Christian Suffering & A Holy Death

Clive Cabey is a brother to me in the deepest sense of the word. We were college roommates and best man at each other's weddings. We taught together at Hackett Catholic HS in Kalamazoo, MI, and left the Catholic church together to join the Vineyard. We've shared intense joys and sorrows together. Last week Clive lost his father to cancer. I wanted to share (with his permission) an email Clive sent about his father's passing. As you read it, think of Paul's words from Philippians 3:10-11, "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead." Please keep Clive and his mother in your prayers.


Around 3:30AM this morning my father, Charles Cabey, went to be with the Lord. As many of you may remember he was diagnosed with terminal cancer in February of this year. His last days with us were hard as he suffered much. But they were inspiring because we saw him being transformed day by day more & more into the likeness of Our Lord. Wednesday morning he awoke from being in a deep sleep for several days and he called for me saying that he was to die soon. Emily & I went over to my parents' & sat at his bedside. He opened his eyes and told me " God is alive. God is alive in all things. Jesus is THE Lord not A Lord. Jesus is not the Lord in certain things. He is the Lord in ALL things". He told us how much he loved us and then he said he was happy. I prayed with him and read the Psalms with him & as weak as he was he repeated several of the verses as I read them. These were his last words to me as he went back into a deep sleep that he did not awake from until he went to be with the Lord this morning. The Sunday before he indicated that he was beginning to experience the presence & the light of the Lord. For weeks before he died his every waking moment was spent vocally praising and giving thanks to God. In the past few years I have witnessed my father becoming more and more like Christ and growing to be a man of great faith and purity of heart. The past few months tested his faith but did not destroy it. Instead his faith was strengthened even more... I can only hope to be more like him as he persevered in his faith in God's goodness and his praise of our Lord to the very end.

My Dad went home to be with our Lord. I wanted to share with you his final words. And to ask you to pray for us to have strength and to be able to immitate his faith.