Yesterday my little sissy reminded me of someone she knew who died about a year ago. He was a young man, a Lutheran minister if I recall correctly. In his early thirties, he was married with two or three children. Happily married, most people thought. Yet, this young man took his own life one evening while his wife and children were away. He started up his motorcycle in the garage, and laid down beside it, breathing in the fumes. They hoped he was just overcome by the fumes, working on the motorcycle within a closed garage. But the ruling was not so, it was a suicide.
As the young wife, his children, and his parents reeled from the trauma of finding his lifeless body the next day, reality set in. He had so much to live for, yet he took his life. There was no indication of any problems that could have caused him to do such a cowardly act. Yes, cowardly.
Shortly after his death his wife started going through his emails to see if there were things she needed to attend to. To her horror and dismay, she found emails and other documents within his computer that her husband's original plan was to not only kill himself, but to kill her and the children.
But there was no reason as to why. No answer to her questions.
She remembered that a few nights before he took his life, she awakened to find him standing over her, staring at her. Thinking nothing alarming, she turned over and went back to sleep as he walked away. Was he contemplating that very night what he would do? No one knows.
The night. Things were as usual. Nothing alarming. Wife and children were going to visit parents for the night. No big deal. Something they did fairly often. Something routine. But it was the night that became a marker for them.
A decision was made. Shortly after the young wife and children left, this young man started up his motorcycle, laid down beside it, and breathed his last. No note to say goodbye. No reason given for giving up. No 'I'm sorry'. Dead.
Imagine coming home to find your spouse, the one you have shared life with, dead by suicide. You wonder why. You are in shock. You don't know what to think. You find emails and notes with notations and comments of murdering your entire family. Still no answers. Then you realize by the grace of our God, He removed you from the home, He gave you an excuse to get away.
Unknowingly to those involved, God saved this young wife and children by removing them the very night the husband decided to take his life. Would the young man have carried out his plan of murdering them all and committing suicide? No one knows, for there was no reason ever given for what he was planning.
One thing we know for sure, God was watching over this young wife and her young children. It was so hard to tell them that 'daddy took his own life'. I doubt if she will ever let them know that he had also planned to take theirs. I hope not. How can someone who claims to love you so much, take away from you your very life?
Yet people do this all the time. Not just by suicide or by murder. They do it be shutting down, by withdrawing, by finding other things to take them away from those that love them. You can not help a person grow by being out of their life. You can only help them grow into the man or woman they are to be by breathing life into them. Encourage them. Love them. Be a part of their lives. The children act out what they see before them. We must be careful, then, how we live our lives, that they be encouraging and good. I think we all have things in our past we wish we could change. But we can not go back.
But we can move from yesterday into tomorrow by making changes today. God was watching over that young wife and children that night. He is also watching over you. Take some time to sit back and think over your life; what is it that you wish you had done differently? Perhaps you have a child who is giving you 'fits' over behavior. Try to understand the root cause - was it something you said or did? Is your spouse irritating the heck out of you? Care enough to step back and see how you could react differently - and see how they begin to change as they see changes in you.
I know I have much to be grateful for and I thank God daily for His faithfulness to me. He hears me when I call Him. He doesn't always give me the answer I want, He doesn't always answer when I want Him to. Sometimes I think His timing, His ideas, are way off. But He does everything in perfect time, in perfection. Who am I to question the Almighty Lord, the Sovereign One.
One thing I know for sure, He is watching over me, and He is watching over you. Why? Because I've asked Him to. Give Him thanks for meeting your needs. He is your Jehovah Jireh, your Provider.
Blessings!
No comments:
Post a Comment