Five.

After leaving Kirk’s room, I met my mom back out in the lobby area. A lot of people were there to visit Kirk and the hallway was filled with his family and friends. While standing there I told my mom that I really wanted to tell Shelly about my dream and about everything that God had me do for Kirk that past year and a half. With all the people around she said she didn’t know if this would be the best time for that, but she also told me that if this was something I really felt like God was prompting me to do I should pray and ask for an opportunity; so right then and there that is exactly what I did and within minutes Shelly looked over my way and made a beeline for my mom and myself. I was too choked up with tears to get any words to come out of my mouth when she approached, so my mom chimed in for me and let Shelly know that there was something I would really like to show her if she thought she could spare the time. Shelly didn’t hesitate to say that she would like to see what I had to share with her, and soon after she followed my mom and I down to the parking lot. All three of us climbed into the backseat of my car and I let her read the entry in my prayer journal about the dream I had had. I also shared with her about the burden I had been carrying on behalf of Kirk for the past year. I told her I didn’t understand why, but now it was all beginning to make sense. Shelly just cried as I shared all this with her, and I cried right along with her. She told me she couldn’t thank me enough for everything I had been doing on Kirk’s behalf and that I was an answered prayer even though I may not have known it. She explained that her and Jimmie had been worried about Kirk for quite awhile, but as his parents there was only so much they could say before he would shut them out, so they had been praying for someone or something to come into his life and be the intercession he needed. I was amazed when Shelly shared this with me. I was humbled to know that of all people God chose me to be used as a tool in Kirk’s life, that He chose me to be a part of the answer to Jimmie and Shelly’s prayers. We probably stayed in my car talking everything over for about a half hour or more before we finally went back into the hospital. I wanted to see Kirk once more before my mom and I left so Shelly and my mom went back there to see him with me. I grabbed his hand and once again just prayed over him. As I did, I could see the white in Kirk’s eyes. It was like he was trying to open his eyes so badly and respond to me as I prayed over him, but he couldn’t. Once I was done, I told Kirk bye and my mom and I headed home. It was one of the hardest times of my life, knowing that someone I cared about so much was fighting for their life and there was little I could do about it. I prayed constantly. Kirk was all I could think about.

The day after Christmas, my mom and I made a trip to the city once more to visit Kirk. He looked worse off than the time I had seen him before. His eyes were halfway opened but he wasn’t blinking so they had some type of ointment coated all over them to keep them from drying out. He was also pretty swollen and had wires coming out of him everywhere that they possibly could. He was supposed to be out of his coma by this time, and I was hopeful that I may have been able to see a more responsive Kirk but when they tried to bring him out of his first coma he had begun having seizures, so they had to put him under once again! This visit with Kirk was very short. I didn’t get to see him for long, but I was glad I was able to have the chance to be around him for the short amount of time that I did. When we left the hospital I just started crying, it was becoming more and more real to me that Kirk might not make it. I didn’t want to believe that though. God promised me a harvest of blessing and I couldn’t imagine the harvest including Kirk being taken away from me. My mind kept going back to the verse found in Psalm 126:5-6 which says, “Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy. They weep as they go to plant their seed, but they sing as they return with the harvest.” I had done my share of weeping, I had been sewing my seeds of prayer on Kirk’s behalf, and I could not imagine reaping Kirk’s physical death as my harvest that I returned with singing! I knew if Kirk was taken I would be reaping even more tears. I presented this to God, reminding him of the promise He had given me, and I thought about it everyday as I kept up with the updates on Kirk. On December 31, 2011 I read an update that Kale had written I did not want to hear. He had said “We got results from an MRI yesterday and the brain damage is too severe. Kirk will not be able to progress from the point he is at right now. He is breathing on his own, and they have everything unhooked from him. We do not know a time frame at this point…” Apparently, from some blood work they also found out that this all happened because a very rare infection had settled in Kirk’s heart, an infection that comes from a virus known as coxsackie. This virus is so rare that it is barely in the books, 1 out of a million people even get it and out of those 1 in a million that do, hardly any of them are even affected by it! As soon as I heard all this I went into denial. I just could not accept that Kirk would not progress. I wanted so badly to believe that he had to! Unfortunately though, just a few days later on January 2^nd Kirk finally got tired of fighting and passed away. I’ll never forget that day. I felt like my own life had just been sucked out of me and my heart had been smashed into a million pieces. I can’t even explain that type of hurt, it’s one that stings you and doesn’t really ever seem to go away. It’s a type of pain I hope I will never have to experience again …

