Thanksgiving for Caleb

  • Rosemary Oosthuizen
  • May 5, 2010
    Thanksgiving for Caleb

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Oh Lord, dear Lord, loving Father – You are so awesome – Your ways are higher than our ways, Your thoughts deeper than our thoughts, Your love wider than we can imagine. You are such a faithful God. Although one side of my heart yearns and mourns, I feel privileged that I have seen, experienced, felt and heard you so much more than ever before.

    I am overwhelmed by how you have undertaken for us in this time, how you have worked and spoken through people in this time.  Starting with Petunia – a sister at the hospital but also in Christ who firstly assured me of your purposes in everything and then gave me this passage;

    “The word jireh literally means “he sees ahead”. God who sees what you need before you need it – yes, even before you know you need it. For every task that God gives you, you can be assured that he has already made full provision for all you will need to complete that task. There is no problem for which he has not already supplied a solution. There is no troublesome circumstance or difficulty for which He has not already provided victory or a way of escape. There is nothing that you face today or in the future that God has not already foreseen and arranged everything you will need. Praise Jehovah-jireh! God is our provider today, tomorrow and for eternity. He knows precisely what we need, and has already made provision for meeting our needs. Praise our God who sees ahead to provide everything we will ever need!”

    God knows us so intimately – Ps 139:13 “For you made my inward parts. You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your Works and that my soul knows very well”.

    I want to declare and testify to His Marvelous Works and how He has provided for, prepared us for and prepared for us in this time.

    Caleb’s 19 months was a gift to us. My mom reminded me of what my gynae said minutes after delivering Caleb, “We got him out just in time!” Caleb was booked for a Caesar at 39 weeks. I went in for a check-up at 38 weeks and Caleb’s heart rate had dropped so much that he was taken out in an hour after me going in for the check-up. My gynae confirmed this the other day at my visit for this little one on the way – “had I come in a day later he would have been dead!” My heart overflows with gratitude to think that we could have had no time as a family together with this little guy who changed our hearts and minds so much.

    God provided Caleb’s names – one night whilst spending time with God and the name book – I felt led to these names for our boy (and then I knew we were having a boy).

    Caleb – faithful, great spiritual warrior, “Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said – “Let us go up and possess the land for we are able to do it” Num13:30.

    Going back to that night I really felt that through this child we would take hold of ‘our’ land.

    Joah – God is my Father, secure, “You are my Father. My God, the rock of my salvation” Ps 89:26.

    Caleb’s short life has taught me so much about God- our Father – my Father and now Caleb’s true Father.

    God prepared our marriage.

    Cornelius and I had to work through a few issues in our marriage and within ourselves – this bound us closer together so strongly and secured our love for each other so deeply – I am not sure that our marriage would have survived this before then. As now I can honestly say that I forgive my husband and it is easy for me to forgive him and love him.

    God provided and has prepared a body of believers for us.

    About a year ago God lead us back to this body of Christ - 3CI – where people have gone before us who have experienced similar pain Their testimonies encourage us so much. He has prepared people to walk the road with us - surround us and care for us. As we said “Caleb’s death has revealed to us the living body of Christ. We have felt His warm embrace. We have seen the tears in His eyes. We have heard His comforting voice. We can testify that God is good, His grace is sufficient and He is alive”.

    God has given us deep friendships –

    and I would like to honour Niel and Maire for being such faithful and loving friends who have been with us through our moments of crisis – firstly with Caleb’s birth and now with Caleb’s death. Just about 3 weeks before Caleb’s death they joined 3CI. God has placed us in the same body for such a time as this. Also for the many other friendships that God has given to us and added to us in this time. Like Collin said at Caleb’s Thanksgiving Service, “a brother is borne in adversity”. God has already added brothers and sisters to us in this time.

    God has also given us an amazing ‘blood’ family -

    who have come around us, loved us, supported us and reaffirmed His love for us, in this time. Even though our family members live as far apart as Cape Town to Phalaborwa – God granted them each the privilege of seeing Caleb and having special moments with him in the past month before his death. We had spent a special weekend together to celebrate my Mom’s 60th early – where my whole family was together and had had special times with Caleb. (My mom turned 60 two days after Caleb’s passing). Just the weekend before we had been with Cornelius’ family.

    God has confirmed his love and promises for us  -

    through various people who have sent scriptures at times when I have not known what to read. Even in the hospital I was given Ps 18:1-3 “I will love you, O Lord my strength. The Lord is my rock and my deliverer. My God, my strength in whom I trust, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised. So shall I be saved from my enemies”.

    God also granted us fantastic family time in the last few months.

    We have savoured so many moments with this dear boy who truly loved and enjoyed life to its fullest. Even in the last week of his life – we had a family picnic in a sand ‘sloot’, on the farm Cornelius often goes and hunts on. I watched Caleb enthusiastically diving into the sand again and again – laughing and picking himself up again. I took him to his brother’s music lesson to play outside with his little friend Katya. I took him shopping with me. We as a family all went to our local pool to have a swim whilst Cornelius’ trained - I watched him have his last swim – which he loved doing so much.

    God ensured that not one memory of Caleb was lost.

    About a week before Caleb died Cornelius’ laptop was stolen.  The previous weekend he had bought an external hard drive and stored all our photos on it. God is truly the God of every detail.

    God has prepared us for this through our work.

    The last few years Cornelius and I have worked with farmers encouraging them to farm biologically (using natural systems). In doing this we have come to appreciate the vastness of God’s creation in our dealings with the soil - soil life and soil fertility and that there are so many things that we will never understand or that cannot be explained scientifically, - we can only work with the little we do understand. This has also helped me not question the workings of God, our Maker, but just praise Him for all He has made and have faith for all He is going to do.

    God prepared us for our response.

    The Tuesday before Caleb’s death a group of us friends, who are all Christians, had a music class for our little ones, who were all around 19 months. Afterwards my friend, Maire, who leads the class, referred to Hettie Brittz’s testimony and posed the question - "what would our response be if something like that had to happen to us?"  It lingered in me for days afterwards.  Cornelius - not knowing of this conversation asked Kallie, one of the elders at our church when he visited us in the hospital, "what should our response to this be?" and he said, "just praise God". It has been amazing at just how that has carried us through, how easy I find it and the peace I experience through it.

    Each time I think back more comes to mind and it makes me so grateful to God once again for all he has done. I will continue to praise His Awesome Name.

    Caleb was a child that climbed right into anyone’s heart whether they met him for 5 minutes or knew him for his life-time. He really had something special. It was a privilege to be his mom even for such a short time, a time I will always hold in my heart. He was a gift from God and now he has gone back to where he belongs in the loving arms of our Father.

    One night whilst lying awake the following verse came to me “He will turn our mourning into gladness and He will give us comfort and joy instead of sorrow” –Jer 31:10. This sums up for me what God has done for us in this time. God is such a good God, full of mercy and rich in love.

    Two pictures that were given us-

    Numbers 14:24 ”But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly I will bring him into the land he went to and his descendants will inherit it”. Caleb has gone before us to the promised land – “the place we all want to go to it is just a question of time”, as Byron, a close friend of ours said.

    John12:24 “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds“. Through Caleb’s death I believe there is going to be an abundant harvest of seed. Please share these seeds with us – they are a source of great encouragement.

    May this encourage you and may you see more of God through reading this.

    Love Rosemary