The last months prior to our move to Colorado were full of everyday trials. One we did not anticipate was the loss of one of our Disciple classmates Melinda Shipman. She was a wonderful person who lived her life fully in God’s grace. She had been ill for many years and her beauty was only enhanced by her fight for a normal life for herself, her husband John and her children.

At her passing John asked Suzy and me to speak at her memorial service. To follow is what I was to say.

To Melinda

Melinda joined our class at the Disciple III level and continued on with us taking Disciple IV this year.

From early on we recognized that every time Melinda entered in the room, Grace and Kindness were always with her.

Melinda was an active member of our class. She shared her heart, her story and her love of her family in many ways.

Over the last 2 days, I was wondering what I could say today that would comfort her family and friends. I believe the hand of God is always with us, if we have but the eyes to see and the ears to hear.

Last night I was reading the book, “The Cost of Discipleship” by Dietrich Bonhoefer. I came across an excerpt from Mark, Chapter 10, Verses 28-31.

I had been looking for this particular verse for the last 6-9 months.

This verse talks how as a Disciple that when you give yourself up for God’s sake, you shall receive, “A hundred-fold… in the world to come; eternal life.”

Our Class had talked about this concept at length one night. None of us could really imagine a Life with God… such that it would be 100 times better than what we have now.

But, as God’s Disciple, Melinda now knows what this verse means.

Our Class talked a lot about C. S. Lewis, starting with his “Mere Christianity” book. This year we were introduced to Lewis’ sermon called the “Weight of Glory”.

In this sermon, Lewis says: “He (God) thinks of us… we shall stand before Him… The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ… that any of us who truly chooses (God)… shall find approval, shall please God. To please God… to be loved by God, but delighted as a father in a (daughter), it seems impossible, but so it is.”

Then Lewis adds what he calls the “divine accolade”. That is, God, holding our hand and saying:

“Well done thou good and faithful servant.”

I can assure you that Melinda has already heard these words.

The Disciple IV class ends with the study of Revelation. I will finish with, Chapter 21, Verses 3 and 4.

“They will be his people,… and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

As it is.

I don’t have the energy to tell you all of the tings that have happened to us over the last month as we have completed our move to Colorado. It has involved tears, friendships, sleeplessness, no refrigerator and rainbows. I will save that discussion for a later date.

Last night at about this time I heard our cat Inky meowing loudly. Well he is really Suzy’s cat, he came with the package. He was the best purring cat I had ever experienced. Like a motorboat. So anyway his loud meowing was pretty normal. He has always been talkative… and downright noisy, always asking to be fed.

In his defense he has a hyper thyroid and was a 9 pound eating machine as a result.

At age 12, about 4 years ago, Inky started to have seizures, thus the diagnosis.

The meowing went on and I realized I was late for his night time feeding. I heard him but couldn’t find him as I searched around the house. I finally found him on the floor without the use of his rear legs. Hoping it was a temporary seizure as in the past, I tried feeding him, this almost always helped him get over the seizure. This time he wasn’t interested. I knew something was different.

To make matters worse, Inky’s main caregiver, Suzy, was on the road in Washington D.C.

I called our friends the Rolater’s to see if they knew an emergency pet clinic. Now in Dallas we had trouble getting care for pets at night, I was not hopeful that we could find anyone to help Inky in a town of 5,000. Amazingly there was an on-call emergency veterinarian only 2 miles from our house. After going over the symptoms, the veterinarian said she would meet us at the office in 20 minutes. I wrapped up Inky and took him to their office.

When we arrived Dr. Fitzpatrick took Inky’s temperature and said it was 93 degrees, dangerously low for a cat that has a normal temperature of 102-103 degrees. She was immediately worried. She worked for about 2 hours giving Inky drugs, doing a blood test, warming him up with a heat pad, giving him a warm IV trying to get his temperature up, everything she could think of.

Nothing worked, Inky systems were failing.

Dr. Fitzpatrick said something really profound at this juncture, she said: “Inky knows Suzy is out of town. That is why he is choosing now.”

I got Suzy on the phone and she was able to talk to Dr. Fitzpatrick about what was going on with Inky. No one wanted to see this creature of God in pain any longer.

So the decision was made to let Inky pass away.

Suzy asked me to stay with him as long as I could.

And so I did.

The Doctor first injected a relaxant into Inky so there would be no pain. Inky finally began to relax and his breath lightened. His passing was indeed painless as I stood there and patted him and stroked his head, and said prayers for him.

I covered him with the blanket I had brought. He was a beautiful cat in his prime. He was predominantly white with a few black spots, as Suzy said it looks like he had walked on a black ink pad, so she called him Inky. As he aged he didn’t take as good care of himself as he had in the past, but still he was really pretty. Most people thought he was a “she”. And he had been a friend of mine for the last 9 years.

He was a discerning cat. Suzy said I was the only person she ever dated that he liked. That is quite a compliment indeed.

And I wish I had been a better friend to him. It seems I lost my patience with him the many times he would wake me up, not Suzy, demanding to be fed at 5 AM. I threw many a pillow at him to get him moving out of the bedroom.

I apologize, Inky for the few times I actually hit you.

So maybe my repentance was to be there right then with only one thing to do, to make it known to God that you were coming, and that where you were going was going to be wonderful.

That is my prayer for you Inky,

and for me too.