THE STORY BEHIND THE POEM 'COME TO ME EARLY'

My cousin died of AIDS at the age of 34. When they called me to tell about the funeral, I flew to Nashville, TN to be with the family.

When I got there the President of Nazarene College picked me up at the airport. The mother was visiting with the minister who was conducting the funeral so I just went upstairs to be out of the way. While I was there praying for her, I just ask the Lord if He had a word to bring peace to the mother. The son had lived a life outside of God's Will but was able to register his name in the Lamb's Book of Life before he died. The mother and father was so distraught over her son's death and the life he lived.

But God will always turn what the enemy meant for the worst to be used for God's Glory.

When I went downstairs I gave the poem to the mother and the tears flooded her. She read it to the President of the Nazarene College and he came to me asking how I knew what the sermon was all about because they just finished the plans minutes earlier. I advised him that I did not know, but the Holy Spirit did. They stood in amazement - the poem was exactly what the funeral message was about.

The poem ministered to the mother so that she was able to hold up and had a hope that her son's death was not in vain and brought some good to others.

The family built a wing to the church and donated it to the youth and had a picture of her son, along with the poem, made in bronze to be placed in the wing to bring other young people into the Kingdom.

The son's dying words of 'Tell them to come to Jesus early' will echo in the walls of that church to land on the ears of the future young people for generations to come.