We don’t get many choices….
We don’t get many choices in the theater of this life of how we get to die. This woman didn’t either. But she knew where she was going 16 days from the date of this photograph. Today, on the 6th anniversary of her arrival Home, there are a lot of people secretly jealous of this woman and this attitude, but they smile at this image.
So many of us fear death. I am not sure there is anyone on the planet who doesn’t. But I think there is a difference in identity. There is a difference between dying, and how we die. I think that is the tripping point-how we go.
No one wants to get hit by a bus.
No one wants to get hit by a bus. No one wants to trip in their living room and lay there for days until someone finds us. In this case, no one really wants to die of cancer. But the end will come, sometime or another. It will either surprise us or wait until we just lay down one last time.
This woman in this picture, is of my wife, Joni, sixteen days from death. She was moving from her hospital room where the final diagnosis was given to hospice. I didn’t know it would be sixteen days at Ryan’s House and some of the most rewarding, uplifting, affirming, joyful, sad moments in many people’s lives. Joni was a believer in Christ. She was a teacher, a mother, a grandmother and always had her Starbucks cup. There was nothing more the doctors could do. So, we made her comfortable and invited whoever wanted to come see her, to do so.
How do you face death….
But this face, this smile-she knew where she was going. How do you face death, with a face like this? It is Christ in her. She was nowhere near perfect. Her life from the start was really against her. But through that life, she chose one thing. To believe in the salvation of Christ on the cross. That was it. That was all she needed to do. It healed her and eventually, brought her Home.
His Plan is perfect. The leap is to trust. You don’t have to believe a lot. Just a smidgen of failing faith will win the day. Just ask the thief on the cross next to Jesus. God knows we fear the unknown. He knows what our choice will be before we make it. But he waits on us, like a patient father would.
Dare to believe.
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