January 3, 2012… “Father, I really just don’t know where to start. I’m at a loss for words and have been ever since I received the news that Kirk took his last breath yesterday morning. Lord, my heart is just so broken. I’ve never experienced grief like this in all my life. All throughout the day yesterday I went through spells of just being gripped immensely with it. I was crying so heavy I could barely catch my breath and when I wasn’t doing that I was either throwing up or yelling out in frustration. Father, I’m still beside myself. It’s three in the morning and I’m still awake because my mind won’t let me rest. I feel like my heart has just been crushed. I know Your way is perfect Father, but that does not mean it is easy to accept. God I need Your comfort. I need Your help so desperately. The burden You placed within me on behalf of Kirk caused a love for him to grow within me that I’ve never had for anyone else. Lord, You knew this would happen from the day You placed that burden there. I carried it Lord, now please carry mine. I feel so desperate and I need Your intervention. You know Father, this is not the way I pictured the harvest to be. I pictured it more like Kirk being awakened spiritually and maybe becoming my CCC [Cute, Country, Christian boy that I’ve always had my heart set on]. So much for that dream, because obviously You had something different in mind. The harvest was gaining Kirk’s soul for Your kingdom. If I had not answered Your call to pray on his behalf would You have allowed him to come back after dying the first time to receive that second opportunity to get right with You? Lord, I am so thankful that You gave life to his spirit once more after being dead for at least thirty minutes so that he could have that one last opportunity to get right with You. Although I never got to hear it from his lips or see it in this life, I trust that he was changed in his last days and returned to You! I know that was a tremendous harvest, a tremendous blessing in itself and I will get to experience that harvest fully when I get to meet up with him once again the day You call me home too. Father, Your word says in Luke 10:6 that “…The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.” I thank You Lord that You gave me the opportunity to be one of the workers, to harvest Kirk for Yourself. I am so honored to have been given the chance to be used by You!”

I was thankful that God finally brought an answer to my prayers, although I still had to fight through some disappointments because it definitely did not end up the way I expected it to. I never would have imagined that Kirk’s turnaround would also be accompanied with his physical death! I also fought with doubts, wondering things like, ‘If Kirk was brain dead how would he have been able to ask God to forgive him, and repent for the sins he willingly pursued? I brought this up to my mom one night as I was thinking about this and she reminded me that it’s not our physical bodies that communicate with God, it’s our spirit and Kirk’s spirit was fully capable of repenting and setting things right. This gave me some assurance but I still wished I had something more to hold onto. It wasn’t long after Kirk passed away though, that God gave me something that I could grasp…

January 12, 2012… “Dear Lord, I just woke up from the best dream and I wish so badly I did not have to wake up from it! I was at a baseball game and I must have been working it to keep stats because I had a box all to myself. But anyways, before the game started I heard that Kirk was there, so I rushed over to another box to see if I could see him. As I rushed over, sure enough he was there! I ran up to him and gave him the biggest hug I could and I told him, ‘I’m so glad you’re back!’ He didn’t say much at first, he just stood there and let me hug him. When he finally did talk though he said, ‘ My lungs had collapsed…’ He said it like he was in shock. There was something different about Kirk that I noticed when I was around him. He was somewhat quiet and a lot more observant. It was like he knew he should not be alive anymore, was in shock that all this had happened to him and his mind was still trying to process it all and take everything in. As I stood there I told him that when we could get a chance I would really like to show him something, (referring to all my written prayers I had ever written on his behalf so that what was happening now would be brought about). After saying that to him though he didn’t give me much of a response. The next words out of his mouth were, ‘I’ve been a hypocrite. [Through my actions] I’ve said that I don’t know God and I have said that He isn’t my Father.’ I thought it was kind of strange the way he had phrased it, but I knew what he meant. He was referring to the way he had been living. The choices he had been making spoke very loudly for him and I knew that’s what he meant by saying what he did. As I was still standing there with my arms around him I looked up at him and asked, ‘Well has that changed?’ He looked back at me, gave me a smile and shook his head yes. After that I layed my head against his chest, hugged him tighter and said, ‘I love you Kirk.’ He hugged me back and said ‘I love you.’ Though all of this seemed great, the whole time I was with Kirk he seemed somewhat saddened on my behalf. It was like he didn’t want me to cling so tightly to him because he knew he couldn’t stay… I woke up from this dream with tears streaming down my face Lord. I didn’t want to let Kirk go. I was so thankful for this dream though because it seemed so real and it’s the type of ending to all this that I was hoping to experience in real life but never did. Lord, I thank You for allowing me to have this dream. It has given me the closure I have been needing in all of this. How amazing it was to hear from Kirk himself that he had been changed, that he now knows You fully, and that he now accepts You as his Father, knowing that he is Your child. Lord, I know I did not hear these things in real life, but it almost seems like I did because this dream felt so real to me. It seemed as real as the one I had of Kirk being in the hospital that I had a few months back. Father because of that I know this dream is no different. It is one that You have given me and I am so thankful for it! Although it hurt to let Kirk go, I am so happy for him. Father, thank You for answering my prayers on behalf of him. Thank You also for giving me even more assurance that he made it home. I am beyond grateful for this harvest of blessing! –Galatians 6:9”

