OT: Asking For Prayers/Mojo - Religion Allowed - Fleet Approved

[La Costa Boy]

Rob and Lety.

Thank you

Done my friend. And it will be done everyday.

[FoutsFan]

Done my friend. And it will be done everyday.

Thank you, I can feel the prayers from everyone. It makes a difference.

[FoutsFan]

Here are my notes from Isaac's eulogy. Thanks again to everyone, especially Fleet for giving me somewhere to vent, talk, and work this out.

Isaac’s Eulogy
Isaac’s story is one of love, hope, and inspiration. In Isaac’s moment of despair, Jesus met Isaac, weeping along side of him. Jesus understood his pain because when He was here on earth, Jesus was 100% God, yet 100% man. Christ knew Isaac’s heart and innermost thoughts and feelings. The Lord came down from heaven to take our baby home and free him from his pain. Jesus guided him to heaven. When Isaac met his heavenly Father, God placed the best robe on his shoulders, (his perfected in glory, shoulders), placed a ring on his hand, called the saints and the heavenly hosts, behold my son has returned, Isaac is now home, come let us celebrate!
The most important thing anyone, young or old can have is life assurance, no, not life insurance, but life assurance. Where will you go when your brief time on Earth is over? Paul tells us in James 4:14 “whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.” The most important thing you can do for you, is your life assurance. Do you have a relationship with Jesus? Have you accepted him as your Lord and savior? If you have, is he the Lord of your life? In John 5:24 Jesus tells us “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.” Jesus could not be more clear, he died for our sins, ALL of our sins, past, present, and future. Salvation is a gift that he gives freely, along with grace, love, and mercy. He never runs out of these, he never stops loving us, he never stops trying to draw us close to him. All we have to do is accept his gift, say yes Jesus I want you as the Lord and Savior of my life, seek him, and he is good and faithful to find you. Isaac loved the Lord; Isaac loved to serve the Lord. Isaac had life assurance, Lety and I know this as God has spoken to us over and over, with dreams, his voice, through his Holy Word, with prayers from friends and family, as well as the perfect text from others arriving at just the right time which could only be divine appointment. Knowing that Isaac is in heaven, in a perfect body is also blessed life assurance for us left here to pick up the pieces.

For those of you, who do not know the Lord; know that he is knocking on the door of your heart. You need to answer the door, Jesus will not force his way in, but he will continue to knock. The more you ignore that knock, or put it off for “sometime later” or when I get my house cleaned up I will let him in, the less you will hear the knocking and it will become nothing more than a background noise to which you easily tune out. Answer the door now, invite him in! For those who say, “you don’t know my house, the front room may look nice but the rest of the house is dirty and one of the rooms has been abandoned” or “my house is condemned, I can’t let him in”. Jesus is the son of God, but he is also a carpenter. Invite him in; he is used to dirty and broken houses. He will bring out his carpenter tools and start to work on your house immediately and without question. No house is too damaged or run down for Jesus to repair, stop waiting to fix yourself and trying to get your house in order before asking Jesus in. This is just the enemy trying to take your mind off the real issue which is accepting Jesus in as Lord of your life, and renovator of your home. Open the door! Invite him in! Don’t let this moment pass by, He loves you and very much wants a relationship with you that he died and paid the price with his precious blood for you!

If you have accepted Jesus, have you grown in your personal relationship? Have you prayed lately? Have you told Jesus you loved him lately? Accepting Jesus as your savior assures you of salvation but it does not give you the relationship with Jesus and all the blessings God wants to bestow on you when you follow in His will. It is like getting married, telling your spouse that you love them on your wedding day then not spending time with them or ever telling them that you love them. God loves you, he will follow you anywhere, do anything for that relationship. He will do anything but force you. He wants it to come from you, of your own free will. If you repent, reach out to him he is faithful to you to restore that relationship. The beauty of the parable of the Prodigal son is that is exists on so many levels to so many people. To unsaved people it represents them coming home to the Jesus the first time, it represents Isaac coming home to Heaven, and it represents wayward Christians who have strayed out of the will of God and into the pigpen in a far off land. Every day he is looking, waiting for his children to return and wants to restore them in His glory.

