Surviving Well

Holiness Today, Nov/Dec 2016, p20

I recently read a very beautifully written article in Holiness Today, a publication of the Church of the Nazarene, entitled The Grace of Dying Well by Dean Flemming.  The Flemming family holds a special place in our hearts as Dr. Floyd Flemming was the DS and his first wife Barbara, the NMI District President on the East Ohio District, where Jeff and I grew up, for 21 years.  Dean Flemming also had a great impact on Jeff's life as a teenager.  Dr. Flemming past away Nov. 14, 2014. We were saddened to hear of Dr. Flemming's passing but were blessed as we reminisced his years of service. 
The article shares about a man who had been in service to God all his life both in formal positions of pastor and DS and in the informal day-to-day encounters even until his very last days. 
This past November 2016, another great man of God passed away.  His name is Baru Dirye and he was the Health Secretary here at Nazarene Hospital.  It was a very difficult time for all of us who knew him.  He was far too young, we thought, to be taken from us and he was doing so much for the hospital and for the church. 
I have thought about the article on dying well mentioned above and Baru's recent death.   I have  witnessed Baru's lovely wife Christina mourning in the house holding Baru near to her just hours after his passing and at the krai (a time of mourning where family and friends will gather to share in their sorrow of a lost loved one) and funeral.  And...I have observed her attitude and strength and resolve in returning to work on the Pediatric Ward as our Nurse Supervisor.   I now have a new thought.  Surviving well is an amazing testimony to our belief and trust in the amazing, loving, compassionate, ever-sustaining God we serve!   I am sure it is not easy for Christina.  I am sure she thinks about her late husband every day and wishes he were well and with her.  I presume she continues to have questions.  But, she has allowed God to use her to show me and others that He does have the power to carry us through and He gives us what we need to face another day and to continue to be used by Him to touch another soul for Him...and another, and another, and another! God's not done with Christina!  She is His child and He will never leave her or forsake her!
My prayer for you and I is that we, too, will live well, die well and survive well in the face of whatever comes our way. He will never leave us or forsake us!