| Well,
obviously this site was never used after a good friend set it up. But, after Debbie’s tribute to our daughter
on her Xanga site – http://www.xanga.com/imameanmomsoyeah (June 10, 2006) -- it seems appropriate to use this page now. We simply want to say thank
you. It makes us grateful all over again
that our Lord is somehow using just a piece of Nicole’s story to once again
touch lives and bring encouragement and hope.
Debbie commented to me that my Punkin Seed, true to Scripture, had died
and was still bearing fruit. I
said to her, “the idea that now, 2 years later, God could use Nicole’s story…
again… is at least a little bit comforting.”
In my own series on depression, delivered to our Sunday morning crowd, I
pointed out that “God has purpose in everything.” But I was also honest enough to admit that
knowing that purpose doesn’t necessarily fill the heart hole. Nevertheless, it is a soothing balm and
removes some of the frustration of the apparent randomness.
Debbie’s tribute, part of which was
written by me the day Nicole “went to be with her other Daddy,” truly was just
a piece of the story. Our Lord taught us
mountains about the unfailing strength of His faithfulness, about tragedy and
crisis, about prayer…
One of the
many things He showed us came from 2 Cor. 1:3-4 – “ 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who
comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble
with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”
Surely you have been exposed to the
“it takes one to help one” school of theology; it takes an addict to help an
addict, it takes a divorcee to help a divorcee, etc. The reason you’re going through what you’re
going through is so that you can help someone, someday, in similar
circumstances. Yada, yada, yada. I’m not being being flippant nor
disrespectful; that’s not what the Scripture promises. What it says is that when we respond to our crises
in God-like ways, when He pours His grace and comfort into us, we become that
much more prepared and trained to “comfort those in ANY trouble.” So, what God has done in our lives through
Nicole’s life and death can be used in ALL peoples’ lives, in ALL kinds of
trouble.
After reading your responses, and being recently
reminded of those verses, I began to wonder: would a complete chronicle of her
story be helpful to you? We have saved
each one of the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of e-mails that were sent and
received during Nicole’s short time on earth.
Edited down, they are a testament to the church being the Church. The world-wide community of believers came
together for us -- living in a small town in a sparsely populated area of the
mid-west. The response e-mails, along
with our ongoing journal, form a tapestry of ebb and flow, faith and doubt,
peace and fear, and through it all, unflinching honesty. My plan would be to post, here, from the beginning,
as much as seemed appropriate, of Nicole’s story… probably not every day, but
several days a week. If this would be of
interest to you – and you believe God is in it – please post a comment that
says so. When I started “Walk WITH
Jesus,” referenced below in my signature, the Lord gave me a specific number of
readers that I had to get to before I could begin. I was overwhelmed with that response and shot
past that figure in no time. If the same
happens here, I would be pleased and honored to be a part of God’s continued
fruit-bearing through my little Punkin Seed.
Walk WITH Jesus,*
Jim * Do you receive the Walk With Jesus letters? Walk With Jesus is an at-least-once-a-week
letter, written by me. Simple, short,
hopefully creative and refreshing, it is designed to restore the
"simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ" that is too often
lacking today. (For those of you involved in the Heart Beat ring, this week's WWJ is about depression,)
To subscribe, send ANY e-mail to: walkwithjesus-subscribe@associate.com
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