death Archives - Atonement Church

Joy of the Spirit

Posted on July 1, 2024 by Linda Cobourn

AUTHOR’S NOTE: In December, the Lord convinced me that it was time for me to retire from fulltime teaching and focus on writing. Starting in January, when there were 100 days left of my 30 year teaching career, I started posting “100 Reasons I’m Retiring” on my Substack. You can read them here. https://lindaca1.substack.com/

Some of the reasons were funny, some very serious. But as I moved closer to June 14, I became more and more convicted of the giant step I was taking.

This was Reason 101.

Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice! Philippians 4:4

I’m going to share a secret with you: My life has been full of joy. If you’ve followed my blog for more than a minute, you know that the past thirty years have appeared, on the surface, to be anything but joyful. Care of an ill husband for two decades, parenting an adult on the autism spectrum, coping with a rare visual disorder, and working too many jobs to pay a mountain of medical bills don’t seem to be causes for joy.

But they are. Because the Lord was always with me. Even in the darkest of times—the night of Ron’s horrific car accident, his sudden death—I was never alone. And now, as I enter the next chapter of my life, I am one hundred percent certain the Holy Spirit is guiding me.

Rejoice in the Lord always. Philippians 4:4 You may ask, “How can I rejoice when everything is going against me?” Paul writes... – @thewordfortheday on Tumblr

There is an intense connection between joy and the Holy Spirit. St Augustine calls the Holy Spirit, “the living love flowing between God the Father and Jesus his Son.” The Holy Spirit is God’s gift of love to us. John Piper says, “The Holy Spirit is God’s Joy.”

I will ask the Father and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. John 14:16-17

It’s hard to explain this, I know, but once I began to listen—really listen!—to the leading of the Spirit, I was convinced that the time to retire was now and that there was other work for me to do. There were some moments of panic; I had been a teacher most of my adult life. Could I be something else? I had supported my family on my teaching salary for a long time. Was there another way?

Charles Stanley has two pieces of advice when it comes to the Holy Spirit:

1. Say YES to the Spirit.

2. Believe and Obey.

Now that I have officially retired (as of June 14), I am saying YES. I am Believing and Obeying in the new work he has called me to.

It is Well with My Soul | Genesis Bible Fellowship Church

And in those simple actions, there is a deep sense of peace and joy. The Greek word is chara, and it is more than simple happiness; the word embraces an inner delight and gladness, one not based on our current circumstances but rooted in our souls. Commentaries state, “Joy is the deep-down sense of well-being that abides in the heart of the person who knows all is well between himself and the Lord.”

All is well. It always was. Even in the worst of times.

It is well with my soul.

Have there been times in your life when you felt or heard the calling of the Holy Spirit? What does the joy of the Spirit feel like to you?

HEART BEAT

Posted on July 9, 2023 by Linda Cobourn

Dear Friends, My son and I were not members of Atonement when my husband died on July 13, 2019, but all of you have helped us to continue to allow our hearts to beat as we work to serve God and honor our loved one. Our church has undergone trials this year, and some hearts have been divided. I’d like to remind everyone that “Heaven is working everything for our good.” I hope you will not only read this post to the end but also listen to Danny Gorky’s song.

In His Blessed Name,

Linda

Shattered…

Like you’ve never been before
The life you knew
In a thousand pieces on the floor

“Your husband’s heart is very damaged,” said Dr. Hoffman. She stood next to our chairs in the trauma waiting room, still wearing a blue surgical gown. “His aorta was crushed by the steering wheel. And he’s sustained a lot of other damage in his chest and pelvis. But, he’s survived the surgery. There may be other complications later on, but for now, he is stable.”

My daughter and I were numb after eight hours spent in molded plastic chairs, eight hours of twisting our hands and praying. During the evening and early morning hours, friends and church members had stopped by to pray and wait with us. Now, at 2 AM, it was just Bonnie and me and our minister.

“You can see him for a moment,” said Dr. Hoffman. “Then you all need to go get some sleep. Don’t set the alarm for work or school. Just sleep. We’ll call you if anything happens.”

Ron lay on the stretcher in the recovery room, still and gray, wires and tubes connected everywhere to his body. A screen above showed his heartbeat in glowing green. I touched his right shoulder, one of the few places on his body without an electrode. “Stay with me,” I whispered to him. “Tell your heart to keep beating.”

Is he still alive?” asked the voice on the other end of the phone. “I just got the message you left. Mom, tell me, is Dad still alive?”

