DEATH AND LIFE

The death of a friend or loved one causes one to think deeper thoughts, to ask introspective questions of ones own life and legacy. What have I done that others will remember? Have I made any lasting impact on those I will leave behind? If I were to die today, what would they say at my funeral?

Morbid thoughts I confess, yet the questions beg to be either answered or ignored. I choose to to address them.

A friend of mine just died from cancer, after battling it for a year. Yesterday, I attended her funeral.

Last summer we were quite sure we were going to lose Jean, but believers around the world prayed for her night and day. As a result, God mercifully rose her up to spend a few months of invaluable time with her friends and family. She was only 54, but Jean left a legacy behind which included a loving marriage, a close-knit family, and a strong witness for Christ.


"In Christ Alone, " a song that Jean loved, was sung at her funeral. The last stanza is the most powerful.

No guilt in life, no fear in death, this is the power of Christ in me. From life's first cry, to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny.

No power of hell, no scheme of man, can ever pluck me from his hand. Til he returns, or calls me home, here in the power of Christ I'll stand.


Jean was one of the first friends I made after moving here. She held a Bible study in her house every Monday night. She and two other women befriended me at this weekly event and gave me godly examples to look up to and to imitate. How convicted of sin I felt in their presence. They loved and served their families. They walked in holiness and submission to God.

I realized I had failed as a Christian and as a wife. I wondered if my new friends were privy to my life back home in MN if they would even think I was a born-again, Bible-believing Christian? In truth, I wonder if they actually did think I was a pagan for awhile. After all, I had left my husband. My walk with Christ was weak at that point. But I wanted that to change so much.

Having made a decesion to repent of my sins and live for Christ as a young child, I aimed to live for Him. I attended Bible college in order to learn to serve Him with my one talent of working with children. I served as a Children's Pastor for a total of nine years.

Nevertheless, I made a mistake in the man I married. I did not listen the Holy Spirit warning me about Randy, revealing to me that he was verbally abusive, controlling, unloving, self centered, prideful, and worldly-minded. Althought I was a strong Christian in Bible college, after one year with Randy, my faith was almost smashed to pieces. I did my best to walk with God the best I could, but I lost my strong desire for holiness.

I am not saying I have no faults, I surely do. But there is a difference between he and I. I loved my husband and was willing to accept him as he was, if he was only not mean, domineering and hurtful. He would not love me, no matter what I did.

I did not know how to handle Randy's abuse. He insisted I change everything about me from the way I talked, breathed and walked, to how I looked, ate and spoke.

My health became to fail. Emotionally I broke down. I admit I became self-absorbed with my physical health (severe headaches) and emotional pain-- I believed it was all more than I could bear.

If I had had this local church in Sheboygan during that time, and this much Christian support, perhaps I could have learned to deal with the abuse with God's help. Maybe these Christians would have enfluenced my husband, too.

But I was hurt and broken and I did not know what to do. Those who have never experienced living in that kind of hostile environment cannot grasp it. And I am glad they have not gone through it. Nevertheless it is hard for me to relate to those who can not understand.

It was a home that was almost completely void of love and inhabited by a man who put me in no-win situations and shot verbal arrows full of poison at me on a regular basis. (I doubt anyone here can have a clear understanding of what my home-life was like). The best I could hope for was a neutral gear and false sense of peace. I never knew how long it would last.

I knew that what my friends said came from the Bible. I could not refute what they said, though I wanted to, very badly. But I also wanted to do what was right. So I prayed for God to help me make things right with Randy.

It was Randy who decided to break it off in the end, likely in order to be the one who ultimately ended the relationship. This happened after months of daily heart-wrenching crying over going back to him, and finally a peace from the Lord that it would be Ok.

I honestly believe God gave me mercy in this situation by having Randy change his mind.

Not all people can suffer any trial at any time. God knew I was not spiritually strong enough to go back to Randy. I would have been crushed under his sharp tongue.

But I am divorced now, and it is shameful to me. I never wanted to be divorced.

I look at the lives of some of my Christian friends and I see their good loving marriages, like Jean's for example, and I feel ashamed. I might have done that had I obeyed God when he told me not to marry him. He tried to protect me. He was not trying to hurt me by saying no.

I look at my attitude toward life, one that tends to pick out the negative in everything. My response toward toward suffering--nothing but complaining and whining. How do I react to bad treatment? With anger and frustration. My weaknesses in relationships with others? I pick out their faults, and judge them too harshly.

It is perhaps too important to me that people listen to me, remember what I say, understand me, and know me well. It is essential to me that their thoughts toward me are accurate. Why should it matter? Yet it does.

I made a lot of mistakes in my new friendships, and I was forced to look at myself in a new perspective, one that was not pretty. Sometimes I think I am really changing, other times I see no change at all.

My friend Jean was generous, hospitable, godly, funny, and kind. She suffered greatly but she accepted it as God's will, and her quick sense of humor never waxed. We will always remember these things about her.

The last time I saw Jean, I was at the hospital, drinking lemonade full of barium, before having cat scans of my pelvis and abdomen. Jean showed up in the hallway with in the waiting room in a wheel chair to await treatment. Her concern at the time was for me, for now what seems so minor an affliction in comparison to her disease.

What will people say in my Eulogy? "Holly was an OK person but she made a lot of mistakes? She was impatient with friends and family, she overwhelmed people with the problems in her life, she talked too much? Holly was too easily offended and annoyed? She refused to give up all for Christ?

Will my family be able to stand up and speak of me with respect and love? Will others know Christ better because they have had contact with me?

Even more important, what will God say?

Lord, please change my heart.