My Sister’s Graveside Service 1-27-2023

My Shared Memories of Suezette’s Life

Earliest memory (pre-school) – I locked my older siblings; Suezette, Sherry, and Dan out of the house (on the farm east of Climbing Hill) and then I hid. I don’t remember why I locked them out, but there had to be a good reason. After they found a way into the house and found me hiding in a corner behind the bed, they dragged me out. Suezette and Dan held me down while Sherry spanked me!

One year at the Iowa State Fair, Suezette wanted to ride the Ferris Wheel. It was so tall that from the top seat you could look down on the roof of the grand stands. As they started and stopped the Ferris Wheel to load the seats, the seats would rock back and forth and you felt like you were going to fall out. I didn’t trust the cross bar so I was hanging on to the arm rest and seat back for dear life. When I glanced sideways at Suezette, she was griping the crossbar with both hands and staring straight ahead. Scared to death! After surviving that experience, she never mentioned wanting to ride a Ferris Wheel again.

We rode a Log ride while visiting Sherry in Florida. Suezette had the front seat and got soaked. Her perm was hanging down on her head like little ringlets.

When supper was ready, Mom would have Suezette call me for supper. Susie would walk out on the front porch in our small town and let’er rip. Didn’t matter where I was playing in town, I could hear her calling me. I still can.

Long before Suezette was a Kansas City Chief’s fan, she was a Chicago Bear’s fan. You didn’t dare say anything bad about the Bears. Of course, we did, and she would get fighting mad. I used to kid her about burning her KC Chief’s stuff when they weren’t playing well. On a couple of occasions I think she would have. One year at the State Fair I was able to get Ed Podolak to autograph a KC Chief’s hat for her. She was pleased to have it.

Susie had several elderly friends that through the years she helped out by doing errands like picking up their mail. They enjoyed coffee and card games together.

Suezette would give you the shirt off her back if she thought it would make you happy. She was eager to please, but vulnerable to some who might take advantage of her kindness.

She loved to go places…she was excited to go and excited to share what she did when she came home. You had to be careful about telling her someone was coming to pick her up. Even if it was five hours from now, she would be ready to go before you could say “Jack’s your neighbor”.

Suezette always seemed to have a camera. I remember her having the old flash type that would blind you. She also had a Brownie camera that I think she won as a prize. Later on, she had a Polaroid. She had quite a collection of family pictures. Among them were several photographs of the actor, Lee Majors (Big Valley TV Show Star). I thought he was a member of the family!

She had dreams…dreams of marriage to a tall dark handsome fellow.

Sherry related that one night in bed, during Junior High School, she found some lumps on her body. Thinking it was cancer Sherry pulled the blankets over her head and began to cry. Susie asked why she was crying and when Sherry told her, Suezette began to sing the hymn: “God Will Take Care of You.”

When my kids became too dignified to laugh at my corny jokes, she did.

Suezette learned to give orders during the last eighteen months that she spent at Pioneer Valley Living & Rehab. For the first time in her life she was not being told what to do or where to go. She would tell us what she wanted or needed and of course, we would get it for her. Dan was in her room one day searching through the dresser for something and she told him to leave her stuff alone and sit down! After her recent hand surgery her feet hurt so I was massaging them for her. After a bit she ordered me to stop: That’s enough! she said.

James 4:8a says “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”

When my family returned to Iowa in 1994, I was on a mission for God and our path led here. I had a burden for the rural people and a vision for how to carry it out. The timing of our coming was perfect,…for Suezette. God’s timing is always perfect. Mom and Dad both passed away within weeks and months of our arrival. Suezette was a dependent. She had lived with our parents her whole life and now they were gone.

Christians are not here on earth for our own purposes, goals and pleasure. We aren’t here to fulfill our own visions and dreams. We are here for God’s purpose and for His pleasure. After a time, it began to dawn on me that maybe we were here, in Iowa, for Suezette.

Suezette had special needs. She was a child locked up in an adult body. When both parents died – she became an orphan and has been such for twenty-eight years. Scripture says that, “pure religion and undefiled is to visit the widow and the orphan in their distress and to keep one-self unspotted from the world.” Suezette, the orphan, asked if she could call Deb and me – Mom and Dad. I couldn’t wrap my mind around that and we discouraged her from it. But you know what? God promised to be a Father to the fatherless.

As time went on, I realized that we weren’t necessarily in her life to help her, as much as God had placed her in our lives to help us. To help us learn compassion, humility and love…to be like Christ.

Our brother Dan would come to our house on a regular basis while Suezette was with us. He handled her finances and he came to collect her mail/bills and often brought her necessities like pop, snacks, candy, etc. I remember on occasion, seeing him bringing a basin of warm water to Susie and placing her feet in it to soak. After bit, on his knees, he would gently raise each foot and clip her toenails. Who does that remind you of?

You know, Suezette gave each of us opportunities to do something loving, something Christ-like; to do for someone what they could not do for us. To do something that they cannot repay. Anyone can do good to those who will return the favor, but not everyone can or will do something for those who cannot pay back the deed.

