Blessed Assurance of eternity ~ does matter

My best friend in life Bonnie, her father has been for over 9 months diagnosed with brain cancer and fighting it with all that medicine can throw at it.. It was also discovered in his lung as he was being treated. the first 6wk round of chemotherapy he sailed pretty much right through, although it should have made him sick but for Lou it didn't.. in spite of them recommending that he limit his diet to subtle and really bland foods, he prefers Mexican and so that is what he continued to indulge in..So the way Lou handled life, his way. By the end of treatments, what shouldn't have made him sick, did.  The tumors disappeared in the brain and he functioned pretty normal in his routine, driving himself to the treatments, meeting Bonnie there each time where she would sit with him through the hours it took and them just talking. She eventually had to pick him up as the treatments started to be more difficult on his body and weakness set in.

Bonnie's father Lou is the best kind of dads in that he has loved her well, she was his princess (after her mother) and he loved her 3 brothers Scott, Patrick, Michael. As a man he was generous, compassionate, caring, giving, community servant to the city of Paramount. He supported his family in whatever they wanted to pursue for their life, defended them in their choices, whether they worked out for success or they had to learn from a failure in what they pursued. He shot straight, told you what he was thinking in his southern drawl of West Virginian.  He imparted a ethic of hard work, fear of nothing, contributing to family, society and being of the highest integrity. Lou is the oldest of 15 kids in his family having the responsibility of helping to raise many of them from a young age financially and emotionally. He went into the Air Force immediately after graduating from High School, where at nineteen he was fighting in Korea as a communication specialist, & became a POW for 34 months at the mercy of the Koreans.. When he returned to the states, he courted and married the love of his life, Norie.  The unpleasant memories of war led him to become a substantial drinker, functional, yet medicating the memories, but it slowed him down in no way from performing his life very well in all aspects.. Lou took care of his family, providing, being a great baseball coach, and his home was opened to those who stopped by at dinner time or needed a place to get back on their feet with a roof over their head. While he's been sober a lot of years now, Lou was never a religious man, but he made sure his family was always "brought" to church although he wasn't much for attending himself. He might have had some religious instruction in his youth before the war, but he was struggling with how a God of love could allow the war to linger on and he enduring what he went through.

While he's had decades of heart problems, etc, yet, while in this cancer fight which had a no cure prognosis, only lengthening his life from months to a couple of years. The urgency of knowing whether he is saved has been of many thoughts, prayers and attempted conversations...... But the conversations were not long as he didn't want to talk about it.. Many people have Lou's thinking that I've been as good as I can be and hopefully the Lord will take that into account against the bad when life is done.. And so that makes the uncertainty of whether eternity is that persons or not, a pain in a loved ones heart that leaves you hoping that you will be assured that they do believe in Jesus Christ before they have breathed their last. Many prayers for assurance were prayed to this end.. and God is good...

Well, that assurance did come, praise Jesus.  Lou's youngest sister Emily and her husband Charles visited Lou about 3 weeks prior to his death.  And while he had previously in life been stand offish at anyone speaking to him about Jesus, Charles made the bold conversation of talking about God, others who had died in the family, and how the assurance of eternity is through Jesus Christ only.  Lou acknowledged his belief, and that he had made things right with the Lord in these last weeks. Those who were there that day prayed together, and cried tears of joy and relief.  As Hospice came in to take care of him, he had a christian nurse, and the hospice has a priest who came to see Lou, and he told Lou he was their for conversation and to pray with him would he be okay with that.  Lou was very open to having the priest pray with him now, offering his hand out to him.  When the priest was leaving, he asked Lou if he could come by and visit him in 2 weeks, and Lou answered in a very Lou kind of way with "well yes, if I'm still around then"..  unfortunately, Lou was not.  After numerous weeks of being lovingly cared for by his children and hospice, he quietly in his sleep passed from this life into the arms of Jesus for eternity.

Lou Adkins  June 18, 1931 - March 13, 2011.. He leaves behind a wife, 1 daughter, 3 sons, 10 grand kids and a slew of family and friends who will miss him greatly.  He was honored on Friday March 18th with a military service at Riverside National Cemetery where our nation does an awesome tribute to servicemen. Lou had earned many medals, but the Purple Heart and Distinguished Service are highly regarded.  Saturday a memorial service and dinner of his favorite foods Tri Tip /mashed potatoes / steamed vegetables / a variety of desserts.  His children each spoke tremendously honoring words and shared stories of who their dad was to them, their children, and how he impacted their lives. Many of his friends also shared some good stories, laughs, and a group of four men shared collectively how he "was their father" when they had none, and how they were mentored, encouraged and instructed how to be men.

I've known for a long time that my friend Bonnie's strength, her emotional & spiritual gifts came from who her dad raised her to believe she was.  I was truly impacted by how the depth of who he was at the end of his life.  I knew him for a short time, but it was an absolute privilege to love him for who he was..