Margaret (7)

When the end came it came quickly. It’s not a time I care to think about. We prayed and prayed for healing for Margaret, but she died. Healing and other miracles are mysteries to me, sometimes the fulness of the Kingdom invades life and we get a taste of our future resurrection, and sometimes we don’t. I do know that when we don’t pray that we are less likely to see healings than when we do pray. I think the Bible is pretty clear that we are to pray for healing and that gifts of healing are available for the Body of Christ - but I’ll leave it at that for now.

Margaret was with us through the ALPHA course and then another four months. My weekly visits continued; others brought meals to the family and made brief visits, the town of Cat Mountain did all it could to support Frank and Margaret and their family through this tragic and sad time. I have often thought that I’d like to die in Cat Mountain, for time after time I’ve seen the people of that little town gather around families in crisis with substantive support - it’s a place where people take care of each other. It isn’t that folks are perfect, but when there is a need they do their best to help.

I recall the time that Joan Ewing, a single mom, was injured in a car accident and out of work for seven months. Folks in the town put on fundraising events and even a town fair to raise money for living expenses and medical bills. That’s what I mean about people helping one another.

During my weekly visits to Margaret occasionally Frank Sr. would be there, for months no reference was made to our encounter in Winchester, but then, about a month before Margaret left us, during one of my visits he followed me out to the car and said, “Bob, like I said before, Margaret isn’t going to buy this religious trash, she is too smart for it. She may have attended your little course, she may have even gone to church a couple of times, and I don’t know what she tells you when you are with her, but I’m telling you that she will come to her senses and realize that what you are peddling is nothing but a crutch and that no thinking person can possibly believe it. If she doesn’t realize it now, she will before she dies. You are wasting your time.”

I couldn’t believe the tone of Frank Sr.’s voice, I couldn’t believe the look in his eyes; at least right then I couldn’t. Sure, I’ve encountered it from time to time, but seldom with the venom that came from Frank Sr. It was if his personal mission was to ensure that Margaret died opposing the Gospel, repudiating everything she’d come to believe over the past few months, rejecting the source of comfort she’d found, abandoning her hope.

When I was a young follower of Jesus Christ, a teenager, I saw the distinction between the way that Christ-followers die and the way that most other people die; I also saw the comfort that Christians have when they lose a loved one who knows Jesus. It isn’t that the separation caused by death isn’t painful - of course it is...but the love of Christ and the certainty of our being with Him transcends the pain, the loss, and becomes a presence with us as we walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. We don’t deny the reality of death or its grief, but nor do we consider it the end of the story, and in our trust in Christ and His love we allow Him to walk with us through the dark times, the times of sorrow, knowing that Easter comes after Good Friday - both in His life and in ours in Him.

I’ve lived long enough now to have experienced the loss of people whom I love dearly, I look forward to being again with those who know Christ - this is not wishful thinking, it isn’t some hocus pocus conjuring up of happy thoughts or positive thinking, it is a present reality in my life that is grounded in my relationship with Jesus Christ and in His Word. When I think of these dear ones I can look backward...and I also look forward.

What possesses someone like Frank Sr. to want to dash and destroy hope in others? Why would he want to rob his daugher-in-law of her newfound faith in Jesus Christ? Well, of course this happens all the time in institutions, whether in government or education or business, or even in churches - but to see it up close and personal...it is like it happened yesterday.

I still need to relate my last visit with Margaret….