message for Remembering Pamela
(Hey Ben... thanks so much for setting this website up. It's just wonderful.)
God wants all of our attention. But I think God often garners this by drawing our attention to lives that will in turn point right back to Him... and nothing draws attention to someone's life as their painful departure from this world.
There is biblical precedence for this. Jesus said, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth [that is, crucified], will draw all men to Myself" (John 12:32). We also see this in the first martyrdom as Stephen testified of the glory of Christ in spite of the stones that took him from this world to the next.
Pamela lived this sort of life... and now she is in the presence of the Christ she so uniquely pointed us to.
Pam's death is a tragedy, though a beautiful tragedy. I am hearing so many stories about her that inspire me and attract me to Christ. She most certainly did this in her life, but I am so proud to note that her death is serving to attract me to Jesus in painful, though beautiful ways.
The disciples could not envision a purpose in their Lord's apparently premature and certainly sudden death. How much more sense it would have made for Him to have remained, right? Think of all the amazing things He could have done had His ministry lasted longer... all the people He could have healed, the messages He could have preached. But Jesus understood that nothing would serve to bring His ministry into fruition as would His death: "...unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24).
The amazing power of our faith is that death is used as a servant to accomplish the ultimate (though certainly mysterious) purposes of God.
I'm not really offering these reflections as an answer to the pain of loss. Christ's life and death are of course entirely unique in and of themselves, but God has been continually pointing me towards Himself in so many ways through Pamela's passing. I am so proud that she lived a life that we cannot easily say goodbye to, that she lived a life that cannot pass away silently without notice, that she lived a life that points me to Jesus even when her death causes us to question why.
Andy Byers
God wants all of our attention. But I think God often garners this by drawing our attention to lives that will in turn point right back to Him... and nothing draws attention to someone's life as their painful departure from this world.
There is biblical precedence for this. Jesus said, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth [that is, crucified], will draw all men to Myself" (John 12:32). We also see this in the first martyrdom as Stephen testified of the glory of Christ in spite of the stones that took him from this world to the next.
Pamela lived this sort of life... and now she is in the presence of the Christ she so uniquely pointed us to.
Pam's death is a tragedy, though a beautiful tragedy. I am hearing so many stories about her that inspire me and attract me to Christ. She most certainly did this in her life, but I am so proud to note that her death is serving to attract me to Jesus in painful, though beautiful ways.
The disciples could not envision a purpose in their Lord's apparently premature and certainly sudden death. How much more sense it would have made for Him to have remained, right? Think of all the amazing things He could have done had His ministry lasted longer... all the people He could have healed, the messages He could have preached. But Jesus understood that nothing would serve to bring His ministry into fruition as would His death: "...unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24).
The amazing power of our faith is that death is used as a servant to accomplish the ultimate (though certainly mysterious) purposes of God.
I'm not really offering these reflections as an answer to the pain of loss. Christ's life and death are of course entirely unique in and of themselves, but God has been continually pointing me towards Himself in so many ways through Pamela's passing. I am so proud that she lived a life that we cannot easily say goodbye to, that she lived a life that cannot pass away silently without notice, that she lived a life that points me to Jesus even when her death causes us to question why.
Andy Byers
posted at 9:57 AM
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