THE PERFECT LOVE<= /o:p>

IN MEMORY OF MY WIFE J= OHNSIE

By Ted Call= oway

6/2/2005

When I was growing up we us= ed to say a blessing that went this way.

“God is great, God is= good, let us thank him for our food. By His hands we all are fed, give us lord ou= r daily bread. Amen.”

You have heard it stated many times that God is good a= nd that he will not put more on us than we can bare. Just like the blessing says by His= hands we all are fed and give us Lord our daily bread. He will always provide. In= the Old Testament one of the names of God is Jehovah= -jireh which means God will provide.

GENESIS 22:13-14 “AND ABRAHAM LIFTED UP HIS EYES= AND LOOKED AND BEHOLD BEHIND HIM A RAM CAUGHT IN A THICKET BY THE HORNS; AND ABRAHAM WENT AND TOOK THE RAM AND OFFERED HIM UP FOR A BURNT OFFERING IN THE STEAD OF HIS SON. AND ABRAHAM CALLED THE NAME OF THAT PLACE JEHOVAH-JIREH: = AS IT IS TO THIS DAY, IN THE MOUNT OF THELORD IT SHALL BE SEEN.”

The Lord= will see, or provide. He even provided a way back to Him even after the fall of Adam.

JOHN 3= :16 “FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON THAT WHOSOEVER BELIVES IN HIM SHALL NOT PARISH BUT HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE.”=

His is the perfect love and it always seeks the perfect well-being of the object being loved, no matter = what the cost of that love. Could = you let your only son die for someone else just to save the= m? This is done through an act of grace at a point in time when we did not deserve such gra= ce.

ROMANS 5: 8 STATES”BUT GOD COMMENDETH HIS LOVE T= OWARD US, IN THAT, WHICH WE WERE YET SINNERS, CHRIST DIED FOR US.”

Once we have accepted Christ as our lord and savior he= gives us the fruit of the spirit.

GALATIANS 5:22-23 SAYS “BUT THE FRUIT OF THE SPI= RIT IS LOVE, JOY, PEACE, LONGSUFFERING, KINDNESS, GOODNESS, FAITHFULLNESS, GENTLEN= ESS, SELF-CONTROL. AGINST SUCH THERE IS NO LAW.

My relationship with my wife goes back just over 32 years. Some marriages don’t last that long. Early in our marriage we separated for a period of three years.&= nbsp; Even then God was preparing the way for w= hat was to come. We had a three y= ear old daughter that needed her daddy to be a part of here life more than just weekend and one night were in church together and she ask me if I wanted to= move back in with them. I said yes and she told me I would have to sleep in the extra bed room. I said yes because I just wanted= back into the home. Over the years our relationship would have its ups and downs. I= t was not a perfect marriage but was not a bad one either.

It is important to have a working relationship that is active and growing. We never = want any confrontation or misunderstanding to interfere with that. Above all I never hit her or was violent to her. When conflict arises a heart of love will= seek to restore that relationship as quickly as possible, no matter how bad we h= ave been hurt.

COLOSSAINS 3:24 TELLS US”BEYOND ALL THESE THINGS PUT ON LOVE, WHICH IS THE PERFECT BO= ND OF UNITY.”

One day she told me she was pregnant and we found out = we were going to have a son. He was born in December 1978 and we named him Francis after his grandpa.

Love brings joy into our lives. The world would be a l= onely place without the love of God. Without god, we have no purpose, no meaning, and no destiny for our lives. One fruit of the spirit is love. If you have not discovered the love= of God, there is a piece of the puzzle missing from your life. It is incomplete. God wants us to have purpose and m= eaning and destiny.

As you go through the storms and struggles of life you= may not always know when He is grooming or shaping you to handle an event or mountain that is coming into your life somewhere down the road. We pray for God to remove that mou= ntain so we don’t have it blocking our way. How = often do we stop and think what is God trying to teach me?

JOHN 15:9-11 STATES, “JUST AS THE FATHER HAS LOV= ED ME I HAVE ALSO LOVED YOU, ABIDE IN MY LOVE. IF YOU KEEP MY COMMANDMENTS YOU WI= LL ABIDE IN MY LOVE JUST AS I HAVE KEPT MY FATHERS COMMANDMENTS AND ABIDE IN H= IS LOVE. THESE THINGS I HAVE SPOKEN TO YOU SO THAT MY JOY MAY BE IN YOU AND YO= UR JOY MAY BE MADE FULL”

Love is a bond of unity. When we love people, we soften the= ir hearts and touch their lives in unique ways. When something is wrong or your pa= rtner is suffering, you want to do something about it. We both have had years of failing health, being plagued by heart disease and diabetes. She was always there for me and I = was there for her. When you truly love each other, you do what you need to do to take care of the other. You will forget your self and concentrate on the other person.

