God Turns Our Mourning Into Dancing

It's been a very difficult 2 weeks for our family.  I've been needing to update the blog but not really wanting to.  Our family lost our precious 29 year old nephew, John C. Flach Jr. (JC), in a tragic accident on September 6th.  He leaves behind grieving parents, a brother, a fiance (they were to be married in November), grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, a race team, and so many friends and business associates.  J was a successful mechanical engineer in the family business.  He was an excellent stock car driver and achieved his first win this summer.  He was treasured by so many people that the viewing lasted 8 hours!  As the funeral procession made its way through town the entire local Ford dealership lined the road in honor of J.  This tragedy has taught me the meaning of the word "surreal".  It's the only word I've been able to find to describe the past 2 weeks.  Our entire extended family has rallied around JC's immediate family.  But this is a long road for them, for all of us, and it holds no answers this side of heaven.  We take comfort in knowing that JC knew the Lord, so we know we will see him again one day.  But that doesn't make life any easier here and now.  I keep thinking that since we're all appointed a time to be born and a time to die, as it says in Scripture, then maybe we should each come with an expiration date stamped on us.  How much differently we would all live, how much differently we would treat each other, if we really knew each others expiration date?  Life here on earth really isn't about life here on earth.  But we get so wrapped up in it:  what to cook for dinner, what will I wear today, what will we do this weekend, and on and on we go never giving a thought to eternity.  I don't have the answers, but I know who does.  Will we get the answers to the questions we ask?  Probably not this side of eternity.  And I'm not really sure if any answer to the "why?"question would be good enough for any of us anyway.  Since the first night of this nightmare I've been asking the Lord to show me what we're to do with this?  Because of my intimate relationship with my Lord, I take Him at His Word.  I know He is good, I know He is God and that I am not, I know He works all things together for good (however I've been asking Him to show me how this could have good come from it).  He has been giving little glimpses of good.  One way is by how this tragedy has brought so many people together, especially the family.  

 I've been reading through the New Testament, and the other morning I came across Hebrews 2:14-16 - Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might break the power of him who holds the power of death - that is the devil - and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.  This scripture was powerful to me.  God created man without death as part of the plan.  Adam and Eve lived a perfect, disease free, stress free, death free life...that is until sin entered the picture.  But the devil, in his power (he has power, but he does not have authority), brought death to mankind in 2 ways:  1-when he tempted Eve and she sinned, physical death entered the world (the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is life eternal).  And by the way, I'm not saying that our sin is the reason why we die.  I'm saying that because of the fall of man, way back in the garden, death became a part of life on earth. For up until the fall of man there was no death, disease, or suffering.  The devil has power and his plan is to steal, kill, and destroy.  2-With physical death, spiritual death also came - sin separates us from God.  This is Satan's goal.  But God is all powerful and has all authority, so He did an over-ride.  He sent Jesus to break the power of the devil and death.  Jesus made the way for us to have eternal life where there is no sickness, pain, suffering, darkness, or death.  Now we have eternal life - living forever with God which was God's original plan.  So we get life, eternal life...with God.  Life on earth is not about life on earth, it's about eternity.  It all makes me realize that life should be lived with eternity in mind because that's real life.  Well, that's what the Lord has been "down-loading" into me.

God loves us.  We live in a fallen world where we are guaranteed pain and suffering, but God is good because we don't have to go through it alone.  And we have the promise of eternity.  And yes, I did say God is good.  He knows exactly what we need when we need it.  For on September 19th, a very special baby boy was born into the Flach family.

Deegan JC Nichols

My niece Jessica (JC's cousin) and her husband Jimmy blessed our family with this precious little bundle.  He's the first great-grandchild for my in-laws, our first great-nephew, and a special gift that has brought us some joy and dancing in the midst of the heartache and grief.  And as you can see, he's already a race fan - he's sporting on that tiny little hat JC's number:  77J.

If you patiently read this post all the way to here, I would ask you to keep in prayer my brother-in-law and sister-in-law (JC's parents) John and Liz Flach, Keith Flach (JC's brother), and Nicholl (JC's fiance).  Thank you.