Loss – Westchester Men's Ministry

A Night of Hope and Healing for Newtown, CT

January 1, 2013 by nymensministry 3 Comments

A host of award-winning Christian bands, artists and speakers will be on hand sharing God’s message of Hope and Healing on Tuesday, January 15, 2013, from 6pm to 10pm at the Webster Bank Arena, 600 Main Street, Bridgeport, CT.

This is not a fundraiser, it is a FREE EVENT to showcase love, worship, prayer, and healing to the surrounding communities via Christian pastoral speakers and live musical performances by the industry’s top artists.

The evening will include prayer, music and a message of God’s healing love in the midst of the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy.

Appearances by Max Lucado, Mary Beth Chapman and Louie Giglio. Worship music to be provided by Building 429, Steven Curtis Chapman, Casting Crowns, Mandisa, TobyMac, Laura Story and Chris Tomlin.

Families and children are invited to attend. Tickets will be available free of charges on January 2, 2013 at ticketmaster.com and at the Webster Bank Arena box office. You will need a ticket to attend the event.

For more information, please visit the event Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/315827618517428/

Filed Under: Faith, Hope, Loss Tagged With: bridgeport, Casting Crowns, Chris Tomlin, Christian, concert, ct, Laura Story, lucado, Mandisa, newtown, sandy hook, Steven Curtis Chapman, TobyMac, tragedy

In Light of What Happened in Connecticut

December 14, 2012 by nymensministry Leave a Comment

Reblogged with permission from: http://www.chspurgeonquotes.com

Spurgeon, death, living, heaven, earth, loss, sorrow, river, sheep

http://www.chspurgeonquotes.com

The Hour Is Coming

John 5:25

I have, in my imagination, looked on all whom I know on the earth, and I have said, they are dying creatures. This is always true, but we often forget it. Yet when a precious one is taken, we begin to realize this truth. Thinking about this, I seem to see a passing procession. I remember many who have passed—a long array of my Master‘s servants—some carrying His banner high, others marching with swords drawn, and some weak and feeble being helped by sturdy champions. They are gone, and I will never see them here again. Some of you are also passing away. More are coming, but they are also going.

I said that I was looking at this procession. But that is incorrect, for I am in the procession. I am passing with the rest. What shadows we are! What fleeting things! What mists! What paintings on a cloud! We can scarcely say that we live; for the moment we begin to live, we begin to die. This earth is not the land of the living. This is a dying world. The living world is beyond death‘s cold river. Here graves are innumerable, and death rules all.

No! That is not true. For there is One who rules death. Death has no power over the living God. Death is His servant. It is through death that we pass into life. By the death of our redeeming Lord, we have been rescued from destruction. From everything that wears the aspect of death, we can turn to Him, Jesus Christ, who is the same, yesterday, today, and forever (Heb.13:8).

C.H. Spurgeon

Filed Under: grace, Heaven, Home, Loss, Peace, trials Tagged With: C.H. Spurgeon, death, heaven, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Life, loss, procession, Spurgeon, The Hour is Coming

A Father’s Testimony

November 8, 2012 by nymensministry 13 Comments

My daughter lived 780 days (2 years and 2 months) and we often wondered after she died, if she knew Jesus. She Did! We know we will see her again and I hope her story will be a comfort to others who have experienced loss. May God comfort you and bless you!

Emily was born on February 13, 2002 with Carnitine-acylcarnitine translocase (CACT) deficiency which is a genetic disorder that prevents the proper breakdown of fats. This leads to excess ammonia in the blood (hyperammonemia), an enlarged liver (hepatomegaly), and a weakened heart muscle (cardiomyopathy). Emily died on April 3, 2004 of cardiomyopathy.

Carolyn and Terence miss Emily very much. We know that she lights up heaven just a little more with her presence but this world is that much dimmer without her.

God Bless!

A Father’s Testimony by Westchester Men’s Ministry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at https://nymensministry.com/2012/11/08/a-fathers-testimony/.

Filed Under: Christ, Christian Fathers, Christian Men, dad, encouragement, Faith, Heaven, Loss, Salvation Tagged With: baby, child, faith, God, health, heaven, In heaven?, infant, Jesus, know Jesus, loss, loss of a child, religion, salvation, saved

Christian Suffering … Hope!

September 11, 2012 by nymensministry Leave a Comment

Great post for 9/11 by Doug Plank at Crossway Life

Crossway Life

In the middle of one of the most incredible chapters in all the Bible sits a very unsettling verse. Romans 8 comes at us with a torrent of promises and reveals to us the heights of Christ’s love and the depths of God’s immovable purposes. The Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of God the Spirit pens this treasure of a chapter. At the end of the chapter we read the following:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? (8:35)

Beautiful. I’m with you, Paul. This is a great hypothetical question that obviously is answered by a resounding “no!”

Then comes verse 36:

As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

Many times when I’ve read this chapter and get…

View original post 495 more words

Filed Under: depression, encouragement, Hope, Loss, trials Tagged With: Christ, faith, God, hope, Jesus, loss, pain, suffering, trials

Gone From My Sight – In Memory of Peter Bancroft

May 26, 2012 by nymensministry Leave a Comment

Gone From My Site Henry Van Dyke

In his excellent eulogy of Peter Bancroft today, Wayne Drysdale closed with this poem:

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!”