Bonnie, Allen, and I had huddled together in my bed for a few hours, trying to sleep away some of the fears we were feeling. One of us would drift off for a few moments, but inevitably we would wake up and grab for each other. Thoughts ran through my head: What now? How would we get through this? Could I be strong enough for Ron, for our children?

Tears streamed down my face as I responded to my son, away at college. “Yes,” I said. “Dad’s still alive. When we left him a couple of hours ago, his heart was still beating.”

And words fall short in times like these
When this world drives you to your knees
You think you’re never gonna get back
To the you that used to be

Tell your heart to beat again

Close your eyes and breathe it in

“The surgery on his pancreas was successful,” said Dr. Harbison. “He’ll be on a feeding tube for a while, and gradually we’ll reintroduce solid foods. But his heart has become enlarged. It’s not working at full capacity. He’ll spend some time in the telemetry unit, but I think he is going to need a pacemaker. We’ll watch him for a few days until he’s stronger.”

I made notes on the pad I kept in my purse as he talked. Terms once foreign to me–pancreas, spleen, telemetry- were now part of my everyday vocabulary. “I’m assuming you will give him a diet to follow when he’s released, things that are easy to digest and that will keep his blood sugar level. When can I see him?”

“In about half an hour,” he said. “We’ve had some trouble bringing him out of the anesthesia.”

“It always happens,” I said.

He paused for a moment and checked Ron’s chart. “I see this is his–fourth surgery in the last year? This must be hard on you.”

“It is,” I agreed. “But we’re a strong family. The kids and I figure it out as we go along.” I smiled as I put the notebook back in my purse. “As long as his heart keeps beating, we’ll keep fighting.”

Beginning

Just let that word wash over you

It’s alright now
Love’s healing hands have pulled you through
So get back up, take step one
Leave the darkness, feel the sun
‘Cause your story’s far from over
And your journey’s just begun

“Your pulse is very weak. Mr. Cobourn, I think you’re going into A-fib. Are you with me? Stay with me!” shouted the nurse.

I grabbed Ron’s hand. “Come on, honey. Keep breathing.” I turned to the nurse who was busily raising the baron the stretcher Ron laid on. “Shall we call 911?” I asked her. “Do we need the paddles? Is his pacemaker working?”

“It will be quicker to run him across the street to Temple,” she said. “I’ll push. Go hold the elevator!”

I picked up Ron’s things and ran down the hallway of the medical building on Broad Street, determined to stop traffic if I had to in order to get Ron into the Emergency Room across the street. “I’ll call them that we’re on our way!” I said as I furiously pushed the button for the elevator. The nurse arrived, breathless with her exertion, and the doors slid open. I leaned over my groggy husband and whispered in his ear, “Tell your heart to keep beating. Tell it not to stop.”

Tell your heart to beat again

Close your eyes and breathe it in

Let the shadows fall away
Step into the light of grace

“It’s his heart” said the voice on my cell phone. “As you know, it’s terribly scarred from so many surgeries and infections. And it’s only working at 25% capacity. Dr. Araidne needs to do an ablation but since you have medical power of attorney…”

“I know,” I said as I opened up my desk drawer and picked up my purse. My elementary students were out on the playground and the Reading lesson was on the board.

“How soon can you be here?”

I checked the clock on the wall. ” Maybe 30 minutes,” I said. “I’m just up on Academy Road. I can get to Hahnemann pretty quickly.”

“Okay. We’ll let the surgeon know.”

I grabbed my purse and locked the door. I would run by the office and tell the secretary I was leaving for the hospital; my reading students would have to stay in their classroom. Quickly, I strode over to the parking lot and got into my car. “Tell your heart to keep beating,” I whispered to my husband. “Just a little while longer.”

Let every heartbreak
And every scar
Be a picture that reminds you
Who has carried you this far

“We did everything we could,” said the EMT. “There is nothing else we can do. His heart just..stopped. Between one beat and the next.” He laid a hand on my arm. “I wish we could have done more.”

I took a deep breath. “He’s been through a lot. Too many hospitalizations. Too many surgeries. Nineteen years of too much for one man to deal with.” I let the tears fall from my face. “He stayed as long as he could. He kept his heart beating for us.”

The EMT bent to put the instruments back into his bag. “The medical examiner will be along later. But I think the cause of death is obvious.” He straightened up. “You took good care of him, Mrs. Cobourn. Never doubt that.” He sighed. “Frankly, he shouldn’t have lived this long. He did because he loved you.”

‘Cause love sees farther than you ever could
In this moment heaven’s working
Everything for your good

“Dad’s okay now,” I said to my three children, huddled together on the deck out back while the EMTs finished up. “He’s not in pain anymore. I promised him…I promised him we would all be okay. I promised him we would move on with our lives. I promised him we would always remember him.”

