"A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." Proverbs 17:17
The week before Daddy had to go live in the Nursing home I started to pray for Daddy's roommate. I did not know who he would be, BUT GOD DID!
I prayed that Daddy's roommate would be a man of God who loved the Lord.
I prayed that he would be sweet, gentle and kind and that he would bring love, joy and the peace of God with him to share with my Daddy.
The first time we came to visit Daddy, we walked down the corridor looking for his room and as we approached the doorway we heard music coming from inside the room. It sounded like a choir of angels, singing "AMAZING GRACE."
There was Daddy and his new roommate "Ray" sitting in their wheel chairs surrounded by Ray's family all singing old Gospel Hymns!
The presence of God filled the room and my heart was overflowing with joy and gratitude that the Lord had answered my prayers and sent Daddy a Roommate from Heaven.
We joined in the sing-a-long and afterwards we introduced ourselves. We found out that Daddy's new roommate was a Minister. The more we talked the smaller our worlds got. Pastor Ray knew our Pastor and they and their wives had all served together for many years in A.G. Church Camp. Pastor Ray's daughter used to babysit our Pastor Gary and Linda's boys.
We knew so many of the same people from churches and ministries in the area it was like a family reunion!
We all marveled at God's divine Kingdom connections.
Pastor Ray's wife shared how she also was praying for whoever God was going to send to be her husbands roommate! She prayed that somehow her husband would be a Blessing to the man he would share a room with and they would feel the peace and presence of God.
We continued to visit and I asked if they had always lived and served here in the Ozarks? Sister Louise said:
No, we served as Pastor's for many years in Indiana.
Now I sat on the edge of my Daddy's bed and I thought to myself; there is no way...
Where at in Indiana? I asked
Oh, a town in southern Indiana, I'm sure you never heard of it, Bedford.
Bedford Indiana? Are you kidding me? What church did you Pastor?
Bedford First A.G.
Now I almost fell off the bed.
That is our old church! I was the Children's Pastor there and we ran the Children's Church and VBS!
It turned out Pastor Ray had retired right before we came to minister at Bedford AG. Before he left, He and the church were desperate for a Children's Pastor and were praying God would send someone. God had sent us!
Even though it wasn't at the same time, we had all served at the same church, knew all the same people and been a part of the same congregation in Bedford Indiana!
What are the odds of us being at the same church in a state of over 6.6 million people? And then almost 15 years later we would all end up sitting in a room in a Nursing home 500 miles away in southwest Missouri singing AMAZING GRACE together...and Pastor Ray and my Daddy are roommates?
God already knew all those years ago that this would happen. He had already planned that all of our lives would be intertwined from the beginning of time.
God has mapped out our destiny every step of the way.
"And those He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified he also glorified."
Romans 8:30
Daddy and Pastor Ray were roommates for over a year before Ray was glorified and went to live in Heaven.
But before he went Pastor Ray and my Daddy had a very special time together in the presence of the Lord.
The Hospice Pastor Scott from the Nursing home shared with me an amazing testimony.
Pastor Scott said:
"We knew the time was close for Ray. I was sitting next to his bedside praying and singing hymns. Your Daddy Tom was lying in his bed a few feet away.
All of a sudden Ray sat up in his bed with his arms and hands straight up in the air. He had a peaceful smile on his face and he was looking upwards. He stayed frozen in that position.
What happened next blew my mind. I looked across the room and your Daddy Tom had sat straight up with his arms and hands lifted up in the air and was staring at the ceiling with that peaceful look on his face exactly like Ray!
How can this be when Tom cannot sit up or lift his arms above his head at all with his crippling Parkinsons?
Both Ray and Tom stayed in that posture for several minutes. I knew they were both experiencing something in a Heavenly Realm in the presence of the Lord that I can only imagine.
Time stood still and then they both reclined back in their beds. A few minutes after that Ray passed over to Glory Land."
"My Father's house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and welcome you in my presence, so that you also may be where I am." John 14:2,3
I have no doubt in my mind that God the Father sent my Daddy;
"A ROOMMATE FROM HEAVEN".
