The prompt this week is healing and when I saw that in my reader it made me cry.  Those who know me know this has been a terrible week.  We lost a friend Wednesday night.  His name was Shawn and he left a wife and two daughters.  I’ll post more about this later but for now I’ll tell a little bit of the story.

We left a church we had attended for about ten years.  There were problems and we were lucky to have found a new church home and were healing and moving on.  We met up with some friends who were starting a small Sunday evening praise service at our old church and went and started helping them. This was how we met Shawn and Lindsay and their daughters.  The service fell apart but we had started meeting in each other’s homes once a week for bible study.  The group shrank after that but Shawn and Lindsay became our friends and continued coming along with our friend BJ.

We joked about having short attention spans and while we always had a meal and fellowship, sometimes we didn’t get in as much bible study as we could have.  That used to bother me some but now I see that God had a hand in all of this.

In November Shawn stopped working because the company he was employed by didn’t have any more contracts.  He and my hubby started going up to the church and working some.  My hubby is disabled and has balance problems but could work with Shawn for a few hours and I wasn’t worried about him falling and no one being there.  They also went to a Men’s Ministry class there on Tuesday nights.

Recently Shawn got sick.  He was having stomach problems and went to the emergency room several times where they did very little for him except take his money.  He finally had started having tests run and we worried because it was dragging out so long but thought they would find the problem and fix it.

Wednesday night I checked my phone at church which is something I NEVER do and there was a text from Lindsay saying that they were at the ER and to come if we could.

We left right away but when we got to the hospital, Shawn had already passed away.

When we went to our old church for that evening service I thought that maybe God wanted us to share our faith there.  I thought that was the purpose.  When things fell apart I was left not understanding because if that was the purpose then had we failed?

Now I know that God put us there because He knew the future.  He knew that we would get joy from knowing Shawn who was no angel but could sing like one.  Shawn who loved Third Day’s music and wanted more than anything to be in a praise band.  Shawn who could not ever seem to have a serious discussion for long and would make you laugh til your sides hurt.

God put us there so that we would get to know Lindsay who is shy and reserved at first but has a strong faith and great insights.  She is my sister in Christ and such a gift.  Her oldest daughter reminds me of her and the littlest one is her dad made over.  He fussed at her often, I think because he saw himself in her and knowing himself, wanted to give her guidance.

Above all else Shawn wanted to take care of his family and I know that God has plans for them and I have already seen Him at work in His people loving on Shawn’s family.

Once again, what I thought God was saying was not what he planned,  so as we all try to understand and heal from this grief we know we do so with the hope of Jesus Christ and to quote Shawn, God  “I’m a welder.  Use short words”  God, I’m listening but you know I’m a C+ student at best.

Wednesday night Jason said something in the lesson that stuck with me.  He said God is much more interested in working in us than through us.

A friend is going to put up a memorial site and when it is complete, I will post a link here.  There is no insurance so help for the family will be appreciated.