He Was Promoted

 

“He Was Promoted”

My Dad’s father passed unexpectedly at the age of sixty-three. He had a massive heart attack during his sleep.  It was a peaceful way to die.  My dad was only 35 years old, and I was almost eight.  I have a memory of it, but mostly just remember what my dad has said about it.  My grandfather had been a Baptist minister/farmer all of his life.  He had worked hard, preached hard, and prayed hard.  I know my dad respected him even though he had been extremely tough on my dad when he was a boy.  It was during the Great Depression that my dad grew up, and they had been tenant farmers for a dairy farm.  My Dad had gotten up at 4 am since he was old enough to help milk cows before going to school.  The story is that they didn’t have shoes to wear and wrapped burlap bags over their feet.  It was a difficult upbringing.  His father was strict and put the fear of God in my father, who was the fourth born of the five siblings. 

My grandfather, Samuel Rosco Paschal, died on Thanksgiving Day in 1967.  There was a hard freeze and a cold wind.  Snow covered the ground.  I remember my dad said how hard it was for the grave to be dug because the earth was so frozen.  I don’t remember the service, but I know my dad’s perspective.  When people offered their condolences to my dad for the loss of his father, he would say: “Dad was promoted”.  Now why does that particularly stand out to me from my childhood?  As a 64 -year-old myself I am reminded daily of this statement.  I lost my 60-year-old husband in 2018 and became a widow at 58.  After 33 years of marriage and three grown children, I have taken the perspective that my husband too “was promoted”.  How else can you explain an otherwise healthy person suddenly succumbing to death at such an early age?

I think my father always thought he would die young as well.  He is now 92 and physically he is doing well.  He had the “widow-maker” heart attack himself in his 50’s but survived with a dozen stents now placed in his heart.  I really can’t say why some people live to be in their 90’s while others are called home to their eternal resting place at an early age.  We are not supposed to know.  It is a plan God has devised for good.  I would like to think that God has chosen a person’s demise because he has a higher purpose for them, in other words “promoted”.  Promoted to a heavenly realm that we cannot see, but with faith and hope we can accept the promotion as God’s will and move forward with that perspective.  After all, this life is but a flicker compared to the eternal existence awaiting us.    

I wholeheartedly adopt my dad’s perspective that at the end of our lives “We are promoted”, promoted to a place of peace, rest and unconditional love to commune with God in Heaven.

RIP Jerry Harvey (4/26/1958 – 6/25/2018)

Posted on the 6-year Anniversary of his Promotion

by:  Tammy Harvey

6/13/2024