If you have any questions regarding Jesus, or just restoring the joy of your salvation in Jesus please see any pastors here after Isaac’s memorial and they will be glad to help walk you through making that decision.

[FoutsFan]

Here are my notes from Tommy's eulogy. Thank you all again.

Tommy’s Eulogy

Tommy was a Y2K baby, he was born January 19^th 2000, he was my first boy, named after my dad, his grandfather. But yet God knew him before that, Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctifiedyou:” God also knew his whole life as well as the number of his days, Psalm 139:13-16 “¹³ For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. ¹⁴ I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. ¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. ¹⁶ Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.”

Tommy lived a blessed and fulfilled life, he was class president his junior and senior years, he graduated college with his Outdoor Leadership degree and he was a 2^nd Lieutenant in the Army. Yet with all he accomplished in his life, his best achievement and my favorite memory of him is when I got to baptize him in 2007. Tommy loved the Lord; he really liked attending Church of the Highlands and his small group. Tommy enjoyed talking about God and engaging in theological discussions as well. While we grieve the loss of my dear Tommy we also know that Jesus was with him in his time of despair and greeted him in heaven, along with his brother Isaac. I love my Tommy, I miss him so much, but I am comforted knowing that he is with Jesus right now in perfection. 1 Thessalonians 4:13 implores us “But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.” Mine and my family’s grief of Tommy is that we miss him and all the memories we were supposed to keep on making throughout our lives. Our grief is not that we are un assured of his salvation and where he will spend eternity, we know that. God has let us know through his word that Tommy is with him.

In our lives, the most important thing we can do is be saved, accept Jesus into your heart as your Lord and Savior, nothing else you do comes close to that act in terms of impact on your life here on Earth and your soul for eternity. Matthew 10:28 tells us “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” It is not enough to just accept Jesus into your heart; while this guarantees our salvation, it does not guarantee our best life through Jesus Christ. To do this we must make sure to follow these steps. Ephesians 6:10-17 “¹⁰ Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. ¹¹ Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. ¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. ¹³ Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” This scripture confirms to us that we do not fight against the physical world; our fight is in the spiritual realm, the enemy comes to keep us from accepting Jesus, yet once we accept Jesus, the enemy shifts his focus to keeping us from having the life and fulfillment that God has planned for us. We must understand the nature of our enemy and his tactics, only then can we combat him effectively. “¹⁴ Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, ¹⁵ and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.” These are all pieces of warfare that soldiers of that time would wear. The belt, which holds your entire uniform together and stores your weapon, is God’s truth, which holds this world together, as well as our spiritual lives. The breastplate protects your vital organs, but most importantly, your heart. This protection is paramount. The boots protect your feet so you can move, advance, or flank the enemy. This is God’s gospel of peace; with God’s peace we are able to outmaneuver the enemy in all his attacks. “¹⁶ In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷ Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” In the days when this verse was written soldiers would have carried a very large tower shield, this shield would have been covered in leather that could be soaked in water so that fire and flaming arrows would not light it on fire. Our faith in God, protects us much like the shield, and will keep us from the enemy and his attacks. The helmet protects the soldiers head; this is the most important and indispensable of all defenses. The helmet of salvation is our guarantee and protection that when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior we are going to heaven, this is the most imperative part of all. The sword is a soldiers offensive weapon, thus is the word of God. When we speak God’s word to the enemy we go on offense and the enemy must flee from our presence, all too often we leave our sword in its scabbard though. We must learn to use it like Jesus did in the wilderness when he used the word of God to cause Satan to flee after tempting him.

It is not too late; accept Jesus into your hearts today. If you already have recommit your lives to follow him, we are getting close to the hour when Jesus returns, take a long hard look at the world around us, see the chaos and wickedness, we can no longer ride the fence and be lukewarm. The time is here when you will only be able to be with Jesus or against him. Where will you be? Which side will you be on? We know who wins, and we know the outcome, we just do not know the journey there. As my family has learned, God does not promise a life of prosperity and pain free existence, he does promise that one day we will be with him in heaven and our family will be together for eternity, and that is the best promise we can have here on Earth.