Tell your heart to beat again

Close your eyes and breathe it in

Let the shadows fall away

“Goodbye,” I whispered as I leaned over the casket. “It will take some time, I know. But I want you to know I will be okay. Your love will always be part of me. My heart will beat for you.”

Say goodbye to where you’ve been

And tell your heart to beat again

Tell Your Heart to Beat Again lyrics © Capitol Christian Music Group, Capitol CMG Publishing, Downtown Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc

It Ends with an E

Posted on February 18, 2023 by Linda Cobourn

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

John 13:34-35

A PHONE CALL

July 20, 2019

The phone rings at 6:00 PM Sunday evening, the display flashing the number of the medical examiner’s office. The two older kids have gone home with their partners, Allen has taken over the computer in my office, and I am sitting in the living room, sipping from a cup of tea and trying not to look at Ron’s empty chair. I pick up the phone.

“Hello.”

“This is Jenny,” says the voice on the line. “From last night.” I inhale sharply, the images and sounds replaying in my brain. EMT’s. Flashing lights. Ambulance. Police. Hurried phone calls. Panicked offspring.

“I wanted to tell you that we’ve ruled your husband’s death as natural causes, due to cardiac arrest. He simply fell asleep and his heart stopped. He would have felt no pain, had no warning.”

I let my breath out slowly. “Thank you,” I say. “It helps us to know that.”

There is a pause on the other end of the line. I take a sip of my tepid tea. My relationship with this young woman will be brief, based only upon this heart rending loss. I know nothing of her faith, but I say it anyway. “It helps us to know that Ron fell asleep and, when he woke up, he saw God.”

Jenny does not respond. I wait, years of practice in hospital ER’s and trauma

wards teaching me patience. “You know,” she says quietly, “this job is pretty sad. I see a lot of the same thing, day after day. And the families I meet sort of blend together. But,” and I think I hear her voice crack a bit, “I’m going to remember your family.”

I manage a weak laugh. “Well, we’re pretty memorable,” I say, thinking of how my tall children–most over 6 feet–towered over the petite young lady who came to examine Ron.

“You are.” I can imagine a smile. “Because your family showed me something I seldom see in this job. Love.”

SOMETHING OFTEN UNSEEN

Love. It hasn’t always been easy. There have been too many surgeries, too many hospitalizations, too many chunks of Ron torn away from us in the last 19 years. Things that should have been his responsibilities fell onto me. And the last two years, when Ron needed help with everything, were particularly grueling. To the outside world, it would appear that Ron’s later life held little worth.

But the world would be wrong. Every time he was hospitalized, we were given a chance to demonstrate our faith. Not a surgery or an infection or a treatment happened without prayers for doctors and nurses, without hymns and Bible verses filling his room. Without cards from my students, holiday decorations, visits from our children, and as much love as we could pack into a ten by ten foot space.

Matthew 28:19-20 tells us to “ go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

“When I was examining your husband,” Jenny continues, “I could see he had been well cared for. He was clean, no bruises, no sores. It was evident to me that he’d had excellent care. But even more than that was what I heard from you and your children in the kitchen.” She sighs. “Too often I hear people arguing when someone dies, blaming each other, fighting over possessions. But you and your children were telling stories about your husband, crying some and laughing some, sharing good memories.” Her voice gentles. “He was someone I wish I had known.”

I am touched by her words and I choose my own carefully. “We know Ron is Heaven,” I say. “We have faith that his struggle is over and he is with God.”

PLANTED SEEDS

“It was nice to see that faith,” she says. “And I just wanted to tell you that, well, your husband and your family shared something special with me. Gave me some things to think about.”

Jenny and I talk a few more minutes. She says I should feel free to call her if I have any questions about Ron’s death. I know I will not. Jenny’s entrance into our lives has been brief, but I cannot help but believe she is richer for it.

As I hang up the phone, I see in my mind flashes of the many hospital rooms Ron has inhabited. We planted seeds there. It had not been our choice, but we went into the world we had been thrust into and preached the gospel the best way we could (Mark 16:15).

I get up from my seat and head to the kitchen to warm my tea and as I do, I pause at the chair where Ron so recently sat, the chair where he died. I give it a pat and smile.

Even at the end of his life, Ron was an example to other people.

THE NAMING OF ALL CREATION

Posted on January 11, 2023 by Linda Cobourn

by Linda Cobourn and Valerie Pilkington

EDITOR’S NOTE: Both Valerie and I lost beloved pets recently. Since we had similar reactions, I asked Valerie if we could Co-author this piece.

