Isaiah 28:16Therefore thus says the Lord GOD, "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone, A costly cornerstone for the foundation, firmly placed. He who believes in it will not be disturbed.
In the heart of the south, Indiana to be exact lived a
family who made their living as farmers. John and Esther Hartland were the
present caretakers of their family’s farm, a tradition which dates back to 1810.
Their farm was set on land rich in minerals, suitable for growing soybeans, wheat, and corn. John worked hard at tilling the field and planting the crops
each season and then watching their crops grow knowing they were doing their
part to feed the world.
What most people didn’t know about the Hartland’s was the
tragedy their family faced 20 years ago when little Danny Heartland, just 5 at
the time, ran toward John’s tractor when he disappeared when to John’s horror his
youngest son laid lifeless on the field behind the tractor.
John immediately
stopped the tractor, climbed down, and ran to his son, but instantly he knew
that his youngest child was dead. It
seemed just last week when his parents took a very excited but scared Danny to his
first day of Kindergarten.and when Danny died the way he did, his father
began having nightmares and flashbacks of what might have been different if he
only saw it coming.
The constant wrestling of his thoughts, for a while, made
him too incapacitated to do much farming;
fortunately, the farming community rallied behind John and helped him keep up
with those never-ending farm chores. When her son Danny died, Esther cried out to God, often times sending John out to buy some
additional boxes of tissues whenever she ran out.
When their youngest child died, the community struggled what to call this
type of loss. When the Hartland’s next door neighbor lost his wife, they called
him a widower. When the Hartland’s other
neighbor lost her husband they called her a widow, but there was no name to attached to a family who lost a
child. It seemed incompressible for a
family to bury a child; after all, children are supposed to bury their parents,
right?
Despite the conflicting emotions all the Hartley’s were
experiencing during this time, they kept on going to church in their little
town of Aberdeen, Indiana. Oh, there were lots of mornings when a bad night
of ‘what if’s ‘ made them tired, but as
John told one of his son’s, “ if we stayed home from church because we’re not
feeling well, we will likely not get the encouraging word we just might need
for today.”
They kept right on going, no
matter how they felt from Sunday to Sunday, always clinging onto the promises
of God and the good blessings they experienced in the past. John remembers reading this in the book of
Job where this man who had everything lost it all, but despite the horrific
tragedy Job encountered he never blamed God.
He was determined, as a loving father and husband to Esther, to work
through this tragic loss- and it wasn’t going to be with booze that he sees so
many people in his era using to erase their pain.
John knew that his family needed
a dad who didn’t throw in the towel when bad things happen. He needed to leave a legacy to his children
that Jesus is the firm foundation, no matter what happens to them in life. Losing a child wasn’t an easy road to travel.
John knew that. But each morning he got
up to read his bible and journal his wrenching thoughts, John saw the hope that
was in those pages.
Many years later, the son who
asked if he could stay home because he didn’t feel like going to church, came
over and told his dad that was a pivotal moment in his life because he was
angry at God that God would just let his younger brother die. His son paused before adding, ‘because I saw that
my dad wasn’t quitting, I’m not going to
quit.’ Today, his son continues to
attend a church nearby in Indianapolis where he works.
The moral of the story? God
sent his son, Jesus, to die on the cross so you can experience forgiveness of
your sins and the refreshing aroma of Jesus walking at your side all the days
of your life no matter what happens to you.
No comments:
Post a Comment