God is Grieving With Us

  It was costly to the Lord that Roderick had to leave this life early but how amazing that we still know that God can turn it all into something beautiful.  Roderick stepped into heaven on March 14, 2016.  Nobody who’s entered the gates of heaven wants to come back.  Even if he left this world, say a hundred years early, comparing that to eternity it’s nothing and it’s just a moment until we will join him.  So Roderick’s not missing out and God’s work on earth will not be stopped. He will only use what the devil has meant for evil for our good.  So then why is it so hard for us to understand?  Why is the pain so intense?  I don’t have the answers to these questions but I do have some thoughts.  I know that in the cycle of life, which God has created, we all long to have full lives and see our grandchildren grow up, then when we are old and our work seems to be done we start having a longing to go home.  Again if we happen to leave early, we don’t loose out but it goes against nature.  When our aged grandparents go to be with Jesus it is still sad to see them leave us and we definitely miss them, and I would never even pretend that their lives are in any way less valuable, but at the same time we rejoice with them that they get to go home and rest after their long journey and hard work on this earth.  Both my Grandmothers and my mother-in-law expressed a desire to go home before they went to be with the Lord.  Now if our children are torn from us it goes against nature and something is torn from our life that is extremely painful.  It’s like a young branch being torn from a tree verses an old tree falling.  OK it doesn’t quite make sense but I hope you get the picture.  It goes against nature for parents to have to bury their children.  In my experience the pain is different and harder to deal with.

   What I really wanted to focus on is how much the Lord cares for the families that have lost a loved one whatever their age might be.  I am amazed again and again how the Lord will go out of His way in so many ways to show or send comfort both in our family and so many other families that have experienced it.  I’m trying to figure out how to word this so that you can actually understand it with your heart.  Because every special thing the Lord does seems so normal after it has happened even though before the prayer is answered it seems impossible. 

   Jake had a couple of weeks of almost sinking into despair and God sent Roderick to him in a dream, just showing Jake how happy Roderick is.  When the images in the forefront of Jake’s mind were all about the body so lifeless underneath the earth in the cemetery or his lifeless body last seen in his room, and it just didn’t seem possible to dig up those happy images of Roderick in heaven, God sent Roderick to Jake in a dream showing him that Roderick is actually alive and happy. 

   One morning about a month after Roderick left, I prayed “God I cannot have Roderick back but please could You continue to show us how he has impacted lives” and that same day we received a card by mail with a letter of how Roderick’s story and the service had dramatically impacted their lives. 

   God will bring the strangest yet most awesome thoughts of comfort.  One time while helping out my sister I was praying for God’s favour in their family and two days later she shared how incredibly God had shown His favour and done a miracle in their life and I just broke down crying and quickly picked up the book that I had just read “Heaven is for Real”.  I turned to the page where Colton told his mom that he had seen God shoot down power when his dad was preaching.  I said, ‘Roderick saw God shoot power down when I prayed for favour for my sister”.  Since that I often pray that God will shoot power down to whatever I’m praying for. 

   Another way the Lord has shown His compassion is just by blessing the things we do to help us in our grief journey.  When a friend suggested doing a Roderick Rempel floor hockey tournament to raise money for a scholarship in memory of Roderick we jumped in and helped with that.  It was such a good way to again celebrate Roderick and it helps to keep him close.  Our goal was to raise $2,000 dollars on that first tournament, if we could do that we did well.  God multiplied that by 10.  It wasn’t like we needed all that money but God just wanted to send down more kisses, more hugs and more love to show us that He really really cares and He used people to do it.  Loving, compassionate, kind people. 

   Another time I wanted to do a bon fire for Roderick’s classmates, since that’s what Roderick had intended to do this spring.  With the encouragement of a friend I did it even though it was summer and I knew a lot of them were traveling.  I thought if a couple of Roderick’s friends show up we would have fun.  Well, thirty kids showed up.  Again God used Roderick’s friends to show us how much He cares.

   Just after Roderick left I walked into the bank and the lady at the teller looked me in the eye and said something very kind and compassionate.  I walked out and asked my sister, is it really that obvious that I’m grieving, she said, "I don’t think so why?"  Well the lady in there was a complete stranger yet she looked at me with such compassion and kindness, what she said made me feel like she knew.

   I could go on and on of the people God will send to show compassion.  The most unlikely yet such loving and compassionate people will come give a hug or say something encouraging.  I find so many out of the ordinary things happen and God makes them happen in out of the ordinary ways or places so that we will not miss His love.  Having said that though we can sometimes still be so rapped up in ourselves that we miss it. 