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying: “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praised and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!” (Revelation 5:13 NIV)

JUST IN TIME

Valerie was home just in time that Sunday, December 4. She saw her beloved pet, Rascal Skye, struggle towards her from his bed, his legs hardly able to hold him up. Gently, she scooped him up in her arms and sat with his furry body on her lap, cuddling and telling him that he was loved. She prayed for peace, for both Rascal and herself, because losing an animal–one of God’s creations–is hard. Along with the hollow space we know will occur, it causes us to realize the fragility of our earthly lives. Little Rascal, nine years old, passed quietly in Valerie’s arms.

Linda called out on her way down the stairs, “Sorry breakfast is late, Butterscotch! It’s a snow day from school!” She peeked into the kitchen on the morning of December 23, fully expecting to see the head of her orange cat peeking out of his box. But there was no little head. She turned toward the living room, and there lay her seventeen year old cat in his basket, already in the arms of Jesus.

WORDS OF THANKS

Despite their sorrow and their losses, both Valerie and Linda were able to praise God for the circumstances of these deaths. Valerie put it this way:

I was in shock and could not think of what to do. Thank God for friends like Patty Bailey, who ministers to people with her gentle spirit and compassion for all around her. In hindsight, I realized two things.

God is so good; he sustained Rascal Skye until I got home. I picked him up and prayed with him in my arms, asking Jesus to hold onto us. Within two minutes, he passed, in my arms. My 9 year old cat whom I loved dearly was gone. For now.

Secondly, I remembered, God created him, and me, and when I get to my Heavenly home, Rascal Skye and all my animals will meet me again. I really believe that ALL animals will be in heaven because God created them. If He did not want them around, he would not have created them.

Linda, too, was certain that Butterscotch was now in Heaven. When she called her son, Allen, down from his bedroom, she told him that their cat was now with Allen’s father, Ron, and enjoying the new and youthful body God had given to him. She had much to praise God for on that difficult day. Linda had this to say:

I should have been at work, but the weather had forced a snow day so I was home and found the cat and I am so grateful Allen did not find him by himself. I’d known for a few days that Butterscotch’s time with us was nearing the end; he’d been getting slower and sleeping a lot in the last few days. The night before, Allen and I had brought him into the living room with us. We cuddled him and told him we loved him; we fed him little snacks and told him what a good cat he had been. Eventually, he jumped down and ran back to his box in the kitchen. I wonder now if our messages of love–that he had fulfilled his mission as a cat–had been what he needed to hear. It’s like we gave him permission to leave us for Heaven.

Here on earth, our vision is limited. We cannot see all God has designed for us. When we get to Heaven we, our loved ones and our animals, will live in new bodies that will not age. We will no longer see “through a glass darkly” (I Corinthians 13:112, KJV), but we will see all the colors of the spectrum, every detail of God’s creation.

CREATION WILL BE AT PEACE

Valerie, whose musings as a musician leads her towards lyrics of music, shares these words from “Creation will be at peace”:

In the holy mountain of the Lord all war and strife will cease; in the holy mountain of the Lord creation will be at peace. The wolf will lie down with the lamb, the cow and bear will feed,
their young will play together; a little child will lead, a little child will lead.

In the holy mountain of the Lord all war and strife will cease;
In the holy mountain of the Lord creation will be at peace. The leopard and goat will graze, the lion will feed on straw. They will war no more, they will war no more; a child will lead them all, will lead them all.

In the holy mountain of the Lord all war and strife will cease; In the holy mountain of the Lord creation will be at peace.

Here’s the link to the video so you can listen. Creation will be at peace

THE NAMING OF CATS

Linda, whose soul breathes poetry, wanted to share these words from TS Eliot:

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,

It isn’t just one of your holiday games;

You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter

When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.

There is, of course, the name Adam gave when he named each creature God brought before him (Genesis 2:20).There is the name we, as the temporary family of a cat, bestow upon him. And, according to Eliot, there is a secret name known only to the Cat and His Creator. Perhaps that’s the reason a cat will suddenly stop in his tracks, cock his head to the side, and listen. God is calling his name!

Here’s the rest of TS Eliot’s poem.The Naming of Cats

As Valerie, Linda, and Allen all mourn the passing of their furry friends, they want to remind you that any separation from our loved ones is temporary. God has promised us we will be together again.

And he will know ALL our names.

Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep. You, Lord, preserve both people and animals. Psalm 36:6

Tag: death

Joy of the Spirit

HEART BEAT

It Ends with an E

THE NAMING OF ALL CREATION

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