[Fleet 1]

Beautiful. My son was born a couple days later in January. 97. Ive been trying to love on him a lot more since you shared this. I was a tough dad. Pushed him in Rugby. And i dont think he ever was into it as much as i wanted him to be. One of those dads that probably pushed to hard. Now he deals with headaches because of the sport.

[FoutsFan]

When Tommy passed I was dealing with a lot of anger towards them. I found myself praying, why do they get to be at peace in heaven while the rest of our family suffers beyond measure here? The verse I clung onto was Psalms 44:23-24 where the psalmist is basically yelling at God saying wake up! why are you sleeping while we suffer down here? Why have you turned your back on us? I was in a bad place, as I said before I do not remember dreams but this one I remembered vividly. I was standing across a street from a park, but it was like a national park almost like Yosemite. I could not cross the street as the park represented heaven but I could see in there, nothing specific but I knew my boys were in there playing and having fun. I was talking loud trying to get their attention and asking them why are they having fun when they hurt us so much. They did not react and I could not see them in the masses but again I knew they were there. Someone walked up beside me as I was starting to get really mad at them and shout. I only saw out of the corner of my eye the persons waist and legs, he had a robe on and I knew it was Jesus. I could not look at him but I told him its not fair, I was pointing in the direction of my boys, I started really shouting at Jesus saying its not right. I finally started raging at him saying I wanted my boys to hurt like the rest of us do until we meet in heaven. He looked at me, he never said anything, did not condemn me or say something like don't shout at me. He just gave me a hug and my anger melted away in the dream. When I woke up in the morning I found I had no anger towards them anymore and at sometimes when I would find myself getting upset I just remember the dream and the anger is gone before it even takes hold.

Thank you again for letting me write this down to remember it and release some of the tension I was going through today.

[chargeroo]

Thanks for sharing that touching story. I'm still praying for you every morning. I know from my own experience there are better days ahead. God bless you.

[FoutsFan]

Fleet, do not take anything for granted. Its great that you are loving on your son more. I will pray for you and your son as well.

Thank you again for letting me post all of this. Once I was emotionally able to post this, it kind of all poured out and it helped to share and put it in writing. My biggest hope in all of this is to hear like you loving on your son, anyone caring more for a veteran who may be silently begging for help or someone who needs God. Or all of the above. I just do not want people to go through what I went through. Enjoy each day, love on everyone and pray for each other.

Thank you!

[Fleet 1]

Fleet, do not take anything for granted. Its great that you are loving on your son more. I will pray for you and your son as well.

Thank you again for letting me post all of this. Once I was emotionally able to post this, it kind of all poured out and it helped to share and put it in writing. My biggest hope in all of this is to hear like you loving on your son, anyone caring more for a veteran who may be silently begging for help or someone who needs God. Or all of the above. I just do not want people to go through what I went through. Enjoy each day, love on everyone and pray for each other.

Thank you!

Always brother. I got your back. We got you man. This is a strong community. And i know not everyone is down with the God stuff etc...but im really proud of this place and how united it gets when this happens to someone. If someone were dying and wanted a thread void of God talk? I would have to make that happen as well. I want this place to break down walls and come together at all times. This country needs it right now. The world does.

Aloha. And Mahalo for the prayers.

[FoutsFan]

The last week or so has been really hard on my wife and I, hitting the 8th and 7th month anniversaries on the 17th has brought a lot of pain and darkness. Just trying to make it through to the end of the tunnel and back into the light. it's hard though. Suicide brings an extra layer of trauma that just adds layers of confusion and sadness, there is no closure. Leaning on God more than I ever had in my life right now.

[Fleet 1]

The last week or so has been really hard on my wife and I, hitting the 8th and 7th month anniversaries on the 17th has brought a lot of pain and darkness. Just trying to make it through to the end of the tunnel and back into the light. it's hard though. Suicide brings an extra layer of trauma that just adds layers of confusion and sadness, there is no closure. Leaning on God more than I ever had in my life right now.

Prayers man. Sending MOJO.

[ChargersPowderBlue]

God leading your life is a daily challenge. God can be like the coach on the field.

[FoutsFan]

You choose my man.
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This is my new game day ritual, I am wearing this jersey for every game, either attending or watching from home.

Thank you Fleet, I cannot express how much this touched both me and my wife.