I was so grateful to have had this second dream. I told a few people about it after it happened and more than one suggested to me that this was probably more than a dream, but more of a spiritual encounter. The more I thought about this suggestion, the more I believed that was probably right. It was a way for Kirk’s spirit to communicate with mine to tell me himself that he had been changed and that he made it home. Kirk, now fully knowing what I went through on his behalf, probably chose to meet up with me in this way to give me the assurance he knew I needed to hear about him. One thing that really made me think that this was probably more than just a dream was because of where this encounter with Kirk occurred…at a baseball game! Kirk doesn’t really like baseball but he knows I love it and if it was up to him, he probably had us be at a baseball game for that reason. It reminded me of a time I was once hanging out with Kirk over at his apartment. I wasn’t feeling real good that particular day so Kirk put a pillow in his lap, layed my head down, played with my hair, and put on the movie “Rookie of the Year” for us to watch, trying to make me feel better. There were many movies he could have picked, but knowing it was a baseball movie, he thought I would enjoy that one. 

When Kirk first passed away, for the next few days I sort of just zoned out into my own little world. All I could get myself to do was read my prayer journals again and again, getting lost in all the things I had written over Kirk. The more I read, the more I was able to see how the things I couldn’t understand or make sense of for so long, finally did. One thing I now understood was why God allowed for my heart to get so wrapped up in Kirk. He intended for that to happen because if I had not grown to love Kirk in the way that I did, my prayers on his behalf would not have been as heartfelt as God wanted them to be. My prayers needed to have the power of love behind them, because love never fails (1 Corinthians 13:8), and we couldn’t afford to lose this battle on Kirk’s behalf! As I continued to read through my prayer journals, one thing that I also began to realize was how the number three showed up numerous times during this whole situation. This is what really blew me away and gave me the most assurance that God was most definitely in the midst of all of this! The number 3 showing up is important because I have been taught that God uses numbers to show that His hand is in something. We can look to scripture to find examples. For instance the number three shows up many times when we look at the life of Jesus and God’s plan of salvation:

· Jesus went into hiding up to the age of 30 and then preached the gospel for 3 years.

· He was denied 3 times by Peter.

· He fell 3 times while carrying the cross.

· Three of them were crucified that day with 3 nails each.

· Darkness fell over the earth at noon and lasted for 3 hours, at which Christ died at 3:00

· Three days later he arose and is now a part of the 3 part trinity.

The number 3 showed up many times in this situation with Kirk:

· We reconnected our 3^rd year of college and my 3^rd semester at OSU (I had gone to OBU my freshman year.)

· Kirk and I were at OSU together, and the trial lasted, for 3 full semesters.

· He was my 3^rd Kiss

· When initially wanting to forget about Kirk, 3 different instances were used to bring him back to my mind, so that I would not be able to escape him and instead feel compelled to continue to make him a part of my life: (Hale Family Christmas, Driving past Kirk’s road, Hearing about him while getting my teeth cleaned)!

· After talking with my friend Jill that one night and her telling me about the significance of Pentecost, I looked on my calendar to see how far away it was just for kicks and it was 3 weeks and 3 days away! (Remember that I then fasted that entire time up until the day of Pentecost.)

· There were 3 times over the course of this trial that I felt lead to fast for Kirk.

· (THIS IS WHERE I AM BEYOND AMAZED!) Pentecost was June 12^th this past year and if you look back at my prayer journal entry, where I was given that dream about Kirk being near death, it is dated September 12, 2011, EXACTLY 3 months to the day after Pentecost; 3 months to the day that I had just finished up my 3 week 3 day fast!

· Then if you look at the day I had that dream, September 12^th, and count over exactly 3 months and 3 weeks away you will notice that you come to January 2, 2012, the day Kirk went home!

· Then if you count from January 2^nd, you will notice that 3 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days later is April 26, 2012, which would have marked Kirk’s 22^nd birthday.

