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| Matt's journal |
Those of you who know me or have read my blog for a while know that I have done numerous posts and series of posts on praying for my descendants, the men of Renewal Ranch, my extended family and their children and grandchildren and my friends' seed. I haven't been as faithful as I wanted to be in posting my prayers for them but you can read some of my heart and prayers for them on the page to the right entitled "Pray With Me."
I say all that to tell you a marvelous miracle that God brought to our family during the time of Matt's death and funeral services. Our long time pastor friend from Tulsa, OK, Gary "Doc" Blevins, officiated. Ever since I have known him (I first met him when he was our oldest son's 8th grade Sunday School teacher), Doc has been passionate, fervent and faithful in leading young people to Christ.
During those years he was my son's Sunday School teacher, he would come over to our home to visit. We would sit around and dream about having a church where he was the pastor and I sang--smile--well, that did eventually come true.
Because my sister and her family made many trips to Tulsa and spent all of their vacations there, Doc naturally came to know Matthew Daniel Duke --as he always referred to him, when years later, every time I would see him, he would always ask me how Matthew Daniel Duke was doing. It just seemed appropriate that he conduct Matt's services.
One of the things Doc has a gift for is leading people to Christ--helping them to understand God's plan for salvation and why we need a Savior--he explained this at Matt's services and then............. He asked everyone who wanted to and felt led to to repeat after him the prayer of asking Jesus Christ in to their heart and life, accepting His forgiveness for their sins and becoming a new creation in Christ.
He also asked those of us who were sure we had done this already to join in the prayer in recommitment and support for those who were doing it for the first time. So there we were --a full chapel and all of my family praying together to receive Christ. It was a beautiful moment. The best I can count about 50 members of my own family and probably 200 more were praying together.
Of course, I don't know how many received Christ and his free gift of salvation that day but if it was one, I thank and praise God from the bottom of my heart.
My oldest son did call me to tell me that a teacher from his school told him about this the next day after a faculty meeting: The teacher's sister-in-law called to tell her that a co-worker had been to a funeral the day before where they talked a lot of God (she was not a believer)--she had made arrangements to go out with the teacher's sister-in-law to find out more about "this God" that she had heard about--yes, at Matt's funeral.
God is faithful--I humbly, once again, ask for your prayers for my family and would you either email me or tell me in the comments section how I can pray for you and your family? I know we are not the only ones going through hard times. And I would consider it an honor to pray for you and yours.
