I have spoken to several people through the years who are staring death in the face. I always want to ask them about it—how do you die well? How do you walk towards what feels like the biggest fear in life? What does God speak to you in those raw and vulnerable moments?
In the last email I received from my friend Debbie as she was put on hospice care, she said “Lots of emotions, lots of decisions, lots of walking uncharted territory with fear and trembling. But as always our God has proven himself faithful, he has proven himself to be true. It is so amazing to have the privilege of walking this journey. And I never, ever, ever thought I would say that about this cancer journey. God is good.”
That’s right—she just called walking a cancer journey a privilege. My response at the time was to look at my own circumstances and wonder how on earth they were a privilege? If she could see this, though, could I also?
The thing that Debbie understood, and so many others who are teaching me about dying, is that we are always dying physically, and it’s what we do with the life that we have that matters. She chose to count it as a privilege, and to squeeze out every drop of joy and peace from relationship with Jesus in the meantime. She saw the suffering, the pain, the separation as a chance to deeply taste the higher truth of God’s love through it all.
Samuel Rutherford said “When I am in the cellar of affliction, I look for the Lord’s choicest wines.”
I want to look for the best wine, the sweetest juice, and ring out every bit of it so I can taste and see that the Lord is good. No matter the circumstance, we can drink deeply from the cup of Jesus and know satisfaction and joy.
No matter what, I will continue to hope and passionately cling to Christ, so that he will be openly revealed through me before everyone’s eyes. So I will not be ashamed! In my life or in my death, Christ will be magnified in me. My true life is the Anointed One, and dying means gaining more of him. Philippians 1:20-21