Jim and Jan Holsclaw

To our Dear Friends…Nick, Colleen, Mickey,

We cannot begin to describe our sadness and grief over the loss of your precious Matthew. And we cannot even imagine the depth of your grief. We so wish we could be there to weep with you and to hold you close. We do, however, know that GOD is holding you close in His loving arms, and for that we are so grateful.

Beth wrote Jana the words of the Steven Curtis Chapman song, With Hope. Jim found it on CCLI and bought it on i-tunes. We have listened to it over and over and over…we weep every time we hear the words and think of your incredible loss.

We rejoice that Matthew is with Jesus, that he is whole and well, that he is free from pain. We weep with you, Nick, Colleen, Mickey and Melissa. We pray Rom. 15:13 for you…May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

We love you,

Jan and Jim

With Hope

This is not at all how
We thought it was supposed to be
We had so many plans for you
We had so many dreams
And now you’ve gone away
And left us with the memories of your smile
And nothing we can say
And nothing we can do
Can take away the pain
The pain of losing you, but …

We can cry with hope
We can say goodbye with hope
‘Cause we know our goodbye is not the end
And we can grieve with hope
‘Cause we believe with hope
There’s a place where we’ll see your face again
We’ll see your face again

And never have I known
Anything so hard to understand
And never have I questioned more
The wisdom of God’s plan
But through the cloud of tears
I see the Father’s smile and say well done
And I imagine you
Where you wanted most to be
Seeing all your dreams come true
‘Cause now you’re home
And now you’re free, and …

We have this hope as an anchor
‘Cause we believe that everything
God promised us is true, so …

So we can cry with hope
And say goodbye with hope

We wait with hope
And we ache with hope
We hold on with hope
We let go with hope

Steven Curtis Chapman

~ by Ken on April 17, 2008.