Happy Thursday and Happy Birthday Casey.

Today Casey would have been 25 years old. I remember the day he was born. After delivery with Casey just a few minutes old, our pastor, Rev. Art Digby, was at the hospital and we had our first prayer as this new little family. Later that same night I was in my room and I heard this screaming baby coming down the hall. It was Casey. They brought him to me told me he was keeping all of the other babies awake with his crying. They lifted him out of the nursery crib and laid him in my arms and he was immediately quiet. The nurses were totally shocked. Casey just needed his mama. We were pretty well joined at the hip for the next near 25 years.

This afternoon as Bruce and I were talking I asked him if he thought Casey would forgive us for not celebrating his birthday today as we were all going separate ways. We will celebrate tomorrow. Bruce assured me that Casey would not mind as we are certain that if birthdays are celebrated in heaven that the cake was amazing and that Casey was sitting at the eternal table of grace bathed in a light that our earthly candles could never match.

John 3:30 “He must become greater and I must become less.”

Casey was not perfect. He was a good kid who made average grades in school, was a good athlete, sang like an angel, loved his family and his truck and had one promising relationship with a future in his 24 years with us. He had a kind and loving heart, lots of friends and a close relationship with God. If you took away his name from this list of attributes, I could be describing lots of young men. But the last year of Casey’s life was extraordinary. I was privileged to spend nearly every waking and many sleeping moments with Casey. I was witness to this scripture in the last year of Casey’s life.

As the disease of this incurable cancer slowly took his body, it never took his spirit. As more of the disease spread, the life, presence and spirit of God became greater and became more powerful than the disease. Yes, the disease took the temporal, but it could not even touch the spiritual. As Casey’s body became weakened by cancer, God became stronger in his will to surrender all to the God who loved him so.

I thought my faith was strong until I witnessed the gift of faith in the last year of Casey’s life. What I have come to know is that for Christ to grow in me, I must be willing to surrender all to the will of God. The more I surrender, the more space is freed up for God to take up residence in my life. God does not really need us to accomplish His work on earth after all He is God. But He did choose us. He chose us because He loved us and wants that intimate relationship with us.

Maybe only those who are nearing earthly death can understand fully what it means to have less of yourself and more of God in their lives. I just know this experience has caused me to look at every step I take and decision I make in a different light. John 1: 4 “That true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.” The front of the heart pendant I wear has Casey’s image etched on it and the back of the pendant says: Light, Love, Faith. These words describe the last year of Casey’s life.

If God wore our pictures on a pendant around His neck, what would the words on the back say about our lives? Friends, let us all examine our lives. Has God become greater in our life as we have diminished? If we are the greater in our life what do we need to surrender so God can take up more space? When He fills the space we have surrendered, He fills it with His light.

Take joy in the journey. Love you all, Bruce, Gaylene, Geni and Travis.

Gcapplenotes@aol.com

I am not moved by what I see. I am not moved by what I feel. I am moved only by what I believe and I believe God.