Savannah Memorial Speech
By Grandpa Joe
As uncomfortable as this makes me, I have to give this speech for Savannah
First and Foremost – Savannah showed me a Love that can’t be explained, only experienced.
Savannahs Life will have an influence on Millions of people directly and indirectly.
I would like to walk you through Savannahs Life and the impact it had on me and how she brought me closer to God. Throughout this whole experience, we could see God clearly at work in this situation.
Jeannie and I learned we were going to be Grandparents at Justins birthday family dinner back in February of 2019
We were both excited and thrilled of the news. We started planning the months ahead and decided to change the trip to Dallas Texas Jeannie bought me for Christmas to see the Cowboys play from late November to Early September. We knew we would not want to leave after Savannah was born in November. Little did I know at the time that God had a different purpose for these plane tickets.
Right before Savannahs Reveal party, Nicole went in for a ultrasound for the sole purpose of finding out the gender. It was at that Doctor appointment we were told about Savannahs Malformed heart. As the doctor pushed for an abortion, Justin and Nicole said absolutely not, as we began to stand in faith for a complete and total healing.
Later we learned Nicole would have to live in Miami for the last month of pregnancy. We canceled our trip to Dallas so Jeannie could be with Nicole during this time. The plane tickets were refunded for a credit that would eventually expire, 3 years later on Sept 7, 2022
I started to examine my own life, to figure out if I was somehow to be blamed for this. I remembered back in 2017, I started praying for God to use me regardless of how uncomfortable it would make me. I told God I am his and to use me, whatever it takes. I was His. But it was up to Him to get me there. I didn’t know what that looked like, but I was determined to be used by God.
I began to think because of that prayer, Satan has begun to attack my family and I somehow put a target on my family back.
How could this happen? I was totally surrendered to God, I thought.
I began to get convicted of the Sin in my life.
Even though I crucified the flesh, put on the new man, went to church and bible studies, I still struggled with sinful thoughts which sometimes lead to sinful deeds.
Has this sin created an open door for Satan to attack my family.
I carried that attack from Satan as we continued to stand in faith.
I was told to Just Believe in Jesus and the finished work of the cross.
Which I did my whole life. So I was determined to focus on Jesus and Stand Strong and Let God led me to do what He wanted to do in my life.
Savannah was Born and from the first day, we could see Gods Faithfulness in our situation.
From that first day, we began to experience the Love and Joy of being Grandparents.
We had our fair share of ups and downs. But we always were able to truly experience love, joy and happiness with Savannah.
I felt Gods Prompting throughout Savannahs Life to do this or do that, sometimes being painfully difficult to do, sometimes taking months to get the Boldness from God to get them done. In the process of learning I was not to blame. That blame gets put solely on Satan. But Satan is a fool, because God is going to use what Satan meant for Bad and use it for Good.
I began to see the Holiness Righteousness and Faithfulness of God.
We had an army of powerful prayer warriors constantly praying for Savannah, and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.
We still had Plane Tickets to use, and it was a few weeks from the expiration date of September 7. But I had no desire to go anywhere, so we decided to let them expire.
As I was seeking truth through this whole process, I began to watch Pastor Greg Locke and what God was doing through him at Global Vision Bible Church. God was putting him into the Deliverance ministry when he didn’t even believe that Christian’s could have demons.
I was on Facebook one night, either watching a sermon or reading a post from Nicole thinking what an amazing gift she has for writing. When a advertisement popped up on my feed. Global Vision Bible Church was putting on a National Deliverance Conference September 4 through September 6. God immediately gave me a desire to go to this Deliverance Conference. I don’t think we would ever have gone if we didn’t already have the plane tickets to use. Only God could of planned this out so perfectly.
We made the arrangements to attend and fly out to Nashville for 5 days to attend this 3-day conference. The first day we went through a lot of renouncing and declaring freedom over every spirit imaginable. We canceled agreements we knowingly and unknowingly setup with Satan.
Everyday Demons were coming out of people screaming and throwing up. We got to listen to a lot of good teaching from deliverance ministers that traveled in.
On the 3rd Day of the conference – I got desperate and delivered from a Spirit of Lust, a spirit of python. and a few other spirits over the next 3 days.
A Spirit of Python squeezes the life out of its victims. That spirit makes it difficult to read the Bible. Since that day, the Word of God has become alive for me.
For the first time in my life –
John 8:36 is real for me.
“If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”
Jesus wants to set people free.
I wanted to shout it from the roof tops.
I know I would not be where I am today, without Savannah. I am still seeking truth and answers as to why God took her home so soon. But for now, I am comforted by the fact that God used this situation to bring me closer to him and get over hurdles I would have never gotten over without her.
In addition to the unconditional Love Savannah showed me through all of this, the Holiness of God was revealed to me.
That sin I struggled with that I spoke of. It’s gone. I am now a slave to righteousness.
I want to honor Savannahs Life and Do what I think her purpose for me was.
As I sat in the Hotel Lobby the day after Savannah went home to be with the Lord, struggling to write a Facebook post to let my friends and clients know what happened – I wrote a line that seemed to flow out of me.
I wrote –
Her heart will continue to beat on earth through millions of people for the Glory of God.
As I read that line back to myself, I thought how arrogant of me to think she will reach that many people – As I went to change that line from millions to thousands – in that moment I got a gut check from the Holy Spirit – Don’t change that He whispered, that is a prophetic word.
The Fear and Reverence of God is what I want to focus on and develop moving forward for Savannah. It will cause me to do the things I need to do, and not do the things I shouldn’t.
- I will Fear God and keep his commandments – that is my duty Ecclesiastes 12:13
- I will not be wise in my own eyes: I will fear the LORD and depart from evil. Proverbs 3:7
- The fear of God is to hate evil. Proverbs 8:13
- The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge. Proverbs 1:7
- The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 9:10
- For the fear of the LORD will be my treasure. Isaiah 33:6
- The fear of the Lord will protect my Family.
But how will I learn this?
Proverbs 2:1-5 Instructs me on how to do this. It ends with
Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.
I know today is about Savannah and the celebration of her life on earth. But after today, I ask that you make it about yourself. please allow Savannahs Life to draw you closer to Jesus.
I can’t wait to enter into eternity to wrap my arms around her and thank her for all she has done for me.
