There is a friend at our church who is dying. What started as esophagus cancer has spread throughout his body and his battle is coming to end. This past week I had the privilege of leading worship at our Church's congregation in Burnaby where he and his family have attended for 14 years. It very well maybe the last time I get to see him, and it will be a memory that I will keep for the rest of my life. On this Sunday God used Mark to spread His wisdom, His grace, His PEACE to our church, and left a legacy that will last for years to come. He has a wife, he has three children, he has family and friends that will be left to live life without him when he goes to be with our God. Yet, he was at peace with this, actually he and Carol-Ann have a peace that they have been sharing throughout this disease and continued sharing that morning. A peace that could only come from God. During a time when our church was praying for him, he turned it around on us and gave back. His prayer spoke wisdom and truth. He was thankful for all that God have provided, not just the big things but the little things, grateful for the grace and love lavished upon him from God. At peace that God would care for, love, strengthen, encourage and provide for his family when he is gone, just like He has done while alive on this earth.
You see many of us live life in a constant state movement, of action and reaction filling every minute, hour, day, month and year with as much as possible. We live believing that we need to GET everything out life now, that we have to DO everything possible now or else we have failed. We end up moving at speeds that rushes us past so much of the moments that God deeply desires for us. True peace has become a foreign concept to us, yet this is what God, through Mark wanted us to know and experience. He reminded us of what life can be like when God’s peace is allowed to work in us and through us. What the Spirit of God can bring to a life who is centered on Jesus and not the frenetic pace of the this world. Later in the day, in another location, during another service, a member of our church lamented as to why death needs to be our catalyst that draws us to accepting the gifts that God wants to lavish on each of us. This was Mark’s point and God’s words for us that morning.
Mark was reminding those of us in the room, and those who hear his story, that God’s peace can be found here and now, in our prime and not at the end of our life. We only need to do as Mark has done, to turn and trust in God, accepting his forgiveness, grace, strength, passion and desires. This is how Mark has lived throughout his life and what God desires for us right now. Mark’s death however is not to be lamented, though rightfully morned. God extended his time beyond what was first diagnosed. We have been able to laugh and cry together a little longer, to see God’s work in and through him some more. To see Mark reveling God's glory to those around him to the very end. And those of us who know God live with the knowledge that we will see him again, soon, whole and full of joy in God’s presence.
Mark, you will be missed, yet never forgotten. Thanks for the gift of that morning. Thanks for the way you encouraged me each Sunday when I led, the way you entered into worship when I wonder if I was to getting in God’s way more than helping. The smile and the warm greeting each time we met. How you made sure we had our yearly “handshake” and catch up.
Your faithfulness to God.
See you soon!
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