions with my brother, and all of them are pretty much along the same lines as the first two that I've written.  I resented my brother for many reasons, not the least of which is that he had two kids that he never took proper care of.  I felt anger toward him.  The deep down kind of anger that you can't express to someone who hasn't had a lifetime of reasons to feel it.  Almost every year of my life could be recounted with a story of abuse, hurt, disappointment and anger at my oldest brother.  I resented that people would talk to me about how I "should" feel toward him...after all, he was to be pitied and sympathized with, although I couldn't recall a single instance when my brother had accused anyone of holding him down and shoving the alcohol and pills down his throat.  He made choices that I simply could not, and do not, understand.  And he died today, in a hospital where no one but our parents were present.  I'd be hard pressed to say that there's anyone in the world who would truly miss his presence, or his influence in their lives.  But, the story doesn't really end there.

Alcohol had hardened his liver to the point that it had to be drained every few months, and ammonia had built up on his brain.  Drugs had ravaged his health, his beauty, and his gifts. You see, my brother could disassemble anything with a motor, and reassemble it completely.  If it had an engine, he could fix it.  If it was broken, he could repair it. I've seen him work his gift on everything from a complex car engine, all the way down to a small clock that was broken...until he got hold of it. He'd never been to any school past high school, and he didn't graduate from there.  He'd never been an apprentice to anyone, and he'd never taken any sort of "class" to learn the skills he had.  This kind of gift comes only from God, and I know that God loves my brother just as much as He loves me.  I know that God wept with me when I was hurt, and He wept when my brother was hurting. I know that God rains on the just, and the unjust.  And still, I could not bring myself to release my anger, extend forgiveness and heal...until 72 hours ago.

My brother lived the last three years of his life in and out of hospitals and nursing homes.  He lived on morphine to reduce the constant pain of a liver that simply could not take the abuse that had been laid upon it and he developed Type 2 diabetes from weight gain, and a completely sedentary lifestyle. He began to age more rapidly than anyone I'd ever observed and slowly began to take on the yellow pallor that's common in liver failure patients. And still, my heart would not let go of it's bitterness and anger toward him. I prayed fervently...but, not really.  My prayers were stilted and aimed at relief for myself.  I don't think God holds it against us when we're angry, at least the Bible certainly doesn't portray that He does.  What I do believe is that healing can't happen until we admit to God that we're angry, why we're angry and then turn it over to Him.  He created anger just like he created love...it's all in what you do with those emotions that make them sinful.  And 72 hours ago, I walked into my brother's hospital room and laid eyes on him for the first time in almost 18 months.

I walked into hospital room 6240 and was assaulted with what death smells like.  I didn't recognize that person lying there.  Was that my brother?   He appeared to be a 90 year old man, with a distended stomach and a body so thin his skin looked like paper.  His teeth had been gone for years, and his skin was sliding quickly from sort of yellow to a deep amber like color.  His breathing could be heard two doors down and his moans began to melt the ice that began to form around my heart toward him at the age of eleven.  I pulled the chair up to his bedside, carefully laid my hand on his arm, and let all the words I wanted to say to him pour out.

I told him about the hurt that he probably didn't even know he'd inflicted on me. I confessed the shame that his choices had brought to my life.  I told him that people had made fun of me because he was my brother and others had ostracized me because of his addiction and alcohol abuse.  I confessed my anger, and disappointment that he had cheated me out of a big brother. I had missed him. I told him that I deserved better, and so did he.  I told him I was sorry he was there, and that I wished that he wasn't.  I told him things about me that he should have known, but that addiction had cheated us both out of.  I told him that I had longed for him to make different, better, choices for almost the entire 40 years I'd been alive.  I told him that I loved him.  I told him the Lord did, too.  I reminded him of the time almost 2 years ago that the Lord had urged me to make him supper and take it to him. That I remembered.  I asked him if he remembered when he'd let me pray with him. I want to hold on to that memory...in many ways it seems like the only good one I have of my oldest brother. He was kind that day and cried as we prayed together.  God worked in me in that hospital room and I was able to leave behind a lifetime of bitterness, anger and resentment toward a brother that I can honestly say I don't think I knew at all, but by the power of a sweet and gracious God I was finally able to feel compassion that had so long been absent between us.

I was wrong when I said that no one will miss him, because I am missing the thought of him as I write this post.  Ken, my brother, had a great sense of humor and I'm going to choose to hold on to that.  When he was sober, there wasn't a single person who could be around him without sharing genuine laughter and fun. He was blessed like that. God allowed me the opportunity to forgive my brother face to face, and I can't tell you how thankful I am that I took it.  Forgiveness and forgiving is a gift, too. If there is anyone in your life who you are withholding forgiveness from, or someone who's forgiveness you refuse to accept, can I urge you to do so?   

We get the ultimate gift, and portrayal of forgiveness in God's Son, Jesus.  I got the opportunity to experience that with my brother and I'm grateful.  I didn't have many experiences with Ken, but I  got the one that matters the very most and it was real... 

Good-bye, Ken. I can't tell you how much I hope that you accepted Christ's gift to you. I love you.  Your sister, Kristi...