You can take all this as you want, but this is proof to me right here that God’s hand was most definitely the one orchestrating this whole trial I went through on behalf of Kirk! The way the 3’s showed up and the way I had that dream that depicted EXACTLY what would eventually happen just three months later, leaves no room in my mind that these things were just somehow all a coincidence… there is NO WAY that they could be! It was God at work and confirmation for me to know that for sure! God has revealed himself to me in many ways through this situation. He has shown me how He works, how He speaks to us, how He desires for us to pray continually and how He wants us to trust Him fully in the midst of things we may not understand, because even when we can only see what’s in front of us, He sees the bigger picture. Most importantly though, God really made it clear to me that He desires for us to obey Him! In this case, obeying Him meant praying for Kirk even though I had no clue why I was supposed to. I really had no idea! The question of why God was burdening me for Kirk to the extent that He was crossed my mind a million times. I eventually came to the conclusion in the middle of all of this that God was placing Kirk on my heart to the extent that He was so that Kirk would become my CCC (Triple C), the Cute, Country, Christian boy that I’ve always had my heart set on having one day. I know that might sound silly but that was the only thing I could come up with. Yet, to my surprise, that was not God’s purpose for having me pray for Kirk at all; it was to make sure that Kirk would be prepared to go home. In Hebrews 10: 26 it says, “For there is no longer any sacrifice that will take away sins if we purposely go on sinning after the truth has been made known to us.” The truth had been made known to Kirk before, and at one point in his life he had accepted it, but it was evident through his life choices that he had strayed away quite a bit. If you can remember, that night at Calf Fry Kirk told me that he was purposely going after these sins in his life because he enjoyed them, he found pleasure in them, and most definitely had no intention of turning from them. According to this verse in Hebrews 10 though, that was not in his favor, and God obviously wanted to take care of that! I’m so glad He did too! I just can’t imagine where I would be today, had I not obeyed God, had I not continued to pray for Kirk after all those times of wanting to stop so badly. I probably would not be able to live with myself, now knowing the reason behind it all. I mean really, what if I had not obeyed? How would things have turned out differently? Would God still have spared Kirk’s life a little longer so that he would have that second chance to set things right or would He have gone ahead and taken Kirk for good that very first time he died? I have no idea how things would have turned out differently had I not prayed. What I do know, is that I am so glad that I did! I was obedient to the calling on my heart to intercede for Kirk, even when it got tough, and now because of that, I can live without regrets, that I probably would have had to otherwise.

There still is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about Kirk. I replay the times I spent with him over and over again in my head. I treasure every moment I got to spend with him. I never would have imagined that first night at College Fest, when I first ran into him, that he was going to make such an impact on my life. God used Kirk to change me as a person, one changed for the better and I am so thankful for that. One of the greatest changes brought about within me from all of this is a deeper connection with my Savior. Had it not been for this trial my relationship with Christ would not be where it is now. It has deepened to a level I was not even close to before all this happened and that to me is a huge blessing in itself! I only hope that I get to continue to see God’s hand move so evidently in my life. Once you’ve seen it, it’s something you never want to see stop! Even when I don’t see His hand evidently though, I know I can trust that He is continuing to work in my life. He’s interested in every part of it, every tiny detail, and I can trust him wholeheartedly to bring something great out of it; just as he already has! 

I have written this testimony down for many reasons. For one, I want to be able to look back on all this and be able to recall how God has been faithful in my life but more importantly I want to be able to share this story with others. Psalm 105:1 says, “Give thanks to the LORD and proclaim his greatness. Let the whole world know what he has done.” I want to do exactly that. I want to tell people exactly what God has done in my life on behalf of Kirk in order to proclaim His greatness. I truly believe God did not allow this to happen in my life so that I could keep it all to myself. It was meant to be shared, to reveal the things God has done, and to bring Him glory. Last but not least, I have also written this in memory of a very special person who completely changed my life and the way I look at it, the one I grew to cherish and love no matter how many hard things he put me through, and the one I can hardly wait to see again. Living without Kirk physically here is a struggle. But I am thankful to know that I will get to see him again, and when I do it will be the new Kirk, the one completely turned from his sin that I had been praying for! Hopefully the day of seeing him face to face once again will come sooner than I think. Everyday that passes I just think about how I am one day closer to heaven and one day closer to Kirk; that is definitely something I am looking forward to! When I was younger, I never would have imagined that boy down the road from my grandparent’s would one day turn my world completely upside down, but I’m glad he did! What an amazing blessing it has been! So, this is for you Kirk James. I love you to pieces and I’m so glad you were placed in my life!