God had numerous opportunities to take me on home to b= e with him but he chose to leave me here. Many times I was so miserable I prayed for death to come ,but he had= a job for me to do that was not finished so here I am, one step closer to bei= ng with my Lord and Savior , just one breath away from heaven. Over the years,= I have been in the hospital many times. At one hospital, they told me I had frequent flyer miles I had been there so much. My body has had open-heart surgery= , (one bypass) ten stints in and around my heart, a deliberator in my chest, a hea= rt attack, kidney failure and kidney surgery to remove two large stones, many heart catheterizations and the aortic valve has been replaced with a plastic one. When the peo= ple in the lab know you on a first name basis, you have been there too much. Johnsie was always there for me.

One of our favorite pastimes was to talk to each other= when we went to bed at night. We would find out how each oth= ers day had gone and just how the other was feeling. We would often discuss problems we were having. Since February I would always say to her;

“Sweetie I love you and good night.” She w= ould tell me good night and that she loved me. Since she suffered from tremendous pain in her feet and legs, many times she was up walking the floor try to get relief and sometimes her blood sugar would drop into the 50’s which is low and can cause problems. I would tell her to wake me up if she needed me for any of these problems. I have been awakened many nights at three or four o’clock in the morning and had to get up and fix her some food so she could get her sugar back up.&n= bsp; I believed God had left me here to take care of her.

She had diabetes and was completely blind in one eye a= nd legally blind in the other. Many times I would l= ead her through stores and other places she would always put her arm around mine and I found much comfort in this. She had been on dialysis for over 4 years. You have treatments three days a week. These often leav= e you tired and weak without energy till all you can d= o is go home and go to bed. She had reached the point that she was considering refusing to continue the treatme= nts. It would only be a matter of three to four weeks until she died if she had = done this.

In the midst of all of this= where do you find any joy? What is joy anyway? Is it that fee= l good sensation we feel when you see something you want and you know right a= way you can have it if the price is right.&nbs= p; Joy is not something that money can buy. God was continually preparing me f= or what was to come.

Part of this preparation came in July of 2000. I had been hospitalized with chest pain and had been giv= en a stress test. I laid down and went to sleep that = night. I was feeling okay and just wanted to rest. After falling to sleep I realized that I had been taken to a place I had never been before. I was experiencing a sudden death incident. I was in a place where even the air <= span class=3DGramE>was filled with joy and peace. You could feel it with every fiber= of your being, as the Bible says it was a joy unspeakable. I do not recall see= ing God or Jesus or any family member but I knew I was in the presence of God.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> I remember saying “boy you h= ave never been this deep before. The only one way to describe it and that was t= he word WOW! Just a big fat WOW!

When I came to they were ask ever my bed trying to rev= ive me and saying they were taking me to intensive care. They told me my eyes had already rolled back I my head and I had to be sh= ocked twice with the electric paddles. I knew the true meaning of j= oy and peace and want to be there again.&n= bsp; Again God was growing and grooming me for= what was to come. A little glimpse= of heaven was so great just imagine what a full dos= e of it would be like. Just a few = weeks before their death I had had a conversation with Johnsie and her mother and= the question came up are you saved. They both assured me they were.

Then in November of 2001 Johnsie had to be hospitalized and be on a ventilator for several days. She began suffering dementia where= she would ask strange of the wall questions that didn’= ;t make any sense. Her memory was being affected and a neurologist told us she was suffering from micro vascular disease. When this happen= s the small blood vessels in the brain are beginning to shut down. He told us she would never be any better. I began asking people to prayer for her. I ask God to give me my old Johnsie back.

When she got read to go hom= e she had to be on oxygen 24 hours a day. And was bein= g pushed around in a wheel chair that had a tank attached to it. This was devastating to her. It hu= rts you when you see someone you love begin deteriating physically and there is nothing you can do to fix. A man likes to be able to fix thin= gs when something is wrong and this time I could not do that. All that was left was to pray.

She began having problems with the catheilter in her chest clotting off. = This caused the blood not to be cleaned. She had begun dialysis with a fistula in her arm and these had stopped working and finally had to be given in her chest.

By January the surgeon deci= ded to use he other arm and do fistula in it so back to the hospital again. Then if February of 2002 we received a phone call one night about 11 pm from Baptist = hospital in Winston-Salem it was the transplant coordinator and she told us they had a kidney that wa= s a perfect match was she interested. She of course said yes and we were told when and where to be the next morning. This was the fourth = time she had been called and each time something was wrong. This one was form a 16 year old South Carolina boy that had been killed in a car wreck.= She had been praying for healing or a trans plant an= d had final said she just told God it was up to him that he could do what ever he wanted to do with her. She tu= rned loose of the problem.

When we got there we found out that Dr. Strata one of = the best doctors who specialized in transplanting both kidneys and the pancreas= would be doing the work. They began to draw blood to do cross matching to see if = the body would reject the kidney. I felt God telling me to go into the prayer closet and pray for her like never before. Where would I find a prayer closet in a hospital? I decided to go i= nto the bath room and get by myself with God. I prayed for the cross matching to= be a success. Shortly after I came= back into the room the doctor came back and asks her = if she was ready to go and she figured it was for her to go home. She said where?

