Michael Worsman

Words are not enough, but they are something. And something is a good place to start. There are few things in life more precious than a friend. Even more so to one who keeps relatively few. Michael you were my treasured friend. Few people I know could have left such a hole in my life with their passing. You shared my joys, and you heard my sorrows. You were tenacious in not letting time or distance interrupt our relationship. You were one of my best friends, but I suspect that you had very few friends who didn’t feel the same about you. You were a child at heart, full of laughter and mischief. You were sincere and kind. You were invested in others. Your sense of humor let you laugh at yourself too. You were a great encouragement to my faith in ways that will impact me the rest of my life. You were my brother, Michael. We sipped ginger tea in China together, led Bible study together, got married a week apart, you stood behind me when Ash and I said our vows. I teased you about your girly drinks and ribbed you about being from “Vermont”. You were always hatching some scheme: a new company, a property to buy, flying private. I was relieved when you gave up on moving to DC or Raleigh and realized what a good place Durham was. We were to be Durham friends for life. I have been thinking a lot lately about Lazarus and his friendship with Jesus. How Jesus wept over his passing, how he felt the grief of his family, how he did all of this despite knowing that not minutes later he would raise him back to life. I am thankful for a God who knows our hurts. And I am thankful that this life is but a few minutes in light of eternity. I recently read over a lovely passage from C.S. Lewis’ The Silver Chair which paints a picture of that pain and what is promised to those who know the Lord. I’ve just spliced a few portions of it together here: [Then Aslan stopped, and the children looked into the stream. And there, on the golden gravel of the bed of the stream, lay King Caspian, dead, with the water flowing over him like liquid glass. His long white beard swayed in it like water-weed. And all three stood and wept. Even the Lion wept: great Lion-tears, each tear more precious than the Earth would be if it was a single solid diamond. "Son of Adam," said Aslan, "go into that thicket and pluck the thorn that you will find there, and bring it to me." Eustace obeyed. The thorn was a foot long and sharp as a rapier. "Drive it into my paw, son of Adam," said Aslan, holding up his right forepaw and spreading out the great pad towards Eustace. "Must I?" said Eustace. "Yes," said Aslan. Then Eustace set his teeth and drove the thorn into the Lion's pad. And there came out a great drop of blood, redder than all redness that you have ever seen or imagined. And it splashed into the stream over the dead body of the King. At the same moment the doleful music stopped. And the dead King began to be changed. His white beard turned to grey, and from grey to yellow, and got shorter and vanished altogether; and his sunken cheeks grew round and fresh, and the wrinkles were smoothed, and his eyes opened, and his eyes and lips both laughed, and suddenly he leaped up and stood before them — a very young man, or a boy... And he rushed to Aslan and flung his arms as far as they would go round the huge neck; and he gave Aslan the strong kisses of a King, and Aslan gave him the wild kisses of a Lion. At last Caspian turned to the others. He gave a great laugh of astonished joy.] Nothing in this life is promised friends. If anything this year has been a poignant reminder of that fact. In James it says: Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” Above all else, if Michael were to leave a message for those who did and did not know him, I know that it would be this: That we were created for relationship with God, that we have all rejected him with our hearts and actions, that he came as a man into this world to bear the cost of our rebellion and to restore our relationship with God both now and in the life to come for those that put their trust in him. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” My heart is broken. For the loss of my friend and ten times more for the loss to his family. But I rejoice that death has been defeated, that it is not the end for Michael. That one day “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away”. A quote from Billy Graham has stuck in my head these past few weeks and I have often replayed it like this: Some day you will read or hear that [Michael Worsman] is dead. Don't you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God. Only a few minutes remain to us in this life, and then comes eternity. Friend, do you know what you believe about your eternal future? I invite you to make Michael’s hope and peace your own. Surely then, His goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives, and we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.