I visited my friend Merrill yesterday.
When I got home I told Amy all about it and that prompted her to write this:
Merrill and Jeanne were married for sixty one years. Jeanne no longer suffers from the confusion that made her long for heaven the last few years of her life. He carries a picture of this beautiful woman in his wallet. I think it has outlasted many wallets since she was in high school when it was taken.
It was in high school that he fell in love with her. Shortly thereafter, he was drafted into the military and of course, back then, that meant every young man went off to war. It wasn’t like it is today where troops get a one or two year mission and then are permitted to come home. You went to war and came home when it was over or if you were badly injured.
The year was 1941 and Merrill went off to Europe to liberate the oppressed and leave his mark on history. It would not do that an evil regime felt it was necessary to invade lands that didn’t belong to it and extinguish an entire race of people. He believed this. With valor he did what was necessary and right. He fought, for five years.
Merrill speaks in sweet tones about her. When he takes out her picture he weeps for his loss. When he mentions her heavenly freedom from illness and confusion, he smiles.
He has binders of Scripture that his daughter has made for him in large print for his failing eyes to read. He opened up the binder for my husband revealing a portion highlighted in bright orange. It read:
“But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”