“To the operating room to get your new kidney= 221; he told her.

As we waited in the waiting room for what seemed like = hours, with friends and our pastor I knew I my heart that all would be well so I d= id not feel apprehensive that was taking a long time. It w= as nearly 6 pm when he came in and told us when doing was well and everything = was working. The first time I went into her room in intensive care she w= as a sleep so shook her and said”Johnsie , Johnsie do you know who this is?&#= 8221;

She open= ed her one good eye and looked at me and said “well don’t you know?”= It seemed that from the moment the new kidney began working to purify her blood it was like a light was stitched on and it made all the diffe= rence in the world for her mind. Praise God I had my old Johnsie back.

We thanked God for the family of the young boy who had enough foresight to donate his organs so that others may live. His kidney h= ad extended her life. Many times during this past year I told her God had given us bonus time to spend with each other.

One of the responsibilities associated with the transp= lant is that you have to take a lot of pills so the b= ody will not reject the kidney. A= t breakfast she was taking 17. We also had to check her = blood sugar four times a day, her blood pressure daily and because of these we ere more in tuned to what her body was doing. One day she came to me saying she= had a lot of pain in and around her shoulder and back. A lo= t of times in a woman this is where a heart attack will manifest its self. After checking her blood pressure which was very high we deci= ded t o take her to the hospital at Valdese. They contacted Winston -Salem and sent her on to Baptist. This = time they did a heart cauterization and discovered she had three blockages. And she= needed surgery once again the prayers began going up for her. It had only been a month since her kidney transplant... once again God brought her through this. While they were do= ing the surgery the found she had a massive blood cl= ot in her heart and removed it.

Catherine was as much a mother to me as my own was and= we loved each other a took care of each other as best we could. She was suffer= ing the ravages of old age. She was diabetic, and had a heart a tack, used a pacemaker that caused her much pain and she was crippled with arthritis in = her legs back and neck. She continually had Sevier headaches. She was 82 and had lived a good long live. She h= ad lost her husband after they had been married for 50 years and she stilled grieved for him.

I missed them greatly and many tim= es wonder why it had to happen and was it my fault. I have asked God and myself the question did I kill them. That is when God reminds me to be absent from the body is to be pres= ent with the Lord. Having only had a glimpse of what they are enjoying I would = not called them back even if I could.

Finally to show you how God prepared me, the day of the fatal crash I had gone to church and the pastor spoke on how we deal with t= he storms of life. What we do to get through them. the song that was a special was Champion of Love and it truly ministered to me and the Sunday school lesion was about Elijah and was enti= tled GOD WILL PROVIDE. The accident that took their lives happened on September 29, 2002. My wife was killed instantly when she was thrown through= the window on our van. Her mother lasted only a few hours and then died. I was hospitalized for several weeks and spent the next = 6 or 7 month recovering from my injuries. It is only through faith and the prayers= of many other people I am here today.

THE FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT ARE JOY, LOVE, PEACE, LONG-SUFFERING, KINDNESS, GOODNESS, FAITHFULLNESS, GENTLENESS AND SELF CONT= ROL.

At times I have struggled to learn what these mean and th= en God shows me in Johnsie. She was = my buddy, my friend my partner and my purpose for living = and my soul mate. I truly loved her.

If you want to know this joy and peace of God all you need to do is ask Him to forgive you of your sins and come into your life and be a part of it. Pra= ise be unto God.

JOHN 3= :16 “FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON SO THAT WHOSOEVER BELIVES IN HIM SHALL NOT PARISH BUT HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE”<= /p>

POEM WRITTEN A IN MEMORY OF MY WIFE JOHNSIE ABOUT 1:30 ONE MO= RNING FOLLOWING A DREAM OF HER. GOD IMPRESSED THIS ON MY HEART AND MIND. <= span class=3DGramE>BY TED CALL0WAY...

YOUR LIFE IS LIKE A VAPOR

IIT’S LIKE THE MORNING MIST

HERE TODAY AND GONE TOMORROW

WITH JUST THE MEMORY OF A KISS…

I FEEL YOU WHEN YOU ARE NEAR ME

AND CAN ALMOST FEEL YOUR TOUCH

AS YOUR HAND BREEZES BY ME

AND OUR HEARTS FEEL SO MUCH..

WHENEVER YOU ARE NEAR ME

I HEAR YOUR SWEET VOICE SAY

YOU HAVE NO NEED TO FEAR ME

I’LL BE WAITING ON THE WAY..

YOUR LIFE IS LIKE A VAPOR

IT’S LIKE THE MORNING MIST

HERE TODAY AND GONE TOMORROW

WITH JUST THE MEMORY OF A KISS

I TURN AROUND AND YOU ARE NEAR ME

SO CLOSE WE ALMOST TOUCH

I TURN AROUND AND WANT TO TELL YOU

I LOVE YOU OH SO MUCH..