Deeply Loved; Dearly Missed
“Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing…”
2 Corinthians 6:10
James Bruce’s memorial service was held last Thursday afternoon and our church was packed. I was privileged to speak on behalf of our family. Today’s post is not an actual transcript of James Bruce’s memorial service, but it represents my written notes prepared beforehand. I pray my thoughts will give you a glimpse into my beloved son’s life and legacy. But more importantly, I pray you get a bigger glimpse of the glorious God he loved and served.
We are so grateful for the privilege God gave us to be James Bruce’s family. All of us are very different people because of James Bruce’s life. Our family is also incredibly grateful to all of you for the gift of your presence. You honor both James Bruce and us by being here today. It’s something the world could not possibly understand how one individual, so limited in natural ability, could possibly impact the lives of so many. But that’s exactly what James Bruce did.
James Bruce was truly one of a kind. He was our third child and I knew when he was 2 months old that something was really wrong. He was:
3 when he received his mild mental retardation origin unknown original diagnosis;
5 when we had the genetics analysis done and discovered he had a chromosomal anomaly on Chromosome 15;
9 when he was diagnosed with autism, and
18 when his seizures began.
Bruce and I realized with James Bruce’s very first seizure that this day might come, but honestly, we never dreamed that it really would. When the call came on Saturday morning that he had died in his sleep, we were shocked.
James Bruce was 5 years old when his dad came home from work one day and found me crying. I cried a lot back then. Bruce asked me, “What’s the matter?” I said, “The one we named for you, is the one that has something wrong.” My sweet husband looked at me and said, “Donna, if any of them needed my name, he’s the one that needed it the most! You need to quit praying for God to make him normal and start praying for God to use him for His glory.”
Angrily, I responded with: “How is God ever going to use THIS?” and Bruce replied, “I don’t know but we’re going to trust Him to do it.” So, I began to pray, “God use James Bruce for your glory.” But I never really dreamed that God would or could do just that.
Not long after that prayer I discovered Jesus’ words found in John 6:12. In John’s account of Jesus feeding the 5000, Jesus multiplies 5 loaves & 2 fish and feeds 5000 people. He then tells his 12 disciples, “Gather up the pieces that nothing will be lost.” That verse became my life verse. All of my speaking, teaching, and writing have been part of our Evans gathering the broken pieces process. As long as those 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish were whole, there was just enough for a one lad’s lunch. But blessed and broken by Jesus’ hands, those pieces were used to feed a hungry and needy world. God cares about the pieces of our lives. Truthfully, that prayer didn’t change my circumstances, but God used it to change us. And He used James Bruce to be a change agent for others.
God used him to change the special education structure within our local school system. James Bruce was in the very first ECEH class at West Elementary. He was also in the first multi-challenged special education class at Vestavia High School.
If you ever met James Bruce, you knew that he loved to sing. Music was his love language. James Bruce couldn’t carry on a decent conversation, but he knew hundreds of hymns. He and his Daddy would sing every night before bedtime. The funny thing was, James Bruce could actually carry a tune and Bruce couldn’t! We have laughed and said we bet his first words in heaven were “Let’s sing!” and not “Wet’s sing.” He never could say his L’s here on earth.
It never ceased to amaze me that James Bruce had this incredible sense of timing with his choice of song selection. I often thought the Holy Spirit was speaking through him because his timing was so uncanny. At the beach, and he would get hit by a wave and start singing:
O the deep deep love of Jesus vast unmeasured, boundless, free
Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me.
It wasn’t unusual for me to be running carpools and errands after work angry, hurried, and harried and James Bruce would start singing I Need Thee Every Hour from the back seat.
Sometimes at night after we would put him to bed, Bruce and I would hear him on the baby monitors singing himself to sleep with “What a friend we have in Jesus.”
James Bruce would often wander thru our house singing “What can wash away my sin, nothing but the blood of Jesus” or God is in Control. Sometimes I’d be so overwhelmed and frustrated with our suffering or our circumstances and he would wander through the house singing “I worship you, I worship you! The reason I live is to worship you.” And he did.
At times when James Bruce sang there would be a look of pure joy on his face and Bruce and I knew that we were witnessing just a glimpse of glory. James Bruce lived close to God.”
God used James Bruce as a catalyst to begin the Special Connection disability ministry here at Briarwood. When he was 7 years old, there were no special needs Sunday School classes at Briarwood. Bruce and I taught a four-year old class and took JB with us so we could attend church as a family. At the end of that year, I made an appointment with Dr Barker who quietly asked, “Donna, what’s the problem?” I told him that the church who would applaud our decision not to have an abortion with James Bruce and also promised to help us raise this child in the fear and admonition of the Lord, was the same church who wasn’t even providing him Sunday School, and what are we going to do about that?” Dr. Barker lowered his head, thought a minute before saying, “Well, we’re going in!” And Briarwood went all in with Sunday School, camp, Vacation Bible School, parent support, and respite.
God also used James Bruce to impact a student body at VHHS. In 2013, 2000 high school students chose to honor him with a SGA Life without Limits event that benefited United Ability, his adult day services program at that time. Those students crammed the gymnasium and gave James Bruce the wedding shower he would never have. They bought every single item on the United Ability registry wish list. Every item from brownie mixes to adaptive PE equipment was purchased. The gym floor was filled with tables piled high with gifts. The side walls of the gym were lined with boxes and boxes of more gifts. And if that wasn’t enough, the students then presented United Ability with a $20,000 check honoring James Bruce. Those are just a sample of the ways answered our prayer for God to use James Bruce for His glory.
