THE ONE LEFT BEHIND

By Michael Morris

Charmaine, Mike’s wife of 43 years, lived with cancer for nearly 8 years until 5 years ago. Then Jesus came back for her as he had promised. He took her to be where He is in his Father’s house where He had prepared a home for her. He lifted her up on Eagles’ wings and took her to Himself. The cancer is now dead, but Charmaine l

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Mulberry Books
• Release date: Jan 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781951742676

Michael Morris

A fifth-generation native of Perry, Florida, a rural area near Tallahassee, Michael Morris knows southern culture and characters. It is the foundation and inspiration for the stories and novels he writes. Upon graduating from Auburn University, Michael worked for U.S. Senator Bob Graham and then became a sales representative for pharmaceutical companies. As a sales representative, Michael decided to follow a life-long desire and began writing in the evenings. The screenplay he penned during this time is still someplace in the bottom of a desk drawer. It is when Michael accepted a position in government affairs and moved to North Carolina that he began to take writing more seriously. While studying under author Tim McLaurin, Michael started writing the story that would eventually become his first novel, A Place Called Wiregrass. The novel was released in April, 2002 and is currently in its third printing. A Place Called Wiregrass was named a Booksense 76 selection by members of the American Independent Booksellers Association as and is part of the southern literature curriculum at two universities. Michael's latest novel, Slow Way Home, will be released by Harper Collins on September 23 and his work can be seen in the southern anthology Stories From The Blue Moon Café II. Michael and his wife, Melanie, reside in Fairhope, Alabama.

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Contents

Foreword

Part 1 —The One Left Behind

Again a Bride

Walking in Faith, Living in Hope

He Heals All Our Diseases

Defeated at the Cross

God’s Infinite Capacity for Suffering

God’s Love as Strong as Death

No Plan B

As It Is in Heaven

No What Ifs

On Eagles’ Wings

A Door of Hope

We the betrothed ones

God Works All Things for the Good

Part 2—The One Who Went Ahead

Why Wasn’t I There?

At Rest in His Love

Let Her Go Now; She’s Mine

But Where Is She Now? God Is Not in Heaven

Part 3—And Now?

Why!

From Glory to Glory

Either None of It’s True or All of It

A Death That Will Glorify God

Breathe on Me, Breath of God

Part 4—And So …

Even More Gooder Than We Think

Life and Life to the Full

Part 5—The Way We Were

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

Bible References

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Foreword

My wife of forty-three years was more than enough, the love of my life, and my only real friend. She went on ahead, and now I’m the one left behind.

Charmaine had just been moved onto the home-care hospital bed. It was delivered that evening, and I’d left her to take some rest after several sleepless nights. The bed was empty when I came back downstairs in the early hours. When I returned from having looked for her in the kitchen, I saw her lying instead beside the bed. She had rested her head on her right arm. It was as though she’d made herself comfortable, thinking, I’ll just wait for Mike to come back. My love’s left arm offered no resistance beyond its own weight as I reached over and lifted it to wake her. It felt strangely heavy to my hand. As I let go, it fell back to the floor with a thud that I felt as much as I heard. There was no sign whatsoever of the vivacious, outgoing, caring life where it always had been for the nearly fifty years I’d known her. This time there was no familiar waking from sleep. I knew then that she’d gone on ahead and that I was now the one left behind.

I met Charmaine on our first day at University. In the words of the song, The first time ever I saw her face, I saw the sunrise in her eyes. The moon and the stars were her gifts to me. (See page 41.) Over the years we had each become for the other, while hardly knowing it, quite simply our reason to live. To paraphrase the scripture, but to retain the spirit of its meaning, in each other we lived and moved and had our being. I once quoted this from Boris Pasternak in a letter to Charmaine: You came in with a chair, reached up to take my life, as from a shelf, and blew away the dust. This is the story of how I’ve come to continue to live without her. It’s a testimony to how God’s goodness is helping me do this with love and purpose, and that He’s even Gooder than we think.

But it’s not just about me. In most marriages, including our own parents, one will go on ahead and one will be left behind. How, especially as a Christian, is one to handle that?

In a way, this is where the