Harry, our Giant Silent Great Sequoia.

 

Harry Marshall was reunited with his Wife Florence, his first daughter Ruthie and his First granddaughter Keila in heaven last Friday night [July 16]. My eyes are too cloudy to write something original about my Father-in-Law Harry Marshall. Today I will speak with someone else’s voice seeking to answer the reason why Harry suffered during his last years as he did.  First, Charles Spurgeon has some fitting words for the occasion.

 

Man’s eye is not single, he has ever a side glance towards his own honor, has too high an estimate of his own powers, and so is not qualified to behold the glory of the Lord. It is clear, then, that self must stand out of the way, that there may be room for God to be exalted; and this is the reason why he bringeth his people ofttimes into straits and difficulties, that, being made conscious of their own folly and weakness, they may be fitted to behold the majesty of God when he comes forth to work their deliverance. He whose life is one even and smooth path, will see but little of the glory of the Lord, for he has few occasions of self-emptying, and hence, but little fitness for being filled with the revelation of God. They who navigate little streams and shallow creeks, know but little of the God of tempests; but they who “do business in great waters,” these see his “wonders in the deep.” Among the huge Atlantic-waves of bereavement, poverty, temptation, and reproach, we learn the power of Jehovah, because we feel the littleness of man. Thank God, then, if you have been led by a rough road: it is this which has given you your experience of God’s greatness and lovingkindness. Your troubles have enriched you with a wealth of knowledge to be gained by no other means: your trials have been the cleft of the rock in which Jehovah has set you, as he did his servant Moses, that you might behold his glory as it passed by. Praise God that you have not been left to the darkness and ignorance which continued prosperity might have involved, but that in the great fight of affliction, you have been capacitated for the outshinings of his glory in his wonderful dealings with you.

 

Thank you dad for teaching us to smile and telling me that, “You learn to live with pain.” I am grateful to you for believing in me and coming to my corner when I needed you the most.
To every one of my friends and family I want to remind them that “Death is gain.”

 

“Death is gain.” I am in this life to prove to the world that “Death is gain.” We come to the world to learn to die in order to really live. What is difficult for the believer is not to die but to live. The believer has the Philosophy of death taught by the master who also came to die. The health industry and the great amount of money and efforts that men expend seems to indicate that the chief end of man is to live as long as possible and at any cost. Health and life on earth, as if there is no tomorrow or hereafter, is the order of the day.

The matter of death is an unpopular subject so that even in Christian circles it is a touchy subject that men act as a little boy tiptoeing at the water’s edge. In a way all is about leaving as Jesus in love left his father and heaven for us whom he so loved. We all leave every other Allegiance for the love of the one we choose to walk in life together. In the same way all earthly allegiance must be counted as lost for the sake of leaving to go home with Jesus. To leave someone for another means that the former has lesser value in comparison with the latter. Yes! Death is gain only if you left everything and desire with all your heart to be with Jesus. There is no greater joy than that to be found in his presence and there forever. Definitely, “Death is gain.” Praise God, “Death is Gain.” No one who by faith has tasted heaven can settle for earth and this life.

 

Gerry Gutierrez
From Tacoma Washington Hotel.

 

Obituary for Harry Marshall