But perhaps most importantly James Bruce changed me. One night it was late, and I was tired. His Dad was still at work coaching a baseball or football game. James Bruce broke something. Honestly, I don’t even remember what, but I angrily told him, “Go get on your bed. Go get on your bed right now!” He hurried down the hall and got in his bed. I knelt by his bed and said through clenched teeth, “Say your prayers! Say your prayers right now!” James Bruce nailed me when he unexpectedly asked me, “Mama, Mama! Do you know what the cross means?”
I immediately looked down at the large cross necklace I was wearing. I literally let my breath out and relaxed as I considered his innocent, but pointed, question. Yes, I know what the cross means. It means forgiveness, second, third and thousandth chances. The gospel isn’t good advice. It’s good news! The bad news is we can’t save ourselves; the good news is we don’t have to. Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins.
We’re so very grateful to the entire Vestavia community for loving us well for over 40 years. We have been wrapped in your love this week with such an abundance and we are so humbled and grateful. Thank you also to the Mountain Brook coaching staff and Auburn Football Lettermen Club for coming alongside us this week.
To the entire Vestavia coaching staff both past and present, thank you for folding James Bruce into your own families, homes, and sometimes even your practices when he periodically wandered onto the baseball or football fields.
To our Briarwood Special Connections Families and church staff we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Being a special need parent is a club most of us don’t want to join, but once you’re in you’re in. Having a special needs child is very isolating for families. It helps to do life together and we’ve done a lot of loving, laughing and weeping together thanks to Special Connections.
To our Hearts & Homes Sunday School community, you have walked with us every step of the way over the last 25 years. One of my best friends from H&H said this week, James Bruce changed the way our class prayed. They prayed for him to get a slot at Rainbow Omega when we applied 3 years ago. There were only 2 available spots and 50 applicants. James Bruce got one of them. They prayed for our frustration as Covid hit and our placement was put on hold for 14 months. They prayed for our grief and angst when we moved him to Rainbow Omega and couldn’t see him for the first four weeks. And they prayed for his health and good behavior over the 11 months that he lived there. I think most of all, they prayed that our hearts would not churn and burn as we wrestled with giving up not only his day to day care, but ultimately control. So, thank you for loving us well and praying him all the way to heaven.
Thank you to my children Meredith, Robert and Daniel who loved their brother well. Thank you to their spouses Clay, Anne, and Olivia. You all joined our family with your eyes wide open knowing that one day you might have the responsibility for overseeing James Bruce’s care. You never flinched and you never wavered; you joined us anyway. I will always be grateful. To his nieces Julia, Caroline, and Mary Clayton – thank you for loving Brucie even if he didn’t like you playing with his toys.
Thank you to Bruce, the best Dad any child typical or special could ever have. The world was watching. Earlier this week we had a phone message from a younger coach who recalled watching you and JB walk the high school track together for 15 years. He said he had never seen such a special father- son relationship. For me, thank you for your faithfulness, never walking out on us, and loving us well. Typical marriages end in divorce 50% of the time; for special needs marriages that number is approximately 90%.
Our hearts and broken, but we now have more broken pieces to gather and give to God and trust him to use. We are grieving, but we don’t grieve without hope. Four weeks ago, I stood in this sanctuary and spoke to a group of women on steadfast hope in seasons of waiting. Biblical hope is not wishful thinking; It is a faith that looks and leans forward. The same steadfast hope principles that we talked about in seasons of waiting now apply to this season of grief and suffering. The principles don’t change because God doesn’t change. He is the God of hope. We can hold on to hope because Christ is holding on to us.
We live in a dark and desperate world. But Christians should be the most hopeful people in the world. All those who are in Christ have the:
Hope of God’s Word
Hope of salvation
Hope of Christ in us
Hope of heaven
Hope of the resurrection
Hope of glory
God has been so faithful every step of the way. His word has been a lamp and light for each next step of our journey. He has sovereignly ordered our steps and stops along the way. In his providence, he ordained that James Bruce’s earthly days would end in his sleep at age 38 years and 12 days on February 12.
Saturday morning by God’s providence I was working my way thru the text of John 16. The last words I wrote before that fateful call were my three takeaways from the John 16 text that I would have been teaching today. I wrote:
A coming separation
Confusion before clarity
Grief to joy
In context, Jesus is speaking to his disciples the night before his crucifixion. After the phone call, I re-read both my notes and John 16. Jesus words, “this is for your good” jumped off the page and into my heart. Truthfully, this doesn’t feel good. But as Christians we don’t live by our feelings; we live by faith from first to last.
The last time I talked with James Bruce he asked, “Mama, I come home?” I said, “No Baby. They won’t let you come home or us to come see you because of Covid. I then asked James Bruce if he would sing me a song. He began singing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. I laughed and told him Christmas was over. After his death, I realized God took James Bruce all the way home. Christmas is indeed over, but Easter is coming. Christ is risen. And because Christ lives, we can too.
Christ is indeed our only hope in life and death, but the gospel gets us all the way home. We praise God for giving us James Bruce and using his life for His glory.