Just over 2 years ago, Claudia (CJ to many of you) sat at our kitchen island counter and got a phone call from our local doctor’s office. She had been having some stomach soreness, and they thought she may have gall bladder problems or ulcers. The CT scan came back and the message was “you are full of tumors, and we’re sending you down to the cancer center in Grand Rapids”.  She hung up, fell into my arms sobbing, and cried out “I’m going to die!” We called our sons and other family that night, and they were all as shocked as we were. A week or two later, the cancer doctor told us she has stage 4 metastatic cancer, about as bad of a message we could have heard. After we started telling friends and asking for your prayers, CJ decided to create a Facebook page called Updates on CJ Keef to keep you informed of how the journey was going. Little did we know it would grow until today there are 212 members on that page. CJ did her own updates most of the time, and when she got too sick and confused at the end, I would do them.

    This will be the last update I will post on that page, and I’m sharing this on my blog page as well.  I will shut the Update page down after Easter. On behalf of CJ and me, I can’t begin to express how thankful we were for all of your prayers and support on this page, as well as the many cards, messages, emails, and calls we got over the 18 month journey. You folks were used by God to keep us going, give us strength and hope, and help us all, together, finally “walk CJ home” to her heavenly Father, where I know she is now more alive than ever before, free from sin and a cancer-ridden body, and enjoying the beginning of an eternal life that is so wonderful it is beyond our imagination. 

    By sharing this 18 month journey with us, you helped CJ and me both experience new truths and actually grow stronger in faith through suffering. C.S. Lewis famously said that in prosperity God whispers to us, but in adversity he shouts to us. We knew well Romans 8:28, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose”. But knowing it with your mind is one thing; experiencing it with your heart is something very different. Many of you shared amazing prayers and scripture, many shared from your own struggle with cancer, and all of that brought comfort and strength to us. And as we shared our thoughts and growing faith with you, it encouraged others as well. That allowed us to see God using our suffering to help and encourage others, knowing nothing is wasted if we trust God in the midst of pain.

 I have decided to close down the Update page after Easter this year for a specific reason. Claudia was a wonderful wife, mother, gramma, teacher, and friend to many.  Like all of us, she was not perfect, and certainly had her flaws. But what made her the person she became, and why she was so endearing to so many, stemmed from her intimate relationship with God. She drew close to God as a young teenager while experiencing a crisis in her life. She discovered then that Jesus loved her more than she could ever imagine, and she fell in love with Jesus and grew in that relationship for the rest of her life. I know if you had asked CJ, she would have said that I was the “love of her life”, and I was blessed to be that person. But knowing her better than any of you, I can confidently say that Jesus was the ultimate love of her life, and I was more than OK with that!  When she was deeply involved in prayer, Bible study or meditation, I knew it was a sacred moment between her and Jesus and I was wise not to interrupt! And I quickly discovered that the more she loved Jesus and let him love her, the more she was able to love me with that same love, more than she ever could have without knowing Jesus. So, for my great life with Claudia, I can truly say “Thank you, Jesus!”

    Claudia was wonderful at relationships with family and friends, and many of you can attest to that. But anyone who knew CJ well knew that her ultimate passion and joy in life was singing! I believe God gifted her with that beautiful voice as a means of blessing others, and she loved to sing all kinds and varieties of music. But when she sang songs of praise to her God, it was like a love song, and her eyes focused beyond the people in the room, and her voice became stronger and clearer, and she sang the words from the depths of her soul. She loved Christmas, and allowed me each year to accompany her on the piano as she sang “O Holy Night”. But I know the most important day for her was Easter, and the words of the Easter songs were the most meaningful to her. This Easter, as you sing the familiar songs in church, I want you to remember that Claudia is actually living out those hopes and promises that we sing about that day! I know that if CJ could speak to us once more today, her message would be to accept the message of Easter in our heart and trust Jesus with all of our life, now and forever!

   You see, Easter is the greatest message humanity has ever experienced: God did the unthinkable to offer us a gift that is unimaginable! Being Methodists, Claudia and I both always insisted on beginning the Easter service with the old Charles Wesley classic “Christ the Lord is Risen Today”. The middle verses say “ Lives again our glorious King; Where, O death, is now thy sting? Once he died our souls to save, Where’s thy victory, boasting grave?… Soar we now where Christ has led, Following our exalted Head, Made like him, like him we rise, Ours the cross, the grave, the skies!  Alleluia!”  You see, the Easter message recognizes that we are all dead in our sinfulness, and we can’t save ourselves. But God loves so much that he sent his son Jesus to earth to exchange his life for ours. He was fully God and fully human, but he gave up his power and rights as God in order to take all of our sins and punishment on himself and die for us on the cross, in our place. He was buried and dead, but God raised his body to life 3 days later, and now he lives forever and invites us receive his forgiveness and power to live with him now and forever! Death has been defeated by Jesus, and we can rise with him to an amazing, sin-free life that we will someday (hopefully soon) live out with Jesus on a newly restored Heaven and Earth combined, and we will have new resurrection bodies that will never get sick or die! That’s a gift beyond our wildest imaginations, and it’s yours for the asking if you will trust your life to Jesus. ⁹“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him”–1 Corinthians 2:9 (NIV)

  My fondest Easter memory with Claudia was in our Clawson church, where for at least a couple years we would end our Easter service with a duet with CJ and our dear friend Phil Paonessa. Phil and CJ shared in worship together, and they both had wonderful voices. They would sing the popular song today called “You Raise Me Up” ( not originally written as a Christian song, but it captures the Easter message well).   Phil would sing the first verse, starting slowly and then building in intensity with his deep voice, then CJ would sing the next verse with her soprano voice, and they would go back and forth until they joined their voices in full power on the last verse. It would leave us with goose bumps and tears in many eyes because of the power of the words and the singing. The words are:

When I am down and, oh my soul, so weary
When troubles come and my heart burdened be
Then, I am still and wait here in the silence
Until You come and sit awhile with me.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders
You raise me up to more than I can be

My friends, all of us have many moments when our souls are tired and weary, and our hearts are burdened, and we may think we have no hope. CJ and I certainly felt that way at times during her 18 month battle with cancer. But the Easter message of hope is that God will not only sit with us and comfort us, but that he will raise us up to victory over even death itself, and in his future new world we actually will be able to walk on mountains and even stormy seas. I pray that if you haven’t yet, you will now trust your life to Jesus, let him raise you up and give you hope, and empower you to truly enjoy life now and forevermore!

The Final Update on CJ is this:

– she is alive and well, and having the time of her life with her first true love, Jesus!

– and she is saying to each of us, “Trust your life to Jesus today, and everything is going to be wonderful in the end. And when the time is right, come and join me in this amazing life that is beyond your imagination!”

Happy Easter, and may God truly bless you all!

Tom

(P.S. You were all wonderful friends of CJ, and we both are so grateful to you for your love and support over this journey. We could not have done it without you! After I close the Update page and CJ’s regular Facebook page after Easter, you are welcome to keep in touch with me if you would like by following my Facebook page (Thomas Keef). You can also follow my blogs at www.boomers4jesus.org . And if you want to be on an email list that I have that I send my new blogs to, send me your email and I will add you to that list. Thanks again for everything!)