Posted on 12/14/2001 8:01:03 AM PST by Rebelbase
It sounds like Rick was truly a great guy. Prayers have been sent up for you & the rest of Rick's friends & family.
God Bless.....
YOUR EXCEEDINGLY TOUCHING POST has encouraged this missionary this morning while sobering me about your grief.
I'm encouraged by the following:
1) Rick Loved you into The Kingdom or at least strengthened you; strengthened your hand in The Lord. What greater gift could he have given you? Praise God for His Love direct and through Rick. Praise God for your receiving that Love. Brokenness can do that. But some people just become suicidally/self-destructively bitter from suffering.
2) You had the grace to receive/participate in a rare quality of Friendship/Brotherhood. There was humor, love, camaraderie, mutual respect; probably mutual affection of some healthy sort; shared music; shared faith; shared service to others; shared thoughtfulness . . . a lot of rare stuff given all the givens in our tortured world--rare far too often even in The Church universal.
3) You had the boldness to write about it and share it with us Freepers. A lot of men just hide their pain and suffer in silence pretending that the silly proud, isolated loneliness of their pain and suffering is more manly somehow. You were strong enough to share it. I suspect Rick is proud of that in you. What a tribute to the Love he poured into you and shared with you. He must have been an incredible character to have such an impact on you.
4) You sound like you have more capacity to Love like Jesus as a function of Rick having been in your life. What a tremendous result of a Friendship/Brotherhood. Hard to think of anything higher, if there is.
5) You have an awareness that Rick is in a far better place, much freer, more full of Love than ever and more full of Joy and Peace than ever--and probably--that you can and likely will join him there along with the rest of us Believers relatively soon.
6) In the midst of your pain, you can write articulately, sensitively, profoundly in a way that can impact literally thousands of people on FR. Quite a gift. I praise God for it and likely Rick is well pleased about that as well.
7) You heart seems clearly to be the kind of heart Jesus likes to cultivate, build into, bless in people. I pray you keep up the good work. In honor of your incredible character of a Friend/Brother and in honor of your Friendship--but also in honor of The Lord who brought you two together.
I salute you. I salute your friendship. I grieve with you. The loss must be incredible. My deeply cherished-Godson is still out of touch after 15 months due to a cultish ?"prophet's"? influence. Loss of great rapport and tangible demonstrations of Loving caring among spiritual Brothers is a unique sort of pain in this troubled world of such little true heart-felt dialogue among men.
Somehow God has promised to be with you in your pain and I trust and pray He will be clearly so in ways you can readily, quickly and routinely make out. The Comforter has come. May you Call on Him frequently as the feelings and need arise. May you Ignore so-called super-spiritual types who act or sound like one should not grieve. I'm much of the type who believes literally in the Scripture about weeping with those who weep etc. As it's fitting, feel the grief and express it however you will in whatever context you find yourself in. Let the chips fall where they may. There's too much phoney stuff in Christendome so let her rip being real as seems fitting. Jesus was/is. He's our model. Not the phoney prissy folk.
And if I can share anything of value to you at all--even just to listen--please allow me the honor of doing so. You have touched me. You have encouraged me. Thank you.
God's best and richest blessings be yours and be thickly in all the other close relationships you have. May HE deepen and strengthen such of those as would be most blessed to you. May HE add such as would be most supportive, growthful and enlivening of you.
I have a belief that when Rick's getting acquainted with Heaven period is over, he'll certainly be faithful to pray from that vantage point for you. It's just a belief. I have no Scripture per se to back it up.
In any case, I'm convinced that your Friendship/Brotherhood is just as secure in Jesus as anything else of lasting value is. And from what you've said, your relationship was clearly of lasting value. I'm sure you'll never forget that fact. Thanks for sharing it.
And he would not want you to grieve for long. He would want you to continue to live life to the fullest, every day.
Goodie D
Please accept my condolences.
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