“Gone where?”

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!” There are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: “Here she comes!”

And that is dying.

~Henry Van Dyke

In Memory of Peter Bancroft

A gentle and loving friend to all who knew him.

Went to his reward on May 9th, 2012

We will miss you Peter!

Filed Under: Faith, Heaven, Loss Tagged With: death, eternal life, faith, God, grace, heaven, loss, peter bancroft

Mondays with Dad

November 24, 2010 by nymensministry 1 Comment

My father passed away last Thursday. He shared his heart for his family with me during our weekly discussions. I’m so thankful that he was my dad!

Mondays with Dad

(Borrowed from Tuesdays with Morrie)

As Long as You Are Under this Roof…

It is great to see so many people here today. Dad always loved this church and did a lot to fill it. Although I can’t say he had those high intentions in mind when he had 12 children … but we can’t say for sure.

It is sure that he did his best to get his children to church. I remember hearing more than once “as long as you are under this roof you will go to church”. …Father (referring to Ft. Morris), I think it is appropriate … on behalf of my brothers and sisters; we have a confession to make. We would often come to church pick up a bulletin and get scarce for an hour. When dad asked later, “Did you go to church?” we could say “I went to the 10 (holding up the bulletin) and I see the youth group is meeting again this Tuesday”

Personally, I was very closed minded about God. I would go to church to please dad. But I would go to the late service because than, I reasoned, I could at least practice my Spanish.

Mondays with Dad

It was many years later, actually only 2 or 3 years ago, that dad and I started sitting at the kitchen table each Monday. We would discuss God, Jesus and Heaven. Typically the conversation would turn to Scripture and we would have to pull out dad’s big Bible, possible a remnant from his days selling Bibles in the Bronx. One day I remember holding the Bible with only one hand and the bulk of the Bible fell on the floor, leaving me with only the cover. Dad quickly said, “you know before you started coming over here that Bible was in great shape.”

Workers in the Vineyard

On one of those Mondays we actually talked about today’s Gospel reading (Matt 20:1-16. I remembered telling dad how I used to struggle with it. I understood that the parable indicates that some will accept Jesus when they are children and others while they are on their deathbed. And some will resent the offer and never accept Him. I just didn’t understand why those that have lived, sacrificed and suffered for God for a long time wouldn’t be acknowledged in some way.

I told him that I was praying about it and God said, “I’m in the vineyard, you are with Me. The vineyard is heaven.”

Guided by God

It was probably this reference to prayer that dad still had in mind the next time we met. When I told him I was praying for something, he quickly stopped me and said, “Terence, God isn’t bothered with trivial things like that. God is like a landlord; you call him only when you have a big problem. He doesn’t have time for such small and daily issues.

“Well dad”, I said, “the Bible does say that God cares about the small details in our lives. It says that He counts the hairs on our head (which is a moment by moment activity for some of us) and he has his eye on the sparrow…and we are worth many sparrows.”

Dad paused; it looked like he was thinking even before I started talking. He then started to share a story but he seemed to be talking more to himself than me.

“When I was a kid, I was often in trouble for pitching toss. (An Irish game where you gamble on the results of a tossed coin) My father (Dad’s dad) told me more than once that I should be studying instead.

One day, my father thinking of my future, bought me an Irish pub. On the way home, he saw me pitching toss. Without even telling me, he went and sold the pub. He later told me that I wasn’t mature enough.”

Dad looked at me, “it was probably for the best, I was so easy going that I likely would have given most of the drinks away for free and forgotten to charge for the rest, going bankrupt. I would have shared in the drinking myself too, possible getting hooked.”

He continued and turned to me, “Did you know that when I first came to the U.S. I had my heart set on becoming a NY city police officer?” I never knew that. “Yea, when I got here it turned out that I required a number of months of training and that training would put me over the maximum age allowed. I would have just missed the cutoff.

That too, was for the best, when I was young I was brazen and I likely wouldn’t have lived long with a gun in the rough streets of New York City.”

He continued with more examples of disappointments that were blessings in disguise. And finally said, as if to himself, I guess God IS watching my way and focused on the small things.

Destined for Heaven

Throughout our discussions, dad never questioned whether he would be going to heaven. He once said, “I know two things. I’m a great sinner and I have a great Savior. I know I’m going to heaven. You might make it too but I’ll probably have to travel to see you.” He was always ribbing me. Mom quickly responded, “Dad, just because you go to Heaven doesn’t mean they will open the pearly gates and let you in!”

Intercessory Prayer

The prayer dad copied down, that Patrick read, is what is called an intercessory prayer. It’s a prayer that asks for nothing for yourself but is on behalf of someone else. Using the Gospel analogy, I imagine dad (t-shirt wet from sweat after a hard day’s work) going to the vineyard owner, God, and saying I know it is late … but would it be possible for you to go out one more time… there are still a few missing.

Dad did desire to see this church full but what he really had on his heart was that we would all be in heaven together. Let’s pray.

Mondays with Dad by Westchester Men’s Ministry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at nymensministry.com.