Friday, August 10, 2012

August 10, 2012 Ready to go?

Psalm 31:5  I entrust my spirit into your hand.

I read this passage yesterday morning, and today I learned that a dear friend, Darlene Baker, has entered into the presence of God.  Certainly Darlene had many years ago entrusted her spirit into God's hand .  These past several years, she