A Story of Passing

This is a story about a good friend and his struggle with the gay lifestyle. I had written a whole political blog before this story but didn't save it, so Ill just add my two cents some other time.

This last February I was with my friend Ronnie who passed away from AIDS related NH Lymphoma. He struggled with the gay lifestyle but Christ won out. He was on our worship team years ago and it was such a joy to sing with him and have him in our church family. Even though he was saved he did still struggle with the draw of the gay lifestyle. A few years ago he left our church completely and cut off contact with everyone. I thought about him a bit, and like in Philippians, my thoughts were triggers to prayer (the message version) but earlier this year he was really on my heart. I got a call from my mom that he had contacted a good friend in the church and that he was dying. He didn't have long. My heart ached for him, how scared he must have been and how much mending needed to be done in so little time. We hadn't realized how bad he had become. Not just physically, he was really like a skeleton, but spiritually and emotionally. Not only was he fully in the lifestyle but was also dealing drugs, meth. It is so painful to see how life can fall apart without God.
Our former pastor, who had since retired, flew down from Arizona to be with Ronnie. Ronnie lived in a tiny studio and our 70+ year old pastor slept on the floor in a sleeping bad the whole time he was down. Boy do I love this pastor. His parting years ago with Ronnie was not good at all. Ronnie had lived with the pastor and his wife but when things began to go bad in Ronnie's life he began to lash out at everyone and was very destructive. On the day he left he stormed out of the house and didn't come back. When Ronnie saw his old pastor he couldn't speak. The pastor sat down on he hospital bed beside him and just embraced him and Ronnie wept like a child. He professed that he needed to return to God and so they prayed. It was so beautiful. The years had taken their toll on him emotionally, but all we could do was love him, and it wasn't hard to do, we had missed him so much. Over the week and a half there were countless people coming in to visit him. Old church friends, former boyfriends, his family, other addicts. Some were there to see him, others were there to see what they could get. Things began disappearing: Llardo pieces, a laptop, money. His supplier even came to the hospital looking for money from him...it was a pretty hairy situation and just a glimpse of what his life had recently been. Through it all we were able to speak with and pray with so many of the lost and just pour our love onto them. It was truly a God thing. A blessing was singing with him one last time. It was late, probably 1 am and a few of us were there with him. He wanted to sing some worship songs but couldn't remember any. We were so blessed because my husbands phone had tons of worship music on it, so we played it and sang along, then sang acapella for a while. It was, for lack of a better word, transcendental. It was pure worship.
Ronnie's passing was peaceful and the memorial service was beautiful. We sang some worship songs that he had written and some other well known ones. Many people cried at the eulogy, which was mixed with Ronnies life and the love of God. More than one of Ronnies gay friends were touched by this message, and were open about how moved they were. It wasnt at all what they expected from Church. I agree, its only something that God can pull off.