   After telling all these stories I realize we should be the happiest people on earth to be so surrounded by love yet it is so painful and we miss Roderick so very much.  I don’t understand why it has to be this way but as pastor Jono encouraged us back months ago at Roderick’s service, we choose to focus on the statements we know to be true rather than on the questions that we can’t find answers for.  And the truth is that God loves us so very much and He wants to be up close and personal, every life is valuable to God and heaven is for real.  God is grieving with us.

God's up Close and Personal

   I would like to share Pastor Jono’s message.  I believe for all of you who are going through grief it will be very encouraging.  He encouraged us to focus on three statements that we know to be true when we are tempted to ask questions that we will never find answers for. That has been such help in my own journey, I choose not to dwell on questions that I have no answers for but rather meditate on knowing that God is close and personal.  He has indeed been close and personal to us through this journey. 

Pastor Jono’s Message

He lived life in the present, in the moment, he made himself available to those that were around him: Teammates, classmates, family.  Roderick was strong, both inside and out.  That strength that we saw on the outside was so because of his strength on the inside.  Roderick had strong convictions he also had strong muscles.  Not one to shy away from a big hit, against the boards, right? I heard stories this week about how he would just love to tease and torment his cousins but at the same time he could just be gentle and care for the little ones, look after the babes. 

   For Roderick Rempel, his own understanding of God and how God desired to work in his life, what he believed to be true about God’s nature, about God’s character, about God’s personality, for Roderick all that had a lot to do with this space right here, where we all are today.  It’s in this place that Roderick gathered for years with his family.  To come and be challenged and inspired year after year to grow in his own faith. 

   I have a question for all of us today, what is your theology? Theology is a big church word, but basically when you have a theology it’s whatever you believe to be true about God’s nature, about His character.  What’s your theology?  For those of us here today that believe in God, you have a system of beliefs that form how you understand who God is.  How He’s at work in the world that we live in.  What do you believe deep down in your heart to be true about God’s nature about His Character?  Because in a moment like this it’s important to know not only what you believe but why you believe it.  And as I was preparing for today, this thought came to me ‘we actually have the ability to limit how God wants to work in our lives based on what we believe to be true about Him’. 

   So where do we find a true picture of Who God is and when our hearts have been ripped open and when we can’t breath because it hurts too much and when all we can ask is why? Why? Why? Why? Why?  I want to help us today, then instead of struggling with questions that we don’t and may never have answers for could we as a family and a community, could we instead of asking those questions could we settle in on some statements that we know to be true and that we know to be brilliantly strong?  And anytime your brain and your emotions and your thoughts begins to ask questions that you don’t have answers for could you replace those questions with the statements I’d like to share?  And these statements aren’t of myself, they’re not mine, these statements are Roderick’s all three of them. 

   Statement number one:  Anytime that your tormented and troubled and start asking the questions that you don’t have answers for, let this true statement settle in your heart. Statement number one: God is not a distant God, He’s up close and personal.  Roderick didn’t just know about God, brain, head knowledge, Roderick knew God, heart, transformation, life, he had an encounter with God who is very much real, and very much alive, and very much close and very much personal. 

   The Bible in the book of Romans chapter 8 talks about how we should see God, not just when it hurts but at all times.  It says this resurrection life that you received from God through Jesus it’s not timid, it’s not a timid life it’s a adventurously expectant life Romans 8 in the message translation.  As I read that this week I was like adventurously expectant, whom does that describe? Roderick! This life in Jesus its not timid its adventurously expectant, greeting God with a child like “What’s next, Dad?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are.  We know who He is and we know who we are.  Father and children and we’re going to get what’s been promised to us, an unbelievable inheritance.  I love these verses in Romans because it helps us remember that God’s desire as He works and moves in our lives is that of a Father, but not just any Father  the best Father, the most unconditionally loving Father, the most self serving Father, the most generous Father, the most kind Father, the most diligent Father.  God to us, wants us to remember in the middle of all our questions today that He is a God that is close at hand not far removed, uniquely personal.

    I’m blessed in my life to have a dad who’s walked with me through every season.  It hasn’t been hard for me to relate to a God as Father because of my own dad and as I’ve watched Jake this week with his family part of the reason that I’m convinced that Roderick loved God is because of how you served him as mom and dad and how you extended grace when he needed it, and how you coached him and corrected him and inspired him to be a leader. 

