Weekly Witness

This has been a week of tiring travel and tremendous blessing from God.  Having come to Ecuador yet again, I have found myself talking with patients at our Hospice House called FASEC about how God understands our suffering.  One young lady, Katarina, asked to speak with me about her 74 year old mother, Miriam, who is suffering from ovarian cancer and a sever cardiac issue.  Miriam is truly in her final days.  There is something that we know happens when we realize that a loved one is facing death.  It is called anticipatory grief.  While the loved one is still alive, family members may begin to grief as though that person has already died.  This is quite common.

What I believe to be one of the most important things to share concerns our hope of the resurrection.  In this case, the whole family believes in God and in Jesus as the Son of God.  They know He was raised from the dead.  Yet, with clear understanding they are sad at knowing they are going to lose someone they love very much.  In Philippians, Paul speaks of finding “comfort” in the experience of God’s love even in the midst of our suffering.  Can it be that we find comfort from our suffering when we consider that God truly has the power over death and the grave?  We are to understand that Christ Jesus, though “equal with God” – hence, God incarnate – came to demonstrate this power over death and to give us hope.  Here is how Paul put it:

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.  Philippians 2:1-2

As I had opportunity to speak with Katrina concerning her mother, we came to the reality that remembering the life that God has given is part of the comfort we are promised.  Do you have memories of loved ones who have died?  Most of us do.  Do we allow ourselves to find comfort in those memories?  The reality of any comfort will come from our hope of the resurrection.  God is faithful.  He will never abandon us even in death.  While these truths do not keep us from being sad, they will sustain us and they will comfort us.

At one point, with several members of the family in Miriam’s room, we took opportunity to pray together.  Miriam’s husband, Umberto, offered a prayer and then I had opportunity to pray.  We gave thanks to God for His love and faithfulness to Miriam and for this wonderful hope we hold to even at the point of death.  We spoke of God’s sustaining Grace which only comes from our faith and trust in this wonderful God we serve.

My witness this week is quite simple and yet full of great joy.  God’s love for us is real and He truly understands our suffering.  I observed a family carrying a sadness that is heavy and yet finding comfort in remembering that God is always faithful even when we face our greatest enemy – death.  Our only recourse is holding to the hope we have in Christ Jesus.