I just wanted to thank you again for what you did for us with this song. What a TREMENDOUS blessing...we have had SOOOO many responses....both from youtube and facebook. I am now getting copies all over the country for people. God is really using it for His glory. Thank you for opening another door of ministry to us. Love you so much!!!
Then I received a message from a friend of hers who referred me to her blog:
http://www.curtismast.blogspot.com/
I read her story, tears running down my face, then read an article that sums it up. I encourage you to read it, and then - if you have time - read Lisa's full story on her blog (start back with Chapter 1)...
Here is the snyopsis:
Two Hours to heaven…
Every time Lisa kissed Curtis, he sighed gently.
Sometimes the most perfect kisses can happen on the worst day of your life. That first kiss came just two hours to heaven.
And with every kiss the clock ticked down. And with each tick his breath grew weaker. Lisa didn’t know how long Curtis would live so she just kept kissing him. With every kiss heaven drew nearer.
Joey Mast and his future wife, Lisa Perez, at his college graduation...
On the outside he looked absolutely perfect to Lisa and her husband Joey Mast… just tiny at only 2&1/2 pounds. But on the inside his organs had never developed. Even before he was born the doctors knew they could do nothing to save his life. They didn’t know how long he would live or even if he would make it to birth. He did.
He was born and died on April 4, 2007… the worst day of Joey and Lisa Mast’s lives.
Joey and Lisa met at college in the mid 1990s. They dated and two years out of school they married. Three years later J.J.
was born. Life was good. Kayla was born two years after Joey and life got even better. There aren’t words to describe the joy a child brings. When a child is taken away no words can make sense of the pain. So deep it never really heals. Ask anyone who has buried a child. Time passes. Distance softens the edge. But your soul never heals.
The Mast's from left to right: Kayla, Lisa, Joshua, Joey Jr. and J.J.
Lisa told me she and Joey have a great spiritual life. Following Curtis’ death, she felt God in a very intimate way. And despite that tender comfort it didn’t take away the sadness.
A year later Lisa gave birth to Joshua… a child who returned a big piece of what was lost. A child who reminds Joey and Lisa every day of the miracle that every life is.
Sometimes we all forget. Life is the greatest gift anyone receives. Even a life that enters this world at 2 AM and leaves it at 4 AM.
I called this post “Two Hours to Heaven.” And it’s true that Curtis Mast was born just two hours before he went to heaven. But I want to suggest to you that this article could just have easily been called “Two Hours In Heaven.” If you have children you know why. An infant in your arms gently sighing with each kiss must be something like heaven. No question it was the saddest moment Lisa and Joey Mast will likely ever suffer. But it might be the closest any mother or father will come to heaven on earth, no matter the depth of pain.
Curtis mast lived on earth for only two hours. For those two hours he experienced the unconditional love of his mother and father. And in those two hours he changed his parent’s lives forever.
MR
PLEASE NOTE! The Mast’s started a website to help other grieving parents: www.curtismast.blogspot.com.
Thank you for reading and we pray that the LORD be glorified through all of this!
Love,
Suz