   What do you believe God is like?  This question is important and we need to answer it in our lives.  Your belief systems, your thoughts, where you land, are going to be a big part of how you build your future and build the life that’s ahead of you.  God doesn’t simply want us to know about Him, God wants us to know Him, uniquely, personally for ourselves.  God wants us to find our humanity, our compassion, our grief, our love, our identity rapped up solely in Him.  He’s made a way for that through Jesus.  First Statement: God’s not distant, He’s up close, He’s personal.  He loves you,

   

   Second Statement I want to share today of three, is simply this, ‘every life; every life is valuable to God, every life’.  

   There’s a verse in the Bible that I’ve heard read at many funeral services, and it always bothered me.  As a young man, as a husband, as a father, this verse has always kind of gotten under my skin, and I actually heard it at a service just a couple weeks ago, when a minister on a stage, trying to help a family grieve took this verse and painted a picture that somehow God needed this man in heaven because in Psalm 1:16 it says ‘Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His Saints’.  Precious. And that verse has been twisted and carried away, to cause us to be so confused and doubt when we need clarity the most, because if we unpack this verse and if you go back to it’s original intention and it’s original meaning precious actually means costly, of great consequence.  When someone we know and love passes away, it is costly to God it is of great consequence, to this up close and personal God that we know and love.  Why? Because it means that God has one less passionate, devoted follower, here, to share who He is, with other people.  Make no mistake.  As we mourned this week, God has mourned with us, there’s nothing in the heart of God that delights when someone that we know and love graduates to heaven.  His heart is a dad that has been broken with us this week and any of your previous belief systems that somehow it was Roderick’s time because God needed him in heaven.  It’s garbage; I need you to know that today.  God needed Roderick here and things happen that we can’t explain, things that are tragic, things that hurt and things that cause our world to spin, but all of us know that Roderick’s story wasn’t done, yea?  

   So now what? Where is God in the middle of this? If He’s so up close and personal? If He knows my name and wants to be intimately involved in my life at work in me and in you and if every life is valuable and costly then what?  The book of Hebrews in chapter eleven in the Bible is the chapter that has been known as the hall of faith.  It lists all the great men and women in the Bible who stood strong for what they believed and lived a life that mattered, and in Hebrews eleven we read story after story about men and women that took a stand for God, that made right, wise choices to serve the people that they loved.  I want you to know that heaven is for real, that Roderick has actually stepped into his own place in this hall of faith and that somehow, because of Jesus, what’s going on in heaven right now is connected to what’s going on here with us and I believe with my whole heart that Roderick is a part of this hall of faith.  We could add his name to Hebrews eleven for the young man of character and integrity and love and passion and fervor and how he’s lived his life, we could add his name to Hebrews eleven today because he is now expectantly watching us.  

   How will you live?  How will you land after this?  How will you respond?  Will you ask the wrong questions that tail spin you into a moment of despair or will you make statements that connect your heart to the reality, of a God that loves you and longs to be a part of your world because as much as I know that its true that God is uniquely personal and up close and as much as I know that it’s true that every life has value I also know that it’s true that heaven is for real.  Heaven is a real place.  It is not a figment of someone’s imagination.  It is not a cosmic cloud in the sky where people sit around and play harps all day.  Heaven is the most amazing experience that any of us could imagine and Jesus in John 14 said ‘please don’t get lost in despair believe in God and keep on believing in me’ Jesus said, ‘my father’s home is designed to accommodate all of us if there were not room for everyone I would have told you I am going to make arrangements for your arrival’.  I’ll be there to greet you personally where we’ll be together’ and Thomas one of Jesus followers said ‘Lord we don’t know where you’re going so how can we know how do we know how to get there’ and Jesus’ response legendary in our Christian world is ‘I am the path, I am the truth I am the energy of life, no one comes to God the father except through me’.  Heaven can’t be bought.  Heaven can’t be earned.  Heaven is a gift!  That eternal promise that we received through Jesus Christ, He already made the way.  He already paid the price.  He already covered the debt and so it’s on us to receive that, accept that and walk that out.

   Lisa and Jake said to me on Monday, they said, ‘the last few weeks with Roderick have been so good, Roderick’s been so open, he’s been so real with us, how amazing to say that we have no regrets that there was nothing left unsaid’.  So how will you respond?  How will you live?  -Jonathan Zantingh 

My Birthday

   “Happy Birthday, mom!”  Did I ever long to hear those words from Roderick this week. 

