His Birthday

My Hubby's birthday is today.
I would appreciate your prayers for us, after all that has just taken place.

We plan to get together soon and do some of the fun things he chose to do on past birthdays and we, of course, have to eat his amazing BBQ apricot chicken!

I don't imagine this day will ever be easy for us, but we will always have a wonderful man to celebrate!

~Becky

A JOYful birthday!

Joy's 19th birthday fell on the day after Hubby's memorial service.

~I'm so glad that I didn't know then, that she received a card from a relative that had these sentiments written inside:
"Death hurts the ones left behind.."
"Sorry that your birthday is going to suck."

OH.MY.WORD.

Anyway, all that to say, I had been determined that it would not "suck" and I'm happy to say that it didn't! : )
Thankfully, our sweet family and friends, who were still here from CA, helped us have a GREAT DAY celebrating Joy!

My sweet daughter-in-love was in charge of the birthday brainstorming because my mind was occupied with the memorial. She is fabulous in every way and your go-to-girl for entertaining or party planning. Her idea was to go to an "escape room."
Have you heard of those?
You basically pay money to get locked in a room! LOL
And you have to solve a series of puzzles that eventually show you a way out of that room.
It is a lot of fun for a group of people.

We chose a Sherlock Holmes themed escape room! We all love that show!

 I had also bought her this,

completely by accident just because we had all become adult coloring book addicts during the our time in hospital lobbies.

So, I could not have been happier when it hit me that I had a Sherlock THEME going because I'm ALL ABOUT a themed party! : )

After church, we had lunch in Downtown Disney and found out that it is now Disney Springs. -The GPS on everyone's phones wanted to take us to CA!

Then we went to the escape room where they locked us in for an hour and a half!

I felt pretty sure I'd be locked there for a lifetime without all the smart people who were with us!
 There were even square roots to solve!

And we came very close to solving the very last puzzle, but didn't make it.  

 Thankfully, they walk you through the parts you missed before you leave.
-Some decompressing had to take place afterwards. ; )

 Then we headed back to Disney Springs where some of our group needed to do some Star Wars shopping and Joy and the boys headed to a restaurant to celebrate her day with her friends from church.

I can't say my day was without its tears. I did a bit of crying through Disney Springs when it hit me that I would never hold my Hubby's hand at a place like that again...

But all in all, it was a blast!
I'm so thankful for my sweet family and friends who helped plan it and pull it off!
They helped make it the birthday that didn't "s_ _ _."
Love them all to pieces!

Happy Birthday, to a girl who is a joy, in every way and who always makes us so proud!" xoxo

~Becky

Advent is here!

It is time for nightly Christmas devotions at our house...

And apparently, Bree finds them riveting!  ; ) 

Using Ann Voskamp's The Greatest Gift again this year.

Merry Christmas! 

~Becky

When God sent us people

When my hubby went into the hospital, there was no evidence of cancer on his latest scan. I took him to the ER for vomitting and possible dehydration...and he died of cancer 16 days later.

I remind myself that this didn't take God by surprise even if it did take me by surprise. God knew and He sent us the people we needed to have with us during this tragic time!

A day or so after he went into the hospital, when things didn't even look bad, my sister in CA called and said she was coming to stay with us and help out. Then we found out that cancer was in two places in his body, and my brother-in-law in CA said that he was coming to visit and bringing their dad.
Then my best friend called to say that she was coming for the weekend to help our family in any way she could. 

So, a week later on almost the same day, they all arrived!
And the timing was something that only an all-knowing God could have planned.

They were there with us when we heard that "there was nothing more that could be done."
They were just in time to have their moments with him while he was still able to respond to them.
They had a chance to say their "goodbyes" and they were there to hug us through our "goodbyes."
They helped me with the hospice transition. They laughed and cried with us. They kept us fed, they lived in waiting rooms, colored and did puzzles and loved on our kids!

It was like God assembled the team He knew we needed!
Our pastors were a huge help to us throughout all of this. I don't know what I would have done without them.

And this sweet girl:

was such a blessing to our kids! She barely left our kids sides for two weeks, except to go to work. She took them out for food when things got intense and they just needed a break. She was apart of what my kids called the Hospice Crew. -They were at my beck and call whenever I wanted live worship music in room 11! How blessed we were to hear them! And how mighty was God's presence!
She was always showing up at random times with food! LOL : ) She was in our kitchen making mountains of french toast for all of us on the morning after Hubby passed. She showed up before the memorial with fried chicken to feed our family members in the green room right before we went out. LOL She made my kids laugh and prayed with them. She was just THERE. What a treasure! She is the kind of person who is always loving and ministering to people whereever she is, so I felt like I owed the world an apology, while we had her all to ourselves for those 16 days! : )

