To: "Ruthie Gutierrez"
To the love of my life;
(As she quietly pushes herself on her wheel chair to sleep)

We have finish all the treatments and in few hours we will see the Doctor. Once again you have been cut, you have been burned and you have been poisoned in front of my very eyes able to only weep and grieve, uselessly helpless to alleviate you pain. It is late at night and I am unable to think and write pleading for prayers.

I sense your fear and I think of my failure to encourage you. Nothing that I have done or stop doing has help much to change your predisposition.(?) Your love for life and service is great. You have add to your lack of appetite a very low mooning and groaning that is not low enough that I can not perceive it. I want to do something but my wisdom fails me. Silence has become a neighbor. Silence has make quietness too loud for my heart.

My thoughts keep remind me that "I am just a man".Just a mere fragile mortal. A man being torn apart between duty and desire. Between the ideal and the real. Between God's will and other wills. All this things are happening under God's attentive and ever loving eyes and ears of the prayers of Jesus and his saints on your behalf. Under a cloud of witnesses on Heaven and Earth.Under the puzzled eyes of our children. Under the concerned eyes of our friends. Under the magnified lens of the world and the relentless opportunistic satanic attack in dimensions unknown to us till now.

The virtual presence of saints far and near in time and space has come to our side to hold our hands in prayer and thoughts. Our pains have become their pains. In a christ like manner they pray vicariously. Some even have a frown on their brow in and expression of distress. How can it be; they say? Their young shoulder should not bear our cross. We must be against ourselves once again if our will is in a collision course with the will of God. (People are watching; behave yourself: They say)

Wisdom returns to me to say: God is at work!! He continues to work in what he begun and will keep working in us till he finishes in the last day whenever this day may be. Sanctification and Purification and Glorification is part and follows Salvation. Salvation is the work of God alone. Who like a loving Physician tells a young patients before surgery: "It is going to hurt you, but I am not going to harm you". You will not be home a minute too early my love.Neither will you arrive home a minute too late. Even though in life you have not been punctual, you will be home just on time. You do not want to barge in on Heaven as if salvation is not secure. By the same token you do nor want Jesus already standing to welcome you only to be disappointed by sluggish tardiness. If God is Sovereign, he must be trusted all the way. For all the way my father leads me. (We sing)

You have known me most of my life my love. Far it be from me to be one of the friends of Job to you. I would not say any of what I have said if I did say it to myself first. After all aren't we one? So here is some more nuggets I found lately as I searched the mind of God for us. Some one said over 150 years ago: "The closer to death, the closer to heaven" "The nearer to sickness, the nearer to healing". "Just when you think you died you will only begun to live." "Eternity awaits. Heaven is ours" All this is a pledge to you.

We who are about to die; Salute you great Jehovah for removing the fear of death from our hearts. Thank you Jesus for taking the sting of death away from us. For at the first glance of Jesus in Heaven as Steven did; all Earthly allegiances and loyalty will cease to be relevant drowned by the Divine and the Eternal. We will not want to wish to returned for any reason. Home at last. Then an overwhelming asurance that our loved ones are sure to come home shortly behind us will flood our hearts with an unspeakable joy of joys. There will be one last blush on our faces caused by the shame of having ever doubt for a moment such a great Saviour and such a great salvation.

We must wonder with the fear of the Lord: When does a man's life stops writing? When does a man's life start erasing by behavior what he has written trough life? Is Death also a servant of God to protect us from ourselves? How is our last day describe us? Yes only describe us. Only our doings not our being. For our being has already been define us in Jesus. We are his. We are children of God and that is what we are by grace.But only as a result af the work of atonement of Jesus in our behalf.

Tomorrow our Lord will speak through our Doctor. Please pray for God's grace for Ruthie and the rest of the family and the extended family in Jesus. Let us pray together so we can rejoice together.

Your brother in need of grace even in grammar and spelling.but still a brother of yours in spite of my short comings.

Sleep my Love while I fast of sleep for you and tomorrow.

Gerry Gutierrez

PS. Let it be known that Ruthie and I are aware of the saints who were healed and even resurrected from the death by Jesus, they too eventually died. We know by God's grace that the temporal and the Eternal are literally a heartbeat away. They are separated by a twinkle of and eye. Only an instant separates us from heaven. That Ruthie is not suffering as a punishment from God. For that is impossible in fact it is inconceivable for a child of God to be punished for her sins. For the legal concept of Double Jeopardy a man can not be prosecuted twice for the same crime in the same plase.

Ruthie has been redeemed already by the blood of Jesus who has paid in full all her debts. We are ready to concede that purification and discipline may be in the mind of God. As the father to the son he loves he disciplines. The evidence of love is discipline. Even if discipline would be trusted on a believer for the sake of the weak knee believer who needs to know how Jesus helps his own to go through the valley of the shadow of death Ruthie counts her suffering worth it.. Ruthie has a saved soul and I stand as a witness of that. The last chapter of her life is still to be written.