Having been a ministerial student in the past, I often talked to Susan about matters of faith.

Susan made herself quite clear, as did her mom, Peggy. God didn’t seem to have much regard for her, or her family in Ohio, in 1954. So they would let God go His way and Susan and Peggy would go theirs.

Unlike so many who stream through life and want to be thought of as virtuous, "Right with the Lord" and of integrity, but their actions are otherwise, Susan was no hypocrite. She’d live toher highest and best qualities, which were, in fact, rectitude on steroids.

She once asked me: “How is it possible that a merciful God, you say exists, would allow the slaughter of my family?”

I’ll read to you today what I read to Susan years ago. This was my attempt to explain to Susan, how brutal tragedy can visit a family, by any method, from the words of Solomon.

From Ecclesiastes 9:

“Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already accepted your works . . . Live joyfully with the wife/husband whom you love all the days of your vain life which He has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity; for that is your portion in life, and in the labor which you perform under the sun.”

The next verse is a description of Susan dead on:

Verse 10: “Whatever your hand finds to do,  do it with your might . . .”

Verse 11: “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill (or only to people with out P.S.); but time and chance happen to them all.”

Back to verse 10: “for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in death, where you are going.”

Susan nodded and accepted those words of explanation, to comfort her, about her family's, tragedy, or any individual's or family's heartache for that matter. My failure was that I could not convince Susan to accept Christ’s promise of

Matthew 11:28: “Come to me . . . and I will give you rest.”

That’s why I commended her in her apartment and on her death bed to an everlastingly merciful and redeeming God, who will offer Susan, in His own good time; a place in His Father’s house.........His Father’s mansion....... probably in the Invoicing or Accounting Department, at the least. Once there she'll help catch up any who've fallen behind and her body will play her false no more..

A couple days ago out in the parking lot, I told G2 what Judy DuVall had said to me before her death. She said, “Gary, I’m one helluva woman and my friends are going to miss me, and I want you to tell them why they're going to miss me !”

G2 said, “I like that. I agree with that too! Do that for my mom”--our beloved, loyal, faithful and true Suzzano. For is it not written, "God will give grace to thehumble?"

Notice them, the Susans, or Suzzanos, of the world--modest, quiet, selfless, anxious to serve, help out, clear the way and lift you up. Those who cup their hands for your  foot. Those that put their hand to the plow and never look back. Those that never waver stumble or quit. Those that are and remain loyal. You see, they are more valuable than diamonds.

Susan had two words, that she used incessantly for all the years I knew her. Those two words were "That's It."

Whenever I, or G2 or anyone else, asked Susan to do this, or do that, or go here, or go there, and she was not inclined to agree, Susan, in her own distinctive voice, with the special lilt in it that made it distinctive, would say, "No, Gary, 'that's It'."

If she were here now, I assure you she'd say, in her very modes and way, "Gary, that's enough, that's it."

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