**This post is written by David, my husband on earth.**
While driving to work this morning I began my daily morning prayer. First thing in the morning has always been the best time for me to do so since it is quiet, I am alone and it helps start my days off on the right foot.
This morning I was praying for something that I have prayed for many times before the past few years. I was praying for my wife April, and my two bonus sons Josh and Jason. You see, this week, and really the past month is hard on them. The end of May to the middle of June really bring on tough days, all of their grief and pain, all of the emptiness from missing Mike.
This year is a little different for our family, for April, Josh and Jason especially. Every year since they lost Mike they have escaped from the Bay Area to be alone on his End of Watch. To be somewhere nobody knows them. Most of all it has always been a way for them to honor and remember Mike alone, to let emotions out and not feel too overwhelmed. Also, we as a family like to spend time in the mountains and most especially on days like this enjoying the solitude and reset the mountains bring to our lives.
This year is the first year we are staying home. Not only are we staying home, but we are celebrating Mike’s life with family and friends on multiple days. This step is huge for these three and I am so proud of how far their healing process has brought them.
In my prayer I just asked for these next few days to go smoothly and for us to be able to have a great time with family and friends remembering and honoring Mike for what he meant to them, what he means to us a family.
Then it struck me.
Each year I have similar prayers, but I never really thought about what I was saying in depth. I questioned how I could be praying about, honoring and remembering a man I never knew, a man I never even met. I thought long and hard throughout the day and finally came to a conclusion.
I correlated this with my relationship with God.
As a Christian man I believe in God. I talk to Him and pray every day. With this relationship comes the most respect, the most love and devotion in your life for a single person. You do everything in life to hopefully shine light on God’s name to bring Him glory. His steadfast love and devotion for us as individuals is amazing and unmatched. He never leaves our side, even when we leave His.
It is exactly when I had these thoughts in which I knew why I am able to honor and remember a man like Mike that I never knew, a man that I never met.
Mike’s love for God was amazing. His devotion to following God, to pouring into the lives of everyone he met in hopes of showing them God through him was pivotal. I have learned a lot about Mike through April, through Josh, Jason, family and friends. In all that I have learned, in all that I hear and know of Mike one thing reigns true. It is that when you reflect on Mike’s life from his first breath to his last, one thing is very clear and evident, and it is that without a shadow of a doubt you see God.
You see Jesus in Mike. His love for God was so deep that there was no way to hide it. When that is true in someone’s life, their glass overflows and pours into the lives of many. See, this is where God knew exactly what He was doing with me this morning. God put me through this struggle of the mind today to slap me in the face, to wake me up.
The past month I have felt off and couldn’t figure out why. The truth is, I have been distant from God for the past few weeks. Aside from daily prayer I had not pushed the boundaries of my Christianity. Prior to this past month or so, things were awesome and daily life flowed and clicked like it should. It is when I let daily life, the stress, work, COVID and many other burdens take control of my life that my relationship with God suffers and in return so does everything else. I have failed to lead my family as I should with Christ as the center.
So I have to say thanks, Mike. In a time of the year that we are remembering you and honoring your life, you have provided such a perfect example of a Christ-centered life that really had a lasting ripple effect for the boys and April.
I can only hope and pray that I too one day will have that very same impact on the lives of many. That when people remember me, they too will see God, just like you.
This is how it is so easy to honor and remember a man I never met.
This is why it is so easy to have the drive to make this week the most memorable and amazing time. Not for me, and not for personal gain. For April, Josh and Jason. In return, I too get a glimpse into the life of a man so highly respected, a man devoted to his family, friends and his job.
But most of all, a man devoted to God first.
