I went to a church site that had a sermon preached by Dave Petrescue in January of this year.
It’s not so much that Dave said anything new. As a matter of fact, his words carried the same passion he displayed when he was in high school. His heart cry was for people to come to know the love of God — on a personal level. The time in Egypt over he past years was an answer to a prayer to God — “surprise me!”
As I watched through the video I caught myself with varying emotions. To watch on video a man who is now deceased causes an emotion I have yet to label. Grief is not the right description. Neither is sadness. There is some mixture of reminiscence, along with a desire to back up a few months. Just enough time to find a way to get together. When you know a final outcome, you are impressed to push back the ticking clock of time to the point before life blows up.
Every once in a while I stopped. I laid my head in my hands and asked a question Dave asks in his sermon — what legacy am I leaving behind — after all, life is short (as it turned out to be for him).
I don’t want to push this death aside. Nor do I wish to merely disregard a number of deaths that have personally affected me in the last year or so. To deal with this requires an unexpectedly high amount of emotional energy, but to work through to understanding and perhaps a “healing” is good for me, and will be a help as I care for others with similar situations.
My desire. With the comfort God is giving me — that I would be able to comfort others..