Mourning to Dancing

This blog serves as a way to share my heart after losing the one I loved, Jody Moreing Frankfurt, to lung cancer. My hope is that as I learn to mourn her loss, that I will glorify God. Thank you for reading this blog! Please feel free to comment - it is a tremendous encouragement to me.

Sunday, December 31, 2006

The Last Post of 2006


I praise You with tears, YHWH, for the reality that my wife is in Heaven with you, because you provided the glorious gospel, the Word made flesh - even the incarnate Christ, who suffered and died on a cross to save her soul, and who conquered death that she may live forever in joy and perfection with you. By the same faith, I will see her again - Hallelujah - I exalt you Lord.

Thank you, my God, for breaking me into bits in 2006. Please, for the sake of Jesus Great Name, help me see and savor Him, my King Jesus, more and more everyday. I am undone and need your help.

Thank you, Heavenly Father, for your mercy and for using Jody's death to soften my heart for you. Come quickly Lord - take me out of here - or be pleased to use me in a way that truly advances your agenda - that men and women would be saved, and that believers would be built up, strengthened, and led in true worship.

You, most exalted Lord, are all I want, all I need, all I have, and all I desire.

In your most high, most exalted, most holy Name, amen.

Friday, December 29, 2006

Seeing and Savoring


Hello Dear Friends,

I am so grateful for all of you who pray for me. Christmas was a time for me to reflect on Christ and the realities of the incarnation. By far, it was the most challenging period of time for me since Jody went home. Tremendous sorrow, pain, loneliness and emptiness are mine - yet I've never been more blessed. I say that because God meets me in these days as never before and lifts me up - and I can only worship in response. He has allowed me to experience a teeny tiny taste of Christ's suffering - but has comforted me with His mercy and overwhelming compassion. Much of this compassion manifests itself in the love and care I receive from friends and family, and you who read, write, pray and help. Thank you! I am also treasuring every thought and memory of my beloved and there is much comfort there too. I miss everything about my sweet Jodgees.

I did a little traveling, enjoyed the company of dear family and friends, even had a snow day that left me speechless with it's marvelous beauty.

One of the blessings I enjoyed last week was reading John Piper's "Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ". It helps you do just that. It looks at the Savior as if examining the facets of a diamond. The written prayers alone (13 of them) sent my soul soaring. I highly recommend it.

My love to you all. Treasure those you love!

Psa. 50:23 "He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors Me; And to him who orders his way aright I shall show the salvation of God."

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Faith Builder

I am so thankful! Your prayers are such a help. I was enabled by the Lord to share my heart in a Sunday School class - "Faith Builders". Indeed the experience was just that to me - a real faith builder - because God was so near to me during the fifteen minute talk. I didn't choke up until the last sentence. The sweetest folks - some I knew and some I just met - were such an encouragement afterwards.

I admit there was a lot of tension in my mind about accepting the invitation to speak about Jody like this. "Is this for You, Lord - or for me?" My prayer is that God would use what I share in any context to encourage others - especially those who are facing similar trials. In the end, I believe it was both. By sharing some of what I am learning through this with the men of Faith Builders, I met some that were genuinely helped by the Lord. Simultaneously, by preparing to share about Jody, I had such a sweet "communion" with her. It was a tearful, painful preparation, but I enjoyed the warmth of meditating about her in this special way. Thank you, my exalted Savior, for blessing me even with Jody's memory.

I've given up hope that my heart will grow stronger as time marches on. It only gets weaker and more lovesick. I realize where this is going. It's going to hurt more and more, deeper and deeper for a very long time. I am still paralyzed in the house and can't bear to move any of her things. I hate the idea of living in a type of shrine - but I just can't avoid it yet. I am trying my best to do normal things but they are empty. So, I revert back to what I know is true about God, and He meets me in those thoughts. I love the Lord. Be sure to thank Him for your next breath, for your next righteous thought, for the light of His Word, for the Spirit that comforts and teaches, and for the Lamb that was slain that you might not experience Hell, but instead an everlasting, face to face, holy, purposeful, glorious existence in His Kingdom! After all, He may return tonight! Come quickly Lord!

Rev. 22:1-8 Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever. And he said to me, "These words are faithful and true"; and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent His angel to show to His bond-servants the things which must soon take place. "And behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is he who heeds the words of the prophecy of this book." I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed me these things.

Saturday, December 02, 2006

In The Garden


Hello Dear Friends,

Jody has been with Jesus for a little more than two months. Can you imagine it?

When I visit the grave - where her body awaits it's resurrection at the second coming of our Lord - I find that I really enjoy picking the flowers from our garden, just as she would. I am not talented in this area, but it is so good to grab her little basket, the clippers, a glove - and make the rounds about the house clipping the best of the blooms. (She would do this almost every week.) Then, with tears, I arrange them all in a vase, making a futile attempt to create something any where near as nice as the way she might do it.

Preparing this way makes my time at her grave more meaningful. I feel a simple connection to her, and her special way of doing things. How I miss you my, darling!

Please pray for me as I share a brief testimony with an "Adult Fellowship Group" (Sunday School) on the 10th of December. I simply want to say what God would have me say, particularly to the husbands. Thank you in advance for your sweet concern for me. It gives me so much strength to know others are faithful to pray.

Phil. 3:8-10 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

1Th. 4:13-18 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.