Oh Charlie

Charlie loved his wife from the first day he saw her on the church steps when she was 13 years old. But as he used to say, ＂I had to wait a few years for Old Black Eyes before we could date and get married.＂ Their love endured for seventy-nine years. He loved all of God’s creation, the plants, the birds, the animals and especially God’s people. He had an open heart and invited everyone into his family. He had the ability to love all the children who sat at his feet, which was everyone he met. He was accepting, playful and always positive. Those who knew him grew spiritually, knowing that God will love them and accept them through his example. In his last months he brought more young people into the house who called him Dad, Granddaddy and Mr. Charlie. From the time he accepted Christ when he was sixty-two, he dedicated his life solely to God. Together he and his wife had a partnership that took them on a journey they never expected. Charlie had a great thirst for the Word of God. Over the course of the next thirty-five years, he read his Bible through once a year, devoured commentaries and read many books by noted authors. He and his wife read the Bible together every day and prayed for everyone who needed prayer. Charlie felt a great call to pray. If you asked him to pray for someone, he would ask you how they were doing months later. He kept a list which grew so long that he had to break it up into two days. He prayed for half the list and half the world one day and then the other half of the list and the rest of the world the next day. He and Andreé would get into bed. They had a code between them that when he would say, ＂Good night, Honey,＂ she knew that he was through praying and they could go to sleep. At one point, he had so many to pray for that it kept him up late at night. He asked his family if they thought Ronald Reagan would mind being removed from the list for a little while. He was impressed to write letters. He wrote letters filled with encouragement and God’s love to everyone he felt God was leading him to write. He tried to write 300 letters a year, but one year he wrote 450 letters. He shared Christ and God’s love in many of the letters, but all of the letters had encouraging words. As his health failed and he did not know why he was still here, he continued to write the letters when he could barely handle the days. It was common for his family to find him writing a letter, reading his Bible or praying.