Man knows not his time: Jake Brewer

Many of you have probably seen Mary Katharine Ham on Fox News. She’s 35 and has two children, one not yet born. Her husband Jake Brewer died Saturday while riding his bicycle in a charity race to benefit cancer research.

She wrote this poignant post on Instagram:

“We lost our Jake yesterday, and I lost part of my heart and the father of my sweet babies. I don’t have to tell most of you how wonderful he was. It was self-evident. His life was his testimony, and it was powerful … and tender and fierce, with an ever-present twinkle in the eye. I will miss him forever, even more than I can know right now. No arms can be her father’s, but my daughter is surrounded by her very favorite people and all the hugs she could imagine. This will change us, but with prayer and love and the strength that is their companion, we can hope our heartache is not in vain—that it will change us and the world in beautiful ways, just as he did.”

She added:

“I will strive and pray not to feel I was cheated of many years with him, but cherish the gift of the years I had. In a life where nothing is guaranteed, Jake made the absolute, ever-lovin’ most of his time with all of us. This is a family picture we took a couple weeks ago. It was taken because Jake, as always, was ready with a camera and his immense talent. All four members of our little, growing family are in it. I can never be without him because these babies are half him. They are made of some of the strongest, kindest stuff God had to offer this world. Please pray that he can see us and we’ll all make him proud. God, I love him. Psalm 34:18, Philippians 1:3”

Those verses are:

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”

And:

“I thank my God in all my remembrance of you.”

For years, WORLD reported obituaries under the heading “Man knows not his time.” Puritan pastor Increase Mather preached a sermon with that title at Harvard College in 1697 after two undergraduates broke through the Charles River’s thin ice and drowned. Mather asked why. We ask why. Mary Katharine Ham asks why. Mather explained, “All future contingencies are known to God only … that so His children might live by faith, that so they might live a life of holy dependence upon God continually.”

Amen.