DO ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD TO THEM WHO LOVE ME?
I just couldn't believe the news. Surely, someone had heard it, but they passed it along wrong. I heard it when I went to a church member to be paid for work I had finished on the previous Saturday. I called around to other members to make sure it was in fact true. Our beloved Pastor and friend went home to be with the Lord on April fifteen, two thousand twelve.
Three weeks prior to Gene's passing, I heard the HOLY SPIRIT say, "Retirement," as the only three who showed up that night for the Saturday night evening sacrifice (prayer meeting) laid hands on Gene and prayed for his health. He had been feeling tired and was retaining water. Some weeks prior, he had some type of eye surgery to help him see better, but it wasn't healing like it should. It was congestive heart failure which took him out.
So I knew Gene would be leaving, but I did not in my wildest imagination think "heaven". For whatever reason, I remember the HOLY SPIRIT telling me not to tell anyone. I'm still puzzled as to why. Gene was sixty-six years young when he left to go home. His wife, went home about thirteen months ahead of him at the age of sixty-two. She had cancer and passed three days after learning the news.
On Tuesday morning, two days after Gene left, I bowed my head and began to pray, wondering about the "word" I had heard in the previous weeks and what the church was going to do now. And that is when the Lord asked me the question, "Do all things work together for good to them who love me?" And I responded, "Yes, Lord." As I continued to pray, I heard the Lord say, "He is happy, it was his time." But it wasn't until I heard the words, "I have received him," that I knew it was the HOLY SPIRIT and the tears began to fall.
Our congregation is not big by any stretch of the imagination - fifty to sixty people on most Sundays. But Gene was so loved by everyone in our "family". So loved in fact, perhaps selfishly, that after his wife passed away, no one in the congregation wanted him to leave even though he would periodically hint at the desire to do so. But Gene was called by GOD to be a Pastor, even in the times of desperation in his own life. Gene was committed til the very end. Interestingly, just a few days before we prayed for Gene's health, he had asked the congregation a question, "Which is better, to start well or finish well?"
The reason so many people loved Gene was because he was a "giver". He would open his checkbook or wallet almost every time someone would come to him with a need, or any time there was a visiting missionary, music group, or evangelist. I'll bet he had little money to his name when he passed away. His ability to preach or teach wasn't that great, but nobody cared because we all loved him so much. Gene was a "giver" because he was also a "people" person. He genuinely cared about not only the people whom the Lord gave him the responsibility to watch over, but also the people in the community at large. He was known for asking people if there was anything he could do for them.
I wouldn't dare suggest Gene's passing affected me more than those of his own blood relatives, but I couldn't hardly concentrate on anything for very long without thinking about Gene. Shortly, after I left the Adventist church and began attending a pentecostal church, I mentioned to Gene one Sunday as I was about to exit that if he ever left the church, I was going to stop going. He quickly made it clear he wasn't the most important part of the church.
I've been attending for almost seven years. For the first couple of years, Gene was the greatest example of a follower of Christ which I had ever met except for an Adventist friend who passed away several years ago. But around 2007, I began to be one of Gene's greatest critics. It occurred to me, Gene was not a "faith" person; he was a "hope" person. I got the impression he would often do things which leaned more to pleasing the people which he pastored than seeking the Lord's Will and doing accordingly. There were two or three occasions when I stopped attending for a period of time because I was unhappy with something Gene did, or I felt the Lord was moving me in a different direction.
Before returning the last time, the Lord began to impress upon me to read Romans chapter thirteen. It took me awhile to get it. But the Lord finally got it through my thick skull when HE said, "Gene is there because I want him there. And you're going to go back, or you will go no further with me." OUCH! The day I returned, I heard the Lord say, "This is your family." My jaw just about hit the floor when Gene said about two weeks after that our congregation was a family.
Shortly after Gene's wife passed away, I asked Gene to forgive me for the way I had acted towards him on occasion, and for speaking out during his preaching. The Lord had finally showed me I wasn't the great Christian I thought I was, and the critical nature I had displayed toward Gene did not have the Lord's approval. Even though Gene wasn't everything I thought an on fire servant of the Lord should be and was right to think accordingly, the Lord made it clear to me I was judging Gene unrighteously. It was not easy to ask Gene for his forgiveness and tell him I was sorry for all the grief I had caused him. But through all of it, Gene just continued to show me the love of GOD, even availing himself to me when I had something on my mind I wanted to share, or making the church available to me by giving me a key when I wanted to go to the sanctuary to be alone with the Lord. For whatever reason, I make it hard for people to befriend me. It is probably why I also feel a great loss when they are no longer here.
I miss Gene because of a "word" the Lord spoke to me last year. HE told me the church was going to grow. We were just beginning to see the Lord's Word come to pass when the Lord allowed Gene to go home. Gene had felt a personal burden for the church, pastoring an aging congregation and seeing the number of people dwindling year after year. I know he felt somehow responsible even though he worked so hard to try to encourage people to stay who were in that place of wanting something from GOD instead of wanting to give something to GOD; their life. And he so wanted people to know GOD, HIS true love for them, and the power of HIS SPIRIT through faith in Christ Jesus to truly change their lives. But he finally wore out.
The last sermon Gene preached was Resurrection Sunday. When he gave the invitation for people to accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour, three people came forward. At the dinner afterwards, I caught Gene alone for a moment and put my arm around him. I leaned toward his ear and said, "Well, you got what you wanted." And he just shook his head slightly and said, "Yeah." Lawrence Gene Gilmore went home to be with the Lord that night at eight p.m., and he ain't look'in back. "In the presence of the Lord is the fullness of joy."
Thank you Holy Father, in the Name of Jesus, for knowing YOUR love toward me through Gene. Oh GOD, that I could be half the person he was. Forgive me Lord, by the blood of YOUR love sacrifice on my behalf, and deliver me from critical and condemning spirits. I pray thee, Lord, for a true love in my heart for others, and hope they would see YOU and not me. In YOUR Name Jesus. |
