The River of the Lord: a Path Through Suffering

The River of the Lord

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever (Rev. 22:1-5.)

Part One:

The River

Chapter One

—The River

The last day of the year has always held a special place for me. There is an ancient feeling about it, and I always experience a sense of expectation and excitement anticipating the new coming year. I feel a sense of satisfaction that the old year is about to end. It’s a sacred time as the clock ticks into a new year. December 31, 2008, was a sunny, rather warm day without any feeling of winter.

My son, Jay and I, had lunch at Ramsey’s Restaurant in Tate’s Creek Center. This was the third day in a row we had lunch there. Jay came into Ramsey’s and said I looked like the big kingfish with my cashmere jacket on. We laughed. He loved clothes more than I did. After we ate, we stopped by Logan’s, a local clothing store, and I bought him a scarf to go with his jacket. We said we’d see each other back at the office that afternoon. At 3:00 p.m., we closed the office and let everyone go home early, because it was New Year’s Eve.

Our beautiful office, where we worked and spent most of our time, was just the right place for our last visit, because we loved it so much. Sitting in high-back leather chairs, Jay and I talked about a lot of things that afternoon. We talked about his marriage and how to allow God to have the time to do the work that needed to be done. We talked about his grandfather, my dad. We were grateful for the best year in business we ever had and decided to take time to pray and thank God for His goodness in our lives.

In this meeting, we discussed the river of the Lord. I had never heard of it or discussed it before. But during that visit—a visit only God knew would be our last—the Spirit of God made His presence known to us in a strong way. Jay and I discussed that river and how it flows in our lives. God showed us that when life events are uncertain, the best thing we can do is flow in His river. God encouraged Jay to get in that river and trust its flow; Jay was to take his oars out of the water, place them into the boat, and allow the flow of that river to take him where God wanted him to go. I will never forget that.

I stood up and said, Jay, we will never forget this day. It’s the last day of 2008, and we’ve worked hard this year. God has visited us on this last day of the year. One day you and I will stand on a high hill in heaven, and we will talk about this day. With a great big smile, Jay agreed, and we marveled at the presence of God we had just experienced. It was good.

We hugged, and he kissed me on the top of my head as he had done many times in his life. As he walked out of the door that New Year’s Eve, I noticed his beautiful features. Jay had a strong body from a lifetime of lifting weights and swimming. He had handsome facial features that looked chiseled, as if Michelangelo had modeled him.

He was a doting son, and the thought never occurred to me that this would be the last time I would see him on this earth. Because I knew he was vulnerable—going through a divorce, trying to find a new life, and balancing some troubled friends he didn’t have the heart to get rid of—my last words to him were, Watch your back.

As Jay walked to his car in the parking lot, I watched every step he took. As I had watched him many times before, I noticed his walk, and his beautiful form seemed to float across the asphalt like a vision.

To my amazement, shock, and grief, twelve hours later to the minute, Jay would be in the flow of that river on his way back home to God.

That New Year’s Eve, I went home, had a quiet dinner with my wife, and went to bed. At 5:00 a.m., I awoke to the awful sound of the doorbell ringing nonstop. I knew as I stumbled to get to the door that something was really wrong.

My ex-wife, Renee, stood at the door. Her face said all I needed to know. Jay was gone. A friend had come over to Jay’s house at 3:00 a.m. Jay, who was an avid sportsman and always demonstrated great care with guns, had guns out. The friend picked up one of the guns, shot Jay, and claimed he didn’t think the gun was loaded.

I don’t think we will ever know what really happened that night. There had been recent trouble between Jay and his friend, and Jay had shared this information with me in the office in front of our employees. I cautioned Jay to be careful of him.

Many thoughts went through my mind as I stood there on the threshold of my front door that night. I thought back to when I was a young boy, sitting on my grandfather’s lap and hearing him tell stories of the Bible and of God’s great love for us. He was a preacher in rural Kentucky; so as a small child, I was taught about faith in God.

That morning, hearing the words that my son had been fatally shot by a boy he’d gone to school with and known all his life, I knew I was faced with two choices: the abyss of hell or faith in God. From the formation of the first word of the news that morning, I clutched with all that I was—with all that I had—to faith in God. Thus, at 5:00 a.m. on January 1, 2009, my boat was shoved from the shore of life, of all I knew or had ever known up until that minute, and I entered the river of the Lord for the first time in my life. The words of God to me and Jay just twelve hours earlier were now happening. We had entered the river of the Lord.

Nothing can prepare you for the death of a child. We may hear about it and you know people it has happened to, but there is no preparation that can brace you for the impact of this. I was numb as events unfolded from the funeral home to the graveyard and the people came and went. Oddly but gratefully, I never once felt as if Jay was dead. I still don’t.

It’s hard to explain with words; but rather than feeling a loss, I felt as if a new dimension of life had just opened to me. There’s no way I can say that Jay is gone, because I feel him every day and the bond we always had is still here. It’s like I know he’s somewhere else, and I know he is just as aware of me as I am of him. And I know more than ever that I will see him again. I now live with a totally new perspective on life. It’s a new, good awareness I never expected. I’ve been asked if Jay’s death has shaken my faith in God. I always answer, No, it hasn’t, but it has changed my perspective forever on this present life.

I had this feeling all around me that Jay was still with me and there had been a shift in life, a shift that I knew could happen. It’s not like what I thought death, so close, would be like. But here it was, and it was a new way to live and to view life. The feeling was different than anything I had ever known before. I felt like I had entered a different dimension of life that no one else knew existed.