My best friend loves our kids like her own! When she got here, they got an great dose of loving mothering. : ) She cooked, she cleaned, she shopped. She practically lived in the hospital lobby with all of our family members. She took care of our dog when we were at hospice. She helped fill my hubby's hospice room with worship and sang hymns with my kids. She was always busy doing a million things to help somehow. She changed her plane ticket when things got worse and stayed way longer than she ever planned to. She was with us through everything.
She helped scan photos for my hubby's memorial service video and cooked food to put in our freezer.
What I will always remember, is her saying "Joy needs to go birthday shopping and I'm taking her!"
 I cried! -What a blessing it was to have her blessing Joy for me when I couldn't!
And she was my personal shopper when I needed one most!
 - I didn't know what to wear to the memorial. I didn't want to wear all black because a part of me was happy that my hubby was with the Lord and that was worth rejoicing over. I told her the story of how as a teenager, my friend and I once wore white to a funeral for an elderly woman we loved, because we were so happy that she was with Jesus! I wasn't quite up for doing that in this situation though. LOL Then she went out and bought me THE perfect dress to wear! It was white, but had a black pattern on it that made it look almost all black! (hard to explain) But it was just perfect!!!! It was such a thoughtful gift!
She is the dearest friend that anyone could ever ask for.

When my sister arrived, I was spending 13 hours a day at the hospital. My kids were SO glad to have her at our house, that I got a text from Joy saying something like "Aunt Jenny brings order to our chaos and she can cook things that aren't frozen!" LOL She ended up giving us 3 weeks and 2 days of her life! She did everything imaginable for us. She shopped, cooked, she did laundry and ran our household.
She spent two nights with me at hospice. She got in trouble for sleeping in the lobby on our first night and then spent another night in his room with me in a recliner. (a very uncomfortable recliner at that!)
She was my "christian bouncer" blocking my hubby's room from lovely visitors, when there were too many. ; )  She made sure I ate. She introduced us all to the stress relief of adult coloring books. LOL
She dealt with the funeral home when I wasn't up for it. She helped organize the memorial service and she did everything she could to make it everything I wanted it to be. She extended her trip to stay past Thanksgiving so that she could help us through our first holiday without hubby/dad. She was my Hubby's replacement (so-to-speak) on our annual Chrstimas Tree shopping breakfast date on Black Friday moring and she made it fun. She helped decorate our house for Christmas and she took Andrew for a driving lesson.
 I don't even know all the things she did. But she certainly helped us get our feet on the ground before she left and none of us know what we would have done without her! All my friends want her to stay forever! -Join the club! : ) What a gift from God to us!

The Lord knew what we would need and He was so faithful to send us WHO we needed and He made a way for them to stay for as long as we needed!
 Amazing!
He is faithful!

~Becky

The memorial

Last Saturday, we celebrated my hubby's life!
It was a beautiful service.
I've always known that he would have an exceptional turn out for his memorial. Always. It is kind of weird how many times I'd thought of that over the years, but it was because of the way he lived his life. I knew that one day a building would be full of people that he had impacted. And it was!
 (I just never thought he would be 48!)

I remember telling him more than once that when he died, a whole lot of secrets would be buried with him. Not his secrets, but the private things that hurting people were constantly sharing with him, which was a burden and a blessing. They were things he never repeated.
When people met him, they felt safe and in 10 minutes or more, they were telling him their whole life story and that often included their secrets.
 I cannot tell you how many people considered him their best friend.
Many.
He was amazing.

I never looked behind me during his service to see the crowd, but I was told that there were close to 400 people there! And almost that many came up and hugged each one of our family members. I'm told it took over an hour for those in that line to reach us but they stayed anyway. How sweet is that?!
So many precious people!

My hubby started a family worship band when our kids were young and we all used to practice on Tuesday nights. (which sometimes required brownies as bribery)
Those were often some frustrating practice sessions. Just picture four kids with instruments they barely knew how to play...
The active keyboardist especially had trouble stopping his playing to listen to Dad's instrutions. : )
And there were times when we may have told the little electric guitarist that he didn't actually need to be plugged in... LOL

The kids grew up and grew into their gifts and have often thanked their dad for giving them the gift of music. They all have and do use their gifts in our church and in other worship settings.

As you can imagine, I was so proud when they decided to play at the memorial!

It was just beautiful hearing them (and two of our special friends) sing a song that meant so much to
their dad during this battle. (House of God by Jon Foreman) It is a rendition of Psalm 23 and we often heard him belting out the chorus in the house or the car..."Your love is enough."  Amen!

And I had to look twice, during the service because I didn't know that Joy was going to sing one of the lead parts. No one will ever know how much that meant to him or our family! What a treasure that was! And she nailed it! : )

I guess, all that is to to say, it was a day that was as special as I always knew it would be!

