She Taught Us How to Die
The diagnosis wasn’t good. She had been having pain for quite some time (really for years), but this was different. Being in her nineties made most doctors relate the pain to her age. However, one particular doctor did some tests and the diagnosis was bad. Cancer…in several places…including her pancreas…and just a very short time to live.
Now most people would have been devastated by that news, but not this lady. Her outlook was very optimistic! She let the doctor know that she had been waiting for this next trip she would be taking for a very long time. She didn’t want them to do a biopsy or any other tests of any kind.
You see, she had been preparing for this trip since the day she became a New Testament Christian. She lived a good life, full of love for God, for her husband of 71 years, for her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Her outlook was positive and she almost always wore a smile on her face. She loved to laugh and joke around (which made her especially fond of Jim). She loved to come to worship and was an example to all who knew her because she didn’t always feel like coming – but she came.
She loved to go on trips. Gulf Shores was one of her favorite places and she and her husband made many yearly trips to the beach. But it was this final trip that she looked forward to the most.
I know all of that sounds like she taught us how to live rather than teaching us how to die. She did teach us how to live. She taught us to worship and serve God, to love our husbands and children, to take care of our homes, and to help those who are in need.
All of those things are the reason she could teach us how to die. She trusted in God and she took seriously her role as a wife, mother, and grandmother. She was prepared to go to that better home and be reunited with her husband who had gone on before her.
Jim and I visited with her a few days before she left us. She was weak, but she was able to talk with us about her desire to “get the show on the road” (her words). She said she had a little trepidation about what it would be like and what she would do. Then she stopped and said, “No, I know what I’ll do, I’ll fall down before Him.”
I really hope that she knows how much she helped me in this life. Just watching her live her life was such a great example to me, but watching her face death with such confidence and longing taught me so much. You see, when you put Christ on in baptism, live your life for God, and do the very best that you can in this life to serve Him, you have nothing to fear when you die.
She passed from this life on her birthday and her simple memorial service was held the very next day. She didn’t want a big funeral, just a simple service for her family and a few close friends. She wanted all of her family to get on with living and enjoying their lives and looking forward to that day when they will travel to where she is.
Thank you, Jeanne, for not only teaching us how to live, but also how to die.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1,2)
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AUTHOR: Donna Faughn