I saw all the same people and all the same places, but something had changed. I saw things I had never seen before. I noticed people’s souls and their facial expressions mirroring those souls in their actions. I carried this new feeling now, since Jay, that I felt more connected to the behind the scenes of life than ever before. I felt as if Jay wasn’t truly gone, even though I had been through the funeral and burial. I felt a peace I didn’t understand and had never realized existed. This new element of my life helped me through the pain and devastation I was living in. Perhaps these emotions could be compared to what some people describe from a near-death experience.

Whatever was going on, I knew that life had changed forever. My thoughts and desires for this present world seemed to diminish every day. My thoughts and desires for the next world seemed to grow exponentially as I knew and was aware that a distinct shift in my soul had occurred. Not just because Jay had been called home to heaven, but because God was opening up to me His secrets of His river. I was aware that a major change was coming in my life as I entered the river of the Lord. Every day, God seemed to be showing me new things like how to allow my trust in Him to be present, and new ways to view God’s spirit world more clearly, like listening to Him talk to me in a quiet voice of assurance of His presence.

My five-year-old grandson, Cameron, Jay’s boy, helped me through the funeral. He kept kissing his hand and rubbing those kisses on his daddy’s head. Although it was difficult to watch, Cameron’s innocent, strong display was the rawest expression of true love I have ever witnessed. I thought Cameron, at age five, had more love and strength than anyone I have ever known. His sincere, childlike expression was the kind of love Jesus taught that we needed as adults.

Bagpipes played My Old Kentucky Home, one of Jay’s favorites, as he was such the Kentucky boy. Across his back was a tattoo that read Kentucky. On one arm, another read God’s Child with a beautiful cross. Jay was a doting son, always there for me for whatever I needed. He could count on me, too. At the graveyard, Cameron and I peered down into the hole that was dug for Jay’s casket. He said, Come here, Poppi, and we got on our knees and looked into the clean hole where the beautiful wooden casket would hold Jay’s empty body. I knew Jay wasn’t there; I told Cameron that, and he understood this wonderful spiritual concept fully.

On an early January afternoon with overcast skies, we stood there in that graveyard. As we looked across the graveyard over the many people there, the sun began to peep out of the clouds. Across the way, a regal Scottish bagpipe player stood strong and erect; he was playing Amazing Grace far enough away that it didn’t keep us from talking. On the hills around the gravesite just as the sun began to peer out of the January clouds, the way the sunlight hit the area, I would swear that I saw angels standing around for a split second. It was a surreal experience, and I had the feeling that angels were honoring this sacred moment in time. People around me said they also thought they saw angels.

After I buried my son’s body, I went back to my office to work that same afternoon. It was the only place I could find comfort and peace. Jay and I had worked together for ten years every day. As our desks were across from each other (face-to-face), we’d laugh or yell depending on the situation as we met the demands of a stressful family business. Our office work was our favorite thing to do, but it was stressful. Often, I would ask him if he thought we should slow down, eliminating some clients; but he always wanted to be busy and work hard, so together we plowed through. It was satisfying work, and we were proud of our business as we watched it grow each year. We did real estate title work for all 120 Kentucky counties, and Jay loved to travel and meet people across the state. He often spoke of running for governor one day. He loved Kentucky and her people. I have never known another person who loved Kentucky like he did.

This inner chamber of love and peace was where I stayed each day for several months, allowing God to speak to me as I searched for a reason why this horrible thing had happened. I stayed quiet and in that office around my familiar environment, not taking a single day off until April.

In the evening I would go over to the house where Jay had lived, a house I still owned but didn’t live in. All Jay’s things were there because he was separated from his wife. I noticed the scarf I had bought him New Year’s Eve was sitting on his dresser with the price tag still on it. When I saw that scarf, I said to myself that I’d never remove the price tag but would always keep the scarf with the tag on it. The house had an alarm system in it, so I knew no one could come in. But the next time I went over to that house, the scarf had not been moved but the price tag was gone. I couldn’t believe it. This would be the first of many signs to come.

During that time I worked a lot, stopping by that house each night, and just had a lot of quiet time. During this period, I kept thinking about what Jay and I discussed about the river of the Lord. God began to speak to me, telling me about His river, and I began to see that God has a plan for us all here on this earth. I saw that no event, however small, is a random act. I began to piece together that God works in our lives at a level I never understood before and that nothing will stop God from bringing about His plan in our lives. Nothing.

Although information from God was coming fast, I tried to keep up with it. Sometimes it took me a few weeks to understand something God had shown me. But I knew I was in the river of the Lord that we had discussed, and I knew I would never be the same person again.

When I saw a grief counselor once after Jay left, she commented she thought I was on a fast-track journey of spiritual enlightenment; she was seeing this unfold in my life. It was quite exciting and still is. It is still going on in my life two years later.

One day, I was in my office, and it was the first time that I realized that I was alone in the office since Jay left. Everyone had gone to lunch at the same time. They may have done this before, but this was the first time I was aware of being alone in the office since Jay’s death. I looked around and noticed Jay’s things. Nothing had been touched; everything was just like he left it.

Our office was beautiful, with art, oriental rugs, and antique furniture all around. Flute music always played softly. It had always been Jay’s favorite place to be (and mine too). As I looked around, I sensed a presence in the office that grew stronger, and then I became fully aware that a spiritual being, an angel, was there with me in the office.

My senses were heightened. I had experienced God’s presence many times when God has spoken to me, and I have been in the presence of the Holy Spirit often over my life span, but this was different. This time, rather than being in the presence of God or hearing His Holy Spirit talk to