JAMES HAWK SMITH

Went to kroger today. Still hurts to go to kroger. We usually go to wal-mart. Kroger is where we always went to buy organic food for Hawk. It was very painful the first time we went back to kroger after Hawk passed away. They have a wonderful organic food section. When we passed it, I got very emotional. When we got to the meat section, we saw a young mother who attends our church, Brooke Palmer. She has 4 children. The children really didn't know Mike and I that well, but they just came over to Mike and I and were so friendly. They really lifted my spirits and I told their mother what a blessing they were to me that day.
God put them there.
Today was still hard, but not as hard as the first time we went back. I miss Hawk so much. I have a lot of anger and a lot of hurt, but am trying to work through it. I feel like writing it down will help (hopefully me and someone else). I am beginning to come out of the tunnel of pain and anger. The best things we did for Hawk was to love him, spend time with him, be there for him, pray for him, stay positive and happy around him. The worst thing we did (in my opinion) was to take him to a "healing service". If I offend anyone, I'm sorry. This is my opinon only. We were told that Hawk was healed, and if we had enough faith then he would stay healed. Here is my opinion on all of this. Hawk got cancer because we live in a fallen world--we have disease, we have crime, we hear of things that are so cruel--but we live in a sinful, fallen world--if we lived in a perfect world, then Jesus would have come in vain. God is there to get us through these painful times. The young mother and her children in kroger was a gift from God. Sometimes God does not answer our prayers like we want Him to . But He is God and we are not. "Thy will be done, not mine." Even Jesus (and there is no one with more faith than Jesus), prayed for the cup of sacrifice to be removed from Him. But he said, "Thy will not mine be done" and he accepted God's will and went to the cross.
We are a family of Faith. All of Hawk's family--his mother, his dad, his dad's girlfriend, his step-father, his grandparents, his aunts and uncles, his cousins. It takes faith to hear that this precious little child has a terminal illness. It takes faith to pray for him to stay here, but to know in the end that he is not going to be able to stay. And for me, to change my prayer to "Thy will not mine be done." Faith to watch him take his last breath, but to know that he is going to a better place. Faith to watch what the disease did to his little body the last 2 weeks of his life. Faith to watch him be lowered into the ground.
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"Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. 14We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him."
---1 Thessalonians 4, 13-14
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Faith to live this and not go crazy. Without our faith, I don't know what we would do.Faith to get up every day without him and to be grateful for the beauty of this world, faith on Breanna's part to tell God what to tell Hawk every night. Faith to enjoy our life here and to enjoy our grandchildren, to laugh with them and be thankful for them.
We love you Hawk. It was not in our power to keep you here, but it was in our power to love you and cherish you and to cherish your memory.
We will always love you and miss you, our precious little grandson.