Precious In The Sight Of The Lord…

My friend Barbara White was sitting alone in a room with her daughter’s body when she phoned me.

Mary, who was in her 40s, died yesterday of wide-spread cancer which started as brain tumors then, after she had surgery for those, moved into her lungs.

Barbara, who has to get around on an aluminum walker, has given Mary hands-on care for the past 18 months or two years; it seems longer. Barbara drove Mary, who was too sick to drive herself, to chemotherapy, radiation treatments, doctors’ visits, etc. practically every day during that time.

“God made me strong for this very thing,” Barbara said.

Last year, I edited and published four books Barbara wrote, collections of her award-winning weekly newspaper columns which were titled, like her books, Along The Way. The series can be found at www.bluefishbooks.info . Many, many people have written saying how much Barbara’s records of her own daily struggles as a Christian have helped them in the problems of their own lives.

About 25 years ago, when Barbara worked as a newspaper editor, she read an article I wrote about family worship and asked if she could join Ginny and me and our four kids for dinner one night. Ever since then she’s been one of us, a regular member of our family.

Last week, when Barbara treated me to breakfast at Dave’s Dinner, we talked about Mary’s health and some other problems Barbara faces. She told me, “I don’t know what to do. Right now all I need to do is to stand there in the midst of these circumstances and be a person who knows God in that place”.

A few minutes after Mary died, Barbara called me to talk as she waited for the funeral home to pick up the body.

When the phone rang, I’d been in the back yard lying on my back in a mud puddle while filthy stagnant water streamed into my face as I tried to fix a hose leak underneath the pool filter. I’ve been working on this project two days and finally solved it (Please, God) by using a surgical glove, a section of bicycle tire inner tube, some string-trimmer cord, and a hose clamp. I think the leak has at least slowed down. I left that stuff to stew while I talked with my friend.

I had little comfort to offer.

Mostly I listened.

In her younger days Mary was somewhat of a hellion and brought all kinds of grief to her mother. Yet, I was happy to say that when the cancer appeared, it forced mother and daughter to spend lots of time together. And in that time spent together, Mary grew to value, appreciate and love Barbara in a way they’d not experienced before.

Whereas before, Mary appeared to regard her mother’s faith in Christ with scorn, over the past few months Mary did come to profess that very same faith as her own.

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.

“She died at peace with God and with me,” Barbara said as we talked yesterday.

“It’s been hard. Very hard. But it’s been all worthwhile,” she said.