Happy Birthday Jason...

Today is Jason's birthday. He would have been 27. This is his first birthday since he passed away. Please keep his dear family and loved ones in your prayers.

I am looking right now at a framed poster on my wall that I got from Jason's mom and dad. The counselors that worked with Jason and Lindsay last summer created a beautiful collage of pictures of them and presented them to Jason's and Lindsay's parents. They each were signed by all of the counselors. What a thoughtful and touching gift! They gave them extra unsigned copies as well. I feel extremely blessed to have been given one of them. I look at it every day and think about the lives that Jason and Lindsay lived. I am challanged to live a better life because of the way they lived and I am grateful for that. The poster has a verse on it that I would like to share. It is the theme that Jason and Lindsay lived by... and continue to live by today in God's heavenly presence:

"So we make it our goal to please Him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it." [2 Corinthians 5:9]

That should be our ultimate goal! Not to live to please ourselves or to please other people... but to please our one true God! There is no greater purpose on earth. Jason and Lindsay knew this and lived it. I am honored to have known Jason when I was growing up and to continue to know his family. They are great people! God has taken this tragedy and has used it for undeniable GOOD. Just recently, in one of my Bible studies, we were talking about why God allows suffering. Sometimes we don't know... but what we DO know is that God allows things to happen to work for good in the hearts of His people. We are allowed to suffer because it strengthens us and it keeps us humble and reliant upon God. If our lives were always perfect and easy... we would have no need to rely on Him... but we go through challenging things because God uses them to shape us into who He wants us to be! God also brings people into His Kingdom through such tragedies and the untimely deaths of Jason and Lindsay are no exception. Many people have come to know Christ through this tragedy because they were deeply touched by the lives that Jason and Lindsay lived! They did not die in vain. God is using this to do great work... and I am confident that there is much He is doing and has yet to do that we don't even know about. That's what I love about God... He is so incredibly faithful. We don't deserve Him but He loves us so much that He pours out his love and mercy upon us, as we are His children. What an awesome God we serve! Nature reflects His glory... and Jason and Lindsay loved God's nature and the outdoors with a passion! They lived to experience God's glory up close and personal. And now they are experiencing God's glory in heaven... a place so perfectly glorious that our minds cannot even begin to comprehend it! We will someday join them there... and I, for one, cannot wait! What an eternity we have to look forward to.

Related passages:

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, Whom He has given us. [Romans 5:3-5]

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith —- of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire —- may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy. [1 Peter 1:6-8]

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. [Genesis 50:20]

~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~

Me and Jason at ages 2 1/2 and 2, respectively. This is one of my favorite pictures.
[Click on photo for larger view!]

Happy birthday Jason!
God bless you... we'll see you someday soon!