I would like to take this opportunity to share an experience with you that produced a revelation from the Lord that has brought a precept into my life, hard as it was to receive, that has sustained me through many trials.
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It was another lonely morning. My husband, Ron, had left for his job at the Kennedy space Center and I was left with an empty apartment again. Our three sons had all moved out within months of each other. Terry was first. He felt he needed the privacy of his own apartment. "After all, Mom," he said, "I'm over 21 you know."
Next, Terry's twin brother, Ronnie, married a lovely young girl named Chris. Terry's apartment was just a few blocks south of us and Ronnie's house, just a few blocks north. I saw them regularly, but they no longer needed me to do things for them.
Mike was the last to leave. He and Ronnie married in the same month. Mike was only 17. He and his girl friend came to us in tears. She was pregnant and her parents were demanding an abortion. "Dad, won't you talk to her parents," Mike pleaded. "They'll listen to you."
We knew they were too young, but there was another life involved. I thought about little Shanan that morning. She would be a year old in a few days. Mike and Susan stayed with us till she was born, but now they had their own place.
I tried to push away the loneliness by thinking of all the things I had to be thankful for. Terry was doing well in his job at the air conditioning company. The drugs seemed to be all in the past. He knew the Lord as his savior, but struggled with the influence of old friends. I thought about Ronnie. He too had tried the drug scene. That was all over now. He was married, his son Micah, was two months old, and Ronnie was the perfect example of a christian husband and father.
I reminded myself, "They're twins, indentical twins. What happens to one always happens to the other." When they were 16 our dentist told us he didn't know why he bothered to x-ray both of them. "It's like taking the same one over again," he said.
Terry's broken collarbone came a year and a half after Ronnie broke his, but it was the same collarbone, broken the same way. That was the way it had always been. Good or bad, what happened to one ALWAYS happened to the other. I was just going to believe that, even though it would take longer with Terry, it would all work out the same.
The silence was broken by a loud knock. As I got up from the table, I saw, through the small window in the door, a policeman. Ron had not been gone long and that early morning traffic was always pretty rough. The first thing I thought was, "Maybe there's been an accident." My hand was shaking as I opened the door.
"Are you Mrs. McCune?" the policeman asked.
"Yes."
"Terry's mother?"
"Yes."
He stepped inside and as he did, he motioned toward the love seat beside the door and said, "Perhaps you should sit down."
As I did he continued, "I have just come from your son Terry's apartment. He was found dead just a few moments ago. He has been taken to the hospital and though he hasn't been pronounced dead yet, there is no doubt. He apparently overdosed on some drugs. They will be able to tell you more at the hospital."
I wanted to scream, but as I tried, there was just a whisper of a sound. I felt a pressure within my head that wouldn't let up. It seemed that a scream would relieve that pressure, but it wouldn't come. Terry had called just the day before. He was on his lunch hour and he called to tell me he loved me. He was always doing something like that.
The policeman was still talking but I was not really hearing. He gently shook my shoulders, "Can you hear me?" he asked..
"Yes," I nodded.
"Can you tell me how to contact your husband?"
I tried to think of the number, but my mind was blank. I told him it was written on the bulletin board beside the phone.
He must have found the number because I could hear his voice, but it seemed so far away.
"Do you want me to remain here till your husband arrives?" he asked as he came back into the room.
"No," I said, "I'll be all right."
As he left, the quiet in the room became like a weight.
"Ronnie," I thought, "I must call Ronnie." It was hard to walk. Everything was numb. I got to the phone and dialed. Chris anaswered.
"Let me talk to Ronnie," I said. It was still a whisper. Sound was strange to me. It was hard to hear and hard to speak.
I heard Chris say, "I think it's your Mom, but she sounds funny."
"Mom?" asked Ronnie, "Is that you? Is everthing all right?"
"It's Terry - he's dead."
"Mom, are you sure?"
"He's dead! He's dead!" I realized I was yelling and the sound was hurting.
"How did it happen?" Ronnie asked.
"Drugs - an overdose - that's all I knowl"
"I'll be right there," he said.
I went back and sat down. Again the past came flooding in. What happened to one always happened to the other. What I had wanted so much to be true a few moments ago, I now wanted, even more, to be false. I kept telling myself, "It's a superstition, an old wives tale; it's just not true."
Ronnie and his dad came almost at the same time. We all just stood in silence. I looked at my husband and remembered the day, 23 years before, when I looked at him in the hospital and said, "Twins, can you believe it? Two sons all at once." How different the scene this day.
"Have you called Mike?" Ronnie asked.
