I wonder how many times in the last six months I have told you that.  Now you are with Jesus and nobody will ever have to tell you again, because you are experiencing it completely! 

With tears in my heart, I want to dedicate this post to our beloved friend, Isaac Coates.   This young man has left an influence on so many lives like few people ever could.  He is a brother to Melissa, my heroine below, and her husband Daniel.  They were extremely close, so please pray for her and Isaac’s whole family, his mother Joy, and other sisters Shanna, Brianna, Gretta, and Amy.  Their Daddy welcomed Isaac into heaven today, as far as we can know.  For more information on the accident, please check out our friends’ blog at www.xanga.com/innerjoy 

There are few words for the pain in my heart … when it’s someone so close to you, sometimes the details are hard to talk about in the midst of the numb shock.  Those of us who love Isaac (and we are many) feel so far away and helpless to do anything but pray for his friends and loved ones there, and weep together here. Shortly after Isaac disappeared, I got a call on my phone from our mutual friend Michael, who was swimming with him.  Since that time, amidst many tears and cries to God, I have been thinking deeply.    I would like to share a tribute to Isaac tonight. 

Isaac impacted my own life in a way almost no one has, and in a few months time, he became as close as the closest brother to me.  Even then, I have known few people with the depth and insight and sensitivity and compassion that Isaac has.  The last year of his life has been tough, with lots of questions and searchings for him.  For some reason, in the midst of the heat of the spiritual battle he was in, he priviledged me deeply by dropping by several times for a cup of coffee and to share his heart.  In a very short time, I felt like I had known him forever, and I loved him deeply.  We kept in touch from then until two weeks ago when he left to spend a few weeks in Central America with his family.  I’ve missed him incredibly, but we were all looking forward to seeing him again in two weeks when our family plans to go down.  I didn’t know I would have to wait till Heaven.

 I cannot explain how, but God used Isaac to stir my heart toward God in one of the deepest revivals I have ever experienced in my life.  It is so deep, in fact, that it has been hard to talk about.  God drew my heart to His in love and in compassion for souls like never before.  He stirred me to realize His calling upon my own life in a very profound way.  He put a burden on my heart to pray for this dear son of His, as I somehow always knew he was … and that burden stayed there every day for the last five or six months.  God loved that man, and He wanted Him by His side, I am convinced.  Many nights, God would not let me sleep because the compelling love and burden to pray was so real, and He taught me more about what true intercession really was through Isaac.   The love that God poured into my heart for his soul was so that I didn’t know what do with it sometimes … that is the way God is.

I saw in Isaac a gift that is rare to the world.  It is hard to explain here, but it seemed the magnitude of his potential for God was beyond most human beings’.  The devil knows these special people, and he is a master at trying to destroy them.  But I thank God that he is defeated.  Perhaps that is the best gift Isaac has given me.  That is the continual opportunity to exercise faith in a God Who is so much bigger than most of us ever allow Him to be, in our lives, and in everyone else’s life.  And I rejoice to know that my dear brother friend indeed turned his heart toward God and once again found peace in that relationship.  In one of our last conversations, he told me that he hadn’t been so happy in a long while as he was right then.  My last memory of him is a warm good-bye hug and the peace I saw in his eyes the night he left the states to be with his family.  Thank-you, Jesus.

This afternoon, for awhile my thoughts were frantic towards God, “You have to show yourself strong once more and save his life!!”  But gradually, God touched my heart with His peace, and through my tears and groanings for Isaac’s dear family and all of us who love him so much, there came a growing realization of God.  Once again, He is bigger than us all.  We thought God needed Isaac here to make a difference in His kingdom.  But God loved Isaac.  He wants to give him rest and shower him with the Father love that Isaac so longed for.  He wants to wipe away all his tears and answer all his questions and hold Him near.   He did use him countless times, even in the darkest hours of his life here.  I didn’t think that was fair, that others were changed so positively by his life when his own difficulties were huge to him, but he cared so much about people.   I can still see him tilt his head in that caring manner and hear his sincere parting words uttered so often, “Take care …”  

 God did it then and is even now using him to make a difference.  But for Isaac himself, there is rest.  Just rest, and a new body with all ten fingers intact, and joys indescribable forever.    That is how God is.                                        

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

                                                               

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It would be selfish to wish him back.  Tho’ the tears flow freely as we miss everything about him so much, God gives grace to say, ‘Thy will be done.’

Lord, please comfort his dear family.   Please comfort us all … he had so many, many friends.