June 29th – Davidene’s reflections

Today is Kent’s birthday. God outdid Himself when He planned and created such a man. Kent loved God for as long as he could remember, and he gave his heart and life to Him at the age of nine. He was baptized on Easter Sunday that year, along with his sister Jan, who is also in Heaven with him. He never had a different focus from that time on.

He wrote in the front of his earliest Bible: “My Desire: Phil. 3:10     My Task: Matt. 28:19,20”

Phil 3:10 says: “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death.” Throughout Kent’s life, he knew all of these things – he knew his Lord intimately; he was used by God in power and saw God’s power at work; he lived in fellowship with Him through years of suffering, and died like Jesus did, without murmuring or complaining, in physical torment, but with peaceful confidence in what was to come.

Matt. 28:19-20 says, “Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.” Again, Kent’s life was an example of these verses. He often marveled that an “afro-salesman from Oklahoma City” would be used by God to speak, teach, encourage, and mentor throughout the world. How did such a thing happen? God commanded, and enabled Kent to go. And he did. And he loved every minute of it. He relished life, family, business, and ministry with a zest and a spectacular passion.

He loved God and he loved people. And he is still doing exactly that – loving God and loving people. He is now with the folks he missed, like Jan and Poppy, Grandma Dixie, Aunt Enid, Bruce, Judy, and many others. And we are left here to miss him. I honor him today. He was God’s man, but mine, too. How blessed I am to have been his wife, his love, and his partner in all things.