"No," I replied, "would you do it?"
As he went to the phone, Ron sat down and put his arms around me. I prayed quietly - "please Lord, don't let anyone quote the scripture, 'All things work together for good...' I don't want to hear it." I made a mental note to myself, "When you are with someone going through a time of sorrow, don't quote that verse, just love them."
When Mike came they all left to take care of whatever needed done. The policeman had said something about identifying the body.
In 25 years I had never seen Ron with anything but great strength on his countenance, but when he returned, he was like a little boy who needed very much to cry. That's what we both did. For how long I don't know.
The next few days were like something in a fog. Of course, almost everyone I saw said, "Remember now, all things work together for good to them that love God."
The autopsy report said Terry shot morphine in his arm and had overdosed. The investigation proved it to be accidental.
Some months later a friend of ours, who was president of a Bible School in up-state New York, had been wanting us to visit him. Ron felt it would be good to get away for a while, so we planned a trip to the school. While we were there we were asked to pray about taking the position of co-directors of a Christian retreat center the school owned on Long Island. Up to this time the ministry had only been part time and Ron always had a full time job. We said we would pray about it.
Six months later, Ron resigned his position and, after another six months of orientation at the school, we were on our way to Long Island. The day after we arrived at the retreat center, a phone call came from Ronnie.
"I'm going into the hospital tomorrow for some tests," he said.
"I have some lumps that are suspicious. I just wanted you to know so you could be praying."
Then, a couple of days later, a call came again.
"They are malignant, surgery is scheduled day after tomorrow."
It wasn't possible for both of us to fly and driving wouldn't get us there in time. It was decided that Ron would go.
The next two days brought many repeats of that horrible thought I so much wanted to forget. What happened to one always happened to the other.
Then the call from Ron came. "Good news, the doctor said he is certain he got all the cancer and is confident Ronnie will be all right."
Over the next couple of years, we were able to make some trips to Florida to see the family. Ronnie and Chris had another boy, Jesse Daniel. What a joy to see the grandchildren and bring back little drawings to put up on the refrigerator.
We moved to North Carolina to help with a new ministry in Asheville. Ronnie and Chris came up with the boys to spend Christmas with us. I couldn't have been happier.
Then one day another phone call came.
"Mom," Ronnie said, "the lumps have returned. It doesn't look good. I'm going to try some treatments. I'll keep in touch."
Then....
"An operation seems inevitable, can you come?'
We both left Asheville and returned to Florida. When the operation was over, the doctor called us into his office.
"Nothing I could do," he said. "Aorta, veins, all covered with cancer, he has 4 to 6 months. maybe even less."
Three months later Ronnie needed round the clock care. Chris had her sister take care of Micah and Jesse so she and Ron and I could divide the time between us. We felt so helpless. The doctor had taught Chris to give Ronnie shots for pain. Morphine.
We prayed, we claimed scriptures, we prayed, we called everyone we knew and requested prayer, and we prayed again, and again, and again.
Then, just 4 months after the operation and 3 days after his 28th birthday, we heard Ronnie quietly singing. He was very weak and we went to his bedside to hear what the song was. It was "Swing Low Sweet Chariot." He died in my arms. This time the sound came loud and clear - "Why? Why?"
I'm not sure, even now, the answer to my question, but I know that God is sovereign.
A lot of books and tapes on faith were given to us, but all they did was make us feel we were somehow responsible. If only we had enough faith, Ronnie and Terry wouldn't have died!
I called out to the Lord - "I'm using all the faith I have, are you punishing me because it isn't enough?" I asked Him to tell me what faith really is. Obviously I didn't know.
He answered by giving me a poem:
I long to be free from this body of death,
to step out of this garment of pain.
I know there is victory whenever a test
tries my faith
that new strength I may gain;
And yet I know my faith does not lie
in the victory,.
but in Thy unbounding love.
so I wait...
for the fulness of time in my life,
and seek not only to know
that my faith in Thee to fulness must come,
but that Your love is really faith in me.
You made the worlds by the Word of Faith
You spoke and it was so
You breathed into us Your very Life
and knew the way we would go.
But Your love reached out and before we arrive
at a place where faith is the key,
Your love is there, already working
for You sent it through Calvary.
So make me to know not only my faith
In Thee to fulness must come,
But Your faith in me to fulness came
when the work of Your Son was done.
For He was the lamb, the Lamb that was slain
before the foundation of the world,
And I'm living by faith,
Not just my own,
But the faith of Jesus my Lord.
The revelation of God's love - through the faith that Jesus has in me - has done
what all of man's words could not.
In His Love,
.
