In recent days, my church has experienced two deaths, both relatively sudden and somewhat unexpected. Frankly, I only knew one person causally with the occasional greeting, and the other person I had minimal contact with, but her husband is the Worship Pastor, so I definitely interacted more with him.
Cecil Toon passed within two weeks. He was fine at the beginning of the year and took a sudden turn for the worse. Julie Passman had been given a clean bill of health from her battle with cancer, only to experience back pain and find out the cancer had spread to other parts of her body.
Julie’s doctor in New Braunfels, TX, told her there was nothing more they could do, so she and her husband, Pastor James, went to Tijuana, Mexico, to seek alternative medical treatment.
Tragically, I awoke Friday morning (February 7, 2025) to read an email in the inbox informing me that Julie had died the previous night.
So, at the beginning of 2025, two members of my church, First Baptist Church of New Braunfels, were alive and well, all things considered, and today, they are no longer among us.
I too easily know I live in that season of life where death will be a constant presence, sadly more than weddings and birthday celebrations. Between family, school classmates, work associates, and fellow Brothers and Sisters in Christ, death will be a constant presence.
Our comfort as Christ-followers provides our only basis for joy. As much as one can I am most confident that Cecil and Julie died in faith, died in Christ.
Yet, I know that does not eliminate the grief that Mary and her family will endure regarding Cecil or James and his family's experience regarding Julie.
Grief is genuine and very different for every person. Family and friends will say the right things and act in the right ways in the coming days, but the tears will still flow, and the sorrow will still run deep.
Providentially, I connected with James and Julie on a more intimate level as they walked through this season of medical trials. In fact, as Julie believed she was cancer-free, we talked of getting together soon for dinner.
Julie was quiet, but she was always sweet to me. She generously supported my fundraising campaign to run the Chicago Marathon, and I fondly remember taking photos with her and James when we ran into one another at a local grocery store in New Braunfels.
As I mentioned earlier, I never really had any interaction with Cecil other than to say hi in passing, but both of these deaths have reminded me of the fragile nature of this thing called life.
Mature Evangelicals grieve, but we never do so as a people without hope. God’s solemn promises provide the only means of making sense of everything. Death and its accompanying grief drive the Evangelical back to the Holy Scripture.
Passages that tell Evangelicals, “weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning” and “all things work together for our good” or “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law” are not abstract propositions. By the power of God, they have real power, the power to empower the Christ-followers to experience real peace, even as they rightfully grieve the passing of people they genuinely love and will most dearly miss.
Missing only for a relatively short while is what we must remind ourselves if we truly walk by faith and not by sight. If we ever begin to grasp the need to live in the light of eternity, we come to understand why the Bible regards our grief and our afflictions as momentary and light (see 2 Corinthians 4:17-18).
Cecil and Julie’s death galvanize me to commit to two things:
Seize the day
Redeem the time
The Reformers crafted the Latin expression carpe diem. The phrase literally translates to "pluck the day," but it's more commonly translated as "seize the day." It encourages people to enjoy life and take advantage of the present (1).
One frequently mentioned goal is to finish my fourth quarter strong for Jesus Christ. I want to use this portion of my remaining days, however many they are, only God knows, to make much of Jesus Christ within my sphere of influence and whatever platform God providentially provides for me.
Just recently, a unique opportunity presented itself for me to participate in a new PhD program offered by my alma mater, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. I was also recently offered a position with Kairos University as a faculty mentor for seminary students.
I recently completed a short-term mission trip to Latin America, and from that experience, I have been approached to train to lead future short-term mission trips. Lord willing, if I can work out the logistics, I hope to be able to go to India later this year. It is my desire to go to places where the Gospel has not yet reached. I seek to redeem time by going to the hard places.
It is my hope that some of you who read this blog might join me on future mission trips. As the old folks used to say, “I have more days behind me than I have in front of me.”
Thus, I want to make the most of my days because, as Cecil and Julie remind us, all life is truly fragile—fragile in the sense that we do not know the day of our departure.
Secure in the sense we know we shall live again, and it will be beautiful because of what Jesus Christ wrought by giving His life as an atonement for us.
Our church will miss Cecil and Julie, and the list of names will continue to grow. As it is often said, life’s few guarantees are death and taxes.
Thanks be to Jesus Christ, Evangelicals need no longer fear death. Death no longer has any real power over Evangelicals. As one wise saint said, “If we are healed, we win, and if we die, we win.”
Cecil and Julie were not healed in a temporal sense, and for selfish reasons, we grieve, but we rejoice that they were healed in the ultimate sense, the sense that really matters.
They just have to wait for the rest of us for the party to begin, and oh, what a party it will be.
I exhort you to seek to do as I do:
Seize the day
Redeem the time
As usual, let me know what you think. Until then, keep your hands to the plow and seek to serve for an Audience of One.
With fear & trembling,
Ricky V Kyles Sr. DEd.Min
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