   On Sunday my sister-in-law asked me if this was going to be another tough first this week.  I didn’t think it would?  It was my Birthday not Roderick’s that we would be celebrating and growing up we had never made big deals out of Birthdays.  The day started great too but in the afternoon when I was alone I was overwhelmed with a longing to hear Roderick say Happy Birthday to me again.  Last year he gave me a napkin holder that he had made in woodworking.  He also gave me a card in the card the writing said how the more he learned about himself and the more he saw of the world around him the more grateful he became for his mother.  He wrote the word true and drew and arrow to that.  But what touched me the most is that he called me mommy in the card.  Roderick would frequently still call me mommy.  I always felt that was his way of telling me that out in the world he was looked upon, as a very energetic and tough hockey player but deep down he was still my little boy that needed me.  I missed him so much and I cried my heart out but I also knew that it was very important to Tyler and Angeline that I have a wonderful birthday.  They did everything they could to make me feel special.  Both of them had bought very meaningful cards.

   Back just before mother's day I read an article about a mother who spent some time grieving beforehand on mother’s day when she lost her daughter so she could still enjoy the day with her family.  So I decided to do that.  I decided I would allow myself to cry but when it came time to pick up the kids from school I would pull myself together and enjoy a wonderful celebration with the rest of the family.  That is easier said then done but I did it although I had to literally push any thought of Roderick aside. 

   When going to bed I told Angeline I had missed Roderick and she commented, “I saw that you were sad.”  I guess I didn’t do as well as I thought.

   I remember when Roderick was in grade 7 he made plans with a friend on my birthday and Jake tried to convince him to come home instead because it was mom’s Birthday but he chose to hang out with his friend.  I didn’t mind he was after all a 12-year-old boy; mom’s birthday was not the most important thing on his mind.  I also remember that both Angeline and Tyler felt bad thinking that I would feel sad because of it but I assured them it was fine.  When Roderick returned home he also felt sad that he hadn’t been there for my birthday.  I remember another experience in Grade 7.  I got a phone call from Roderick one time.  He was in school and I wondered what he would need.  I answered and I heard him chatting with his friends when I said hello.  He paused long enough to say “Hello mom?” I said, “Yes?”  He answered “I Love You!”

   “I love you, too.  What do you need?” I said

   “Nothing, I just wanted to tell you that I love you”

   “Really, that’s really sweet of you”

   “Bye”

   Before he hung up I heard him chatting with his friends again.  I thought 'what kind of 12-year-old boy does that'.  For all his friends to hear he calls his mom just to say I love you.  That's Roderick, both experiences indeed very Roderick.

Friends Remember

Roderick, you are such an amazing carefree guy, I remember how you always came to school everyday with a smile on your face.  You were always cracking jokes and making people laugh.

I will always remember the time we were playing soccer in your back yard and you kicked the ball so hard to the sky that we couldn’t see it anymore than out of nowhere it came down and hit your neighbours roof.  I will never forget that face of  ‘o shoot, what do we do” we rock, paper, scissored to see who would have to hop the fence to get it. Thank goodness I won.

We were jumping on the trampoline together and Roderick decided to take a big jump to double jump me and I went flying over the mesh but I just managed to grab the mesh then without hesitation he helped grab me and pull me back before I hit the ground saving me of the fall although he did decide to grab the hose and spray me with ice cold water.  We loved to snowboard together, I remember us snowboarding down a black diamond trail and tried to snowboard around the bike trail and because he was the most daring he went first which lead him plummeting off a 20 foot cliff of rock only to be sitting at the bottom laughing because he was ok and he knew I had to go next and there was no other way down.  Not sure how he made it uninjured with all that speed but then again he was the toughest guy I knew.

Roderick you were the happiest guy I knew, always had a smile on his face and also put smiles on everyone else’s face.  Thank-you for making retailing funny.

Roderick, I can’t believe you are gone but I am glad that you are in heaven.  The canoe trip we went on last summer really showed who you were, always being the first one to do something scary like jumping off of the island into the water.  It will never be the same without you and I will never forget all the good times we had together.

Dear Roderick, We have so many amazing memories, After one class you held me down, I expected you to hit me softly you pounded on my arm, until I couldn’t feel it.  Than I was hitting you gently, than you made me hit you as hard as I can, and you barely felt it.  Miss you Rod, rest easy bud!

The first time I went to the farm was for “take your kid to work day” and he loved showing me around the farm.  When we actually started working he started chucking eggs at me and after he made me clean it all up.  Another time we were at the farm he had to move the dead chickens into the compost and I of course was too scared to move them and he just started chucking chickens at me.  I have so many crazy and stupid memories with Roderick.