Root beer floats, PBJ's, and Jesus...Light shining...Matt...

I sit here in the night...listening to the memorial service for Matt Rusher...the stories told bring back pictures in my mind of him as a boy...more of when I feel I knew him a little more...but really I know I didn't know him...but in becoming a closer friend with his mom...I have been touched by her loss...I add this to where I had started writing soon after Matt was taken Home...a comfort to have that Peace...of those left behind...but still...I wrote...and I weave words written prior and words written now and think how there seems to be a connection...and reminders of a life...I barely knew...and so the other night I write...

And she weeps...a mother's tears...though not near her...I feel her heart crying...this child of mine...

And she cries...a young wife...alone in the darkness...this was not how she thought she would spend this night...

In the fleet of a second...a moment...lives forever changed...that this will be a measure of time...before and after...

Yet there is peace...peace in the fact that the one gone...LOVED and was LOVED...by this one called Jesus...Joy in our sorrow...Light in our darkness...Comfort in our pain...

There are no words that can be said that will take away this pain...this process...this process of life...I heard a song tonight on my drive home..."life is short even in its longest days".   And I reflected from earlier I had drove near where this young man said farewell to this world...I did not know him well...I remember him as a younger man...but I know his mother...and I know her heart hurts...to say goodbye to this child of yours...even though a man...always your baby....grasping tightly to HOPE...held up by love and prayers.   PRAYER...  

And I have posted in here songs I have been given at different times thinking of this family...and feeling the pain they must feel...this song seemed to be one...and I have to think Matt loved music as I seem to have had an influx of songs to include...but this one...Give me Jesus...not sure I have heard this version...but the other morning...it was a prayer...

 

I look at a picture his mother posted...I always remembered Matt in a cowboy hat...western attire...and so when I saw this photo...I wondered who the children and then I kept hearing of Matt's heart for the Philippines...and this smile just seems to shout JOY!

 

And after hearing stories...of seeing such pictures I understand why I had already pasted this song in...another song not that familiar with...one that seemed to find its way into this blog for a reason...

I messaged back and forth with Sandy...Matt's mom...and there in lies my connection...her and I have been connected by a Power higher than our own...one of those connections that I feel the Lord uses the social media to reach out...and so I ask her if it is okay to share Matt's last text to her to which she said yes.   In checking if it was okay to share my writing that it seemed to still be a work in progress... she told me that they would be putting up from Matt's farewell (it was my understanding he didn't want a funeral) and so I include the link... http://riverordway.com/#/resources/media for any that would like to listen...I laugh when she tells me that it has everything but the root beer floats and PB J's they shared...and so the name of this blog...of listening to the service I didn't attend...and so I share her text...pretty comforting words if a mom has to receive last words...

This is the last text I received from my Bubba

"I am no longer defined
By all the wreckage behind
The one who makes all things new ...
has proven it’s true
Just take a look at my life

Hello, my name is child of the one true King
I've been saved, I've been changed, I have been set free
"Amazing Grace" is the song I sing
Hello, my name is child of the one true King"

 

But I also received other gifts to share...gifts I captured...gifts that the Good Lord seemed to share for some reason.  As many of you know...I think sometimes God uses birds...butterflies...dragonflies...as reminders of those we have lost...sending us hugs from heaven...and the other day I felt pulled to take a walk...I did not take my camera which I usually do but I set off for a short jaunt wondering why the urgency to take this walk...when I came upon the old concrete...I knew why...there sat a yellow breasted bird...I think a meadowlark...but as most know....I am terrible in deciding what type of bird......though I want to call him a meadowlark...but it just stays there and I take out my phone which doesn't take the crispest shots and begin to click away as the words of a song that makes me think of my mother who has gone on...but just a song I love to sing and so I add a picture verse and another song...

 

 

 

And when I go to find one of my favorite versions of Allison Krauss...it pulls up from O Brother Where Art Thou...and I think about Matt working for the prison...and free from those walls...so I include that one...

 

 

So in thinking that I had got a picture for Matt...a link to his farewell...I thought tonight I will finish his blog...when on the way home...was quite the sunset if any of you seen it...it had a dust and red but the light was amazing...and so I stopped and snapped some...and then it seemed as though...that sunset much like the loss of Matt...there is darkness and turmoil and the sadness of losing one so young...who brought so much light to others...and I thought yes...look at that sunset...even in the dark...the light shined...a reminder to all of us...to let our lights shine...that even in the storms that brew...the verse that accompanied it from Matthew though I seen he went by Mathias...so I share "Mathias' Sunset"...



 

 

So I close with a song that I shared with Sandy...one that makes me think of my favorite son-in-law...one that makes me understand a little more what this family is going through...but thinking of we will see you again...and I think of a verse that the Lord has shared with me and I understand the connection all the more...because it is the loss of one that was lost too soon...of a mother's love...a wife's heart...

 

Luke 1:79New King James Version (NKJV)

⁷⁹ To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,
To guide our feet into the way of peace.”

 

 

Love and prayers of comfort and peace in these days...may you feel the love of the Lord and of their precious Matt...and a reminder that though the formal farewell is over...a family still grieves...they are hitting the real life part...remember them...even if it is a prayer...a short message saying I am thinking of you...a phone call...an invite to dinner...let our lights shine...

 

lyp