Give And Take

Sure you know all about this. Right? Everyone does.

"The Lord gives and the Lord takes away,blessed be the name of the Lord"

Pam and I recently experienced the loss of my sister-in-law and very special friend Barbara Payne Grizzle. She went home to heaven on Friday Nov.13th.

We went back to the memorial service and I conducted the celebration of her homegoing to be with the Lord.

Barbara was a Pastor's wife for over 20 years then single a mother of four and doing medical missions work in the summertime. She was an anesthetist and often went to Dominican Republic and other places for the Lord's work.

The Lord has taken away a very special servant !

But now the Lord also gives too.

On that very same day the Lord gave us another member of our family. Siena was born into our Payne clan and Brantley and Lubi Payne are the wonderful parents.

What a joy she is with beautiful skin color and a permanent smile on her face. She is healthy, quiet and seldom even whimpers. An angel from God to be sure and she was given as a gift to our grateful family.

Letting go of Barbara was hard but receiving what God had to give us was easy.

Whether it is a loss taken or a gift given we come to learn to say "Blessed be the name of the Lord"

God never makes mistakes.