A LIFE TOO SHORT BUT WELL LIVED

David Marshall (1960-2017)

Grief is not only normal, it is healthy. It is God given . . . a process that He gives to help us through loss. He knows our needs as people because He created us. I grieve . . .

David has gained everything – more than any of us could ever think, imagine, or hope for. He is now experiencing all God intended for him since he was conceived; all that was planned for him since the creation of the world!

David lived a life to honor Jesus as his sovereign Lord – the Master and King of life who is the only all-powerful, all-knowing, and always present God. It is that testimony which has infected and impacted countless others.

I am deeply disappointed I will not be able to attend the service to celebrate David’s life but I will celebrate nonetheless.

This is my prayer for Glenda and all the Marshall family:

Heavenly Father, we know You are always more ready to hear us than we are ready to pray. You know our needs before we ask – but You instruct us to come to You as a child would come to a father with a request. So we humbly ask  for the unequaled power of the resurrection to transform sorrow into hope, fear into confidence, pride into humility, greed into generosity, hate into love, jealousy into trust, bitterness into forgiveness, bondage into deliverance, and unbelief into faith. Give us grace. Help us to live as those who are prepared to die. Enable us to live in such a way that all those around us will know that nothing in life or death will be able to separate us from your great love in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

My Brother, David

To Glenda and the Marshall Family:

I loved David like a brother. It didn’t start out that way, but God had different plans. Whenever we were together – no matter how long it might have been since we last talked – there was no “catching up.” We just picked up wherever we left off last time. We may have had different mothers but we had the same Father and that bond was anchored in His love which meant that our love for each other could not be shaken.

For 20 years I counted on David’s leadership at camp. If David was at the guy’s dorm, I knew whatever happened there would be handled with firmness wrapped in grace and compassion without concession. When he and I hugged just before he left camp this past summer, the last words both of us had for each other were, “love ya man.” That’s how I will remember him.

“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful servants.” Ps 116:15

“To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.”  2Cor 5:8