Tomorrow He Gets the Title

My husband was the eldest of four brothers. He was an alcoholic who did not drink and a faithful Christian; he stopped drinking several months before he and I met. When we were getting to know each other, I asked him about his brothers. He said that he and the second brother were the handsomest of the four; he and his youngest brother were the most alike in personality; and the number three brother was the one who had stuck by him through all of his difficulties.

Brother #3 married his high school sweetheart, graduated from college, went to work at one of the local hospitals in the endoscopy department, and became the choir director at the church in which the brothers had grown up attending. He is a trained paramedic, and was for many years the chief of their community's volunteer fire department. He works twice a year as a paramedic at the NASCAR track that's about forty miles from our town, and has a lovely daughter, son-in-law, and two fine grandsons. When his wife was twenty-seven years old, she was diagnosed with breast cancer; she's been a breast cancer survivor for twenty-four years, and founded a local breast cancer support group.

Brother #3 and his wife own a little block house just down the road from their house. It was the house where her parents lived when they first married, and it was the house where they let my husband live when he finally hit bottom and lost everything. It was the house where my husband was when he called #3 and told him that he had to change or die. It was the house where their minister, my father-in-law, my husband, and #3 all prayed for God to strengthen my husband and bring him back from the brink of disaster. God answered their prayer, and after he and I married, God placed him as a Sunday School teacher for teenage boys at a local drug treatment facility.

Brother #3 always treated my husband with Christian love and compassion as well as brotherly love and compassion. He acted in a Christ-like manner, not to be confused with a "religious" attitude. I've read that the Christian army is the only army that shoots our wounded instead of healing them, and that's true in so many cases, but not with #3.

Tomorrow #3 is going to be ordained as a minister. He's been a minister for most of his life, but his church has recognized his calling, and is bestowing on him one of the highest honors that we can give. I went with my mother-in-law today to help her pick out a new dress for the service, and I'm going to the service with my in-laws. It will be a difficult time for me, because we will all be missing the presence of my husband, who would be SO proud of his brother. I thought about buying a gift, but #3 and his wife have everything they need. I'm going to make a donation to the church in honor of #3...and in memory of #1, my darling husband.