Precious Rodgers Family, how we love you so much. We've prayed many prayers and cried many tears for you this past year. I'm so sorry that you have to go through this. Praise GOD that if Blake cannot be with you, he is undeniably with his Lord and Savior. He's with Jesus. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. What a beautiful blessing that in one of Blake's essays, he said that his greatest gift is Eternal Life! That's the sweetest gift from God that you received. God always brings beauty from ashes and He is glorified through it. ..we love you and won't stop praying for you all.
Love and peace, Charles, Kristi, Tiffany, and Charles III
Hello Rodgers family, Thank you for this beautiful remembrance of Blake and for sharing this with us. We join you in gratitude for his life, his faith, his salvation and the reality of his life now and forever. I want you to know we had a card along with the drawing you gave us, Brett, sitting out on our table ready to write you in thanks for you and Teresa giving us this card with Zach's sketch. We knew the anniversary of Blake's passing was this week so we were already thinking of you all. So grateful for your hope and faith and testimony and for pointing us all toward Jesus even in the midst of sorrow of missing your boy. Bless you all in the name of Jesus. You are very loved, Susan and Newt
Wow. This picture is amazing. We have been praying and praying all year long and will continue to do so. Thank you for this brave post. What a testament to God!!
Rodgers family, thank you for posting this amazing drawing and sharing your hearts with us.
And Meredith, thank you for being the faithful scribe.
What a long hard year on a path you didn't choose, but once you were on the path, you did choose to walk it with grace and beauty. Our family learned much from you. Blake's amazing life was not lost on us and I know his impact is still being felt on distant shores like ripples. I pray that God will give you timely reminders of this, that news of lives he impacted will continue to trickle back to you and your friends for years to come. And that the sting of his death will become softer over time.
I love how Eugene Peterson interpreted 1 Corinthians 15:51-58
But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I’ll probably never fully understand. We’re not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes—it’s over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we’ll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. Then the saying will come true:
Death swallowed by triumphant Life!
Who got the last word, oh, Death?
Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now?
It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God!
With all this going for us, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground. And don’t hold back. Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort.
This is truly good news and worthy of our time and our hope.
We love you so much! the Duncans
Love and peace, Charles, Kristi, Tiffany, and Charles III