Back home
now, and recovering my strength, I will tell you the story. A faithful
Christian lady had once told me about her mother. At the age of seventy she had
been healed of heart disease and she had told her, ‘Mother, don’t forget. You
do not have to be ill to die.’
And she
didn’t and indeed wasn’t. In her nineties, she had been helping her daughter
with her jobs around the house all morning, enjoyed her dinner and sat back in
a comfy chair to enjoy her cup of tea, closed her eyes and was gone.
What a
lovely story and somehow I had believed this was a promise for me too.
I had come
into this wonderful Care Home, having survived a cardiac arrest and for two
years have been enjoying a busy and fulfilling life style. A lovely Christian
friend had been hoping to join us in this same home, but the only way there
would be room for her was if the Lord called one of us home to glory. It could
be any one of us. Was the Lord ready for me?
A friend
reminded me that if I were no longer here, then this lady might not want to
come, but soon after that one of our long-term residents suffering from
dementia, but otherwise hale and hearty, slept her way through twenty four
hours. They had kept her on a recliner downstairs so that she had constant
care, but the next day she very gently stopped breathing. Indeed, she had
confirmed to me the assurance that we do not have to be ill to die.
And though, if
we are trusting in Jesus as our Lord and Saviour then we can say with Paul that
‘to be with Christ is far better’, yet I know that I am very privileged to be
returned from hospital and am beginning to take up again my fruitful life style
– rejoicing in every opportunity I am given to shine for Jesus. And yet with
the blessed hope of soon being home, home at last with our wonderful Saviour,
having demonstrated, I trust, the truth that we don’t have to be ill to die.
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