Suezette knew right from wrong and she had a conscience. There came a time when her conscience was so overwhelmed with guilt that she became broken and contrite.* Contrite means to become humbled by guilt and repentant over one’s sin. She came to Deb on her own initiative and spilled her heart out. Deb helped her take it to the Lord.

In her last months/years with us she read her Bible faithfully and listened to Bible teaching on the radio. Jesus said, speaking of the Scripture: “these are they which testify of me.” Scripture also says, that no one can come to Christ unless the Father draw him/her. God the Father was drawing Susie to Himself. The redeemed heart longs for communion with God.

Is He drawing you?

Committal:

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Genesis 3:19

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem entitled A Psalm of Life. The last part of the second stanza says this: Dust to dust was not written of the soul. Dust to dust was written of the body. The Apostle Paul reminds us: We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. 2 Cor. 5:8

The second best thing that can happen to a Christian is death. The best thing is the rapture. The Apostle Paul writes about this “snatching away” in I Thessalonians 4:13-18 and he leaves us with this instruction:

But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep (dead), that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.

For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent (precede) them which are asleep (dead). For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

*Psalm 51.

...let the word of Christ dwell (take up it’s life) in you richly…

Note: Suezette, eighty years old, was the eldest of six siblings. She passed from this life into the next on January 21st, 2023. This is being posted for family and friends that were unable to attend due to distance and weather.




Thoughts on the Source

The original writings of Scripture, written in Hebrew, Aramaic & Greek, were without error because they were God-breathed. Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. The nature of the original writings authored by the Holy Spirit is based upon the integrity and character of God. God cannot lie. His Word is truth.

Why emphasize the original writings? We emphasize them because Scripture emphasizes them. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. All Scripture is given refers to the original acts that gave us God’s Word. This is how it happened. The word inspiration means God breathed. God breathed out the Scripture as to source. That’s what the Bible says about itself. The original writings of Scripture were perfect because of their source.

Copies and translations of the original writings were the product of men, who are not perfect. Thus copies and translations are subject to man’s imperfection. This is an important distinction to make because we no longer have the perfect original writings. But we still want to know that what we do have is accurate and true.


How can we be sure then that we have God’s Word as it was given us in the original writings? Since the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls, Bible scholars have been able to determine, through comparative studies, that the biblical texts we have inherited are accurate. *

It should be noted that Bible believers down through history have not required such affirmation. The just shall live by faith and they have. The Dead Sea discoveries came in God’s timing, affirming the faith of the just and exposing the foolish objections of unbelieving mankind.

There is a difference in meaning between original writings and original languages. The original writings are those writings which were originally penned by the prophets, by holy men of God, who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. We no longer have the original writings. Original languages are those languages used originally to record the Bible in writing.** These languages are still available to us today in copies passed down from the original manuscripts.

Keep in mind that there are good and bad translations of Scripture. The best translations are the word for word translations based on the original languages (see Which Bible?). The worst translations are those based upon what someone thinks the Bible says. Discernment should be exercised in selecting a reliable version of Scripture for personal study.

Note:

*Before the discovery of Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest available manuscripts of the Old Testament were dated from about 1000 AD.  After the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls, we suddenly had OT manuscripts that predated Christ.  Comparative studies of these manuscripts by Bible scholars indicated that the oldest manuscripts in our possession prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls were 95% plus in accuracy.  The 5% or less discrepancy has nothing to do with Bible doctrine and can be attributed to scribal error and changed spellings.

**The Scriptures have been written and copied by those who believed that the Bible was exactly what it claimed to be……..the Word of God.  They treated it as such.  God worked through these people to preserve His Word.  Many paid with their lives.

The large volume of New Testament manuscripts; some full manuscripts, some partial, some in bits and pieces, have enabled Bible scholars to verify through constructive criticism the contents of each NT book.  In many cases there is more historical evidence to support Bible content, than there is for much of the secular history predating Christ.

…let the word of Christ dwell (take up its life) in you richly…

Good

Good in Scripture is that which accomplishes God’s purpose.

They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Psalm 14:3

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the LORD shall not want (lack) any good thing. Psalm 34:10

…let the word of Christ dwell (take up its life) in you richly…

Tell Us Plainly

When the Pharisees gathered round Jesus in the temple, they asked Him to tell them plainly who He was. He had already told them plainly who He was, but they didn’t believe Him. So Jesus told them if they did not believe His words, they should believe His works.

If you do not believe what the Bible says, then you should believe its works. So then, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Everyone knows someone who has been born again, someone who has been saved, someone who has received God’s Son, Jesus Christ, as their only hope of salvation and their life was changed. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. II Corinthians 5:17

The world is full of testimonials to the life changing grace of God bestowed on those who have received Jesus Christ as their only hope of salvation. Individuals from every nation, every tongue and race, young and old alike on the face of the earth are living examples of a relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ. Consider the works of those whose lives give testimony to the truth of the Bible.

A changed life is the work of Christ.

…let the word of Christ dwell (take up its life) in you richly…

A Psalm of Life


Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
“Life is but an empty dream!”
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.


Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
“Dust thou art, to dust returnest,”
Was not spoken of the soul.


Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Finds us farther than to-day.


Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.


In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!


Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,–act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!


Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;


Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.


Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing
Learn to labor and to wait.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807-1882

Public Domain