~Becky
And my unending thanks to all who helped made it happen!

The video

This is the video that Nathan made for Hubby's memorial service.
It is raw and real!

One Thursday night in the hospital, Hubby had a serious talk with our children about God, life and faith. We didn't know it at the time, that it would be his last talk with them about these things.

I'm so grateful that Nathan recorded it. You may need some tissues.

Nathan's video for Dad

~Becky

In memory of "a life so well lived"

John was born in Boulder, CO. 

After high school graduation he took a year off of school and worked in a ski shop. 

After a break up with his girlfriend, he moved to San Diego, CA to get a new start in life and live with his brother Paul. They were both searching and one night Paul picked up a Bible and said 

"I don't know what we are looking for, but I believe it has to do with this book," and they both started trying to read the Bible.

While enrolled in the community college,  he saw a sign for a Bible Club. He decided to attend and the man leading the club led him to the Lord and became his best friend. His life was never the same.

He met Becky at church one Sunday night but thought she was too young for him! : ) 

He was 20 and she was 17 at the time.

They along with 6 other students, left San Diego to attend a two year Bible college in Florida

John liked to say that during spring break of that year, on a bike ride to Burger King, cupid hit him with an arrow and he was immediately in love with Becky. But he had to keep that to himself since she had a boyfriend. 

They got together over the summer of that year. 

After graduation, they moved back to San Diego and attended San Diego State. 

During that year, John felt God move upon his heart to move back to Tampa to help start a church. 

He broke up with Becky, gave away all his possessions including a Night Hawk 350 motorcycle and arrived in Tampa with $20 in his pocket, ready to obey the Lord

He slept on a friend's couch and took the first job that he found, which was painting. Since he was a college kid who didn't know how to paint, he didn't even make minimum wage. He helped work on a this start up church and eventually, he asked Becky to marry him. (finally!) 

They were married in San Diego and she moved to Tampa after their honeymoon. 

When they landed in Tampa, to start their life, he had her kneel in prayer with him in the corner of the airport and asked God to use them in this place.

He had a passion for teenagers and became the volunteer youth pastor for two churches. 

And he also decided to become the best painter he could possibly be. 

John and Becky felt the Lord tell them that they would someday have 4 children so, they got busy obeying the Lord.  LOL 

John was often asked why he didn't own his own painting company. He always felt like owning his own company would hinder his ability to be fully present for his family when he came home from work and he wanted to be able to be "A Saturday Dad" as he called it, meaning one who was able to attend all the sports events and activities his kids were involved in.

He gave up youth ministry when God spoke to him that his children were his disciples and it was time to pour into them. They were 3, 5, 7, and 9 at the time.

He felt like God gave him his own strategy for parenting his children and it included these things: 

1. Worship God together:  As a result he got everyone music lessons and formed a family worship band 

2. Teach his children to be able to lead Bible studies so that they could share the Word of God with their future families 

3. Spend 15 uninterrupted minutes with each child each night so he could hear their hearts

4. Take each of them on 'dates with dad' on a regular basis to do something fun

He had a passion for the local church and believed in being planted in it and serving. 

He felt so deeply honored to be a deacon at VLC and he loved the people he served with so much! One day, on the way to church, the family was talking about the wifi at church and how theywere having trouble signing into it when we were in the building. Becky joked that "maybe our favorite deacon can look into that" and Joy said "Yes! I will talk to Mrs. Tracy about it." LOL He loved that and went to find Tracy when we got to church to let her know that she is Joy's favorite. ; ) 

He had an undying passion for the Word of God and people.He believed that those were the only two things that would last forever!

And he deeply loved his wife....

When he found out he had cancer he decided the family needed an anthem and he chose a song by his favorite band, Switchfoot. He chose "Hello Hurricane" 

Here are some of the lyrics:

Hello hurricane 
You're not enough 
Hello hurricane 
You can't silence my love 
I've got doors and windows 
Boarded up 
All your dead end fury is 
Not enough 
You can't silence my love, my love 

Every thing I have I count as loss 
Everything I have is stripped away 
Before I started building 
I counted up these costs 
There's nothing left for you to take away 

Hello hurricane 
You're not enough 
Hello hurricane 
You can't silence my love 

He believed he would live through the second bout with cancer but if he didn't he expressed to Becky that he had already done everything he ever set out to do.

1. He had a wonderful marriage

2. All of his children love and serve the Lord

He felt he'd already 'arrived.' And that no matter what it was a "win/win" situation for him.

His whole life centered around the Lord and he would be happy to be with him.
 But he fought just as hard, to stay here for his family. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(from Hubby's memorial service)

~Becky