My Daddy Is Now With God in Heaven

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As some of you know, I had to leave Tanzania a bit earlier than planned because I received a call that my father's health was in very rapid decline. I would like to thank you for your prayers.

Bec and I left Mbeya in the deep southwest of Tanzania last Friday afternoon and traveled by automobile for a day and a half in order to catch the next available flight out of Dar es Salaam, which was on Sunday morning. Without going into the details, I will only say that I was able to make arrangements with British Airways at Heathrow to get us home earlier than I had previously thought possible. Our original estimated time of arrival at my father's home had been about 10 p.m. on Monday night. However, because of the BA representative's compassionate help, we were able to arrive on Monday afternoon at 1:20 p.m. Every day for four days I had called my daddy and had told him that I was on my way and that I was coming as fast as I possibly could. Before I left for Tanzania in mid-January, he had urged me to go on with my work and had promised me he would be there when I got back. In an extremely faint whisper, he had said, "I'll be here. I may not be able to talk. But I'll be here." So during my four day sprint to his house, he struggled greatly to fulfill his final promise to me. When I walked in the door on Monday, I fell down beside him in tears of joy. My dear Bec kissed and hugged him. He had made it! God had enabled him to wait until we arrived.

I sang and talked and prayed with him over the next several hours there in his bedroom. After some time had passed, I began to feel that he was looking at heavenly realities. I of course could not know for certain, but I began to tell him that I believed that he was seeing things that I could not see. I do think he was. He was very peaceful. Then at about 8:55 p.m. he left us. How thankful I am to the Lord that Bec and I arrived at 1:20 p.m. instead of 10:00 p.m.

Today, as you would expect, my heart is lifted toward heaven in an unusual way, and my thoughts are drawn forward to that which awaits us. I'd like to share some of those thoughts with you.

In a little while, you and I will follow my daddy and all of our other believing loved ones. Yes, we will experience the joy of seeing one another face to face again, and we will marvel at the beauty into which our Savior will have transformed us. But there is something much greater that is awaiting us! Something that will far exceed the joy of our standing face to face with one another! It is that indescribable, infinitely delightful, shoulder to shoulder experience of standing before the One on whose robe and on whose thigh is written the name, "King of Kings and Lord of Lords!"

Yes, I look forward to seeing my mother. Yes, I look forward to seeing my father. I look forward to seeing my daughter Rebecca Elizabeth and my granddaughter Madeleine Grey. But much, much, much more than that, I look forward to standing beside them, as our friend C. S. Lewis says, "looking at the same thing." I look forward to our ears being filled with the sound of "the loud voice of a multitude in heaven", as we all join with them in saying, "Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God . . . ." That vast multitude's voice will be "as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying, 'Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.'"

There we will stand, you and I, side by side, in the midst of millions upon millions of men and women, clothed in the whitest white linen of righteousness. There we will be, surrounded by the holy angels, the worshiping warriors of heaven, with our eyes fixed on the Great King and our voices raised in highest and loudest praise. What a day that will be!

On Saturday morning at ten o'clock, I will stand before a gathering in a small, white frame church out in the country about two hundred yards from my daddy's house, and I will seek to give words that properly honor his life. But more importantly, I hope to give words that will honor his Savior, who listened to the prayers of many people, some of whom prayed for my daddy for decades. God heard their many prayers (and mine) and saved my daddy from his sins and from the wrath to come. I give praise to our Redeemer!

Thank you again for all of your prayers. I would greatly appreciate your continued prayers, especially for the service this Saturday.

In the grace and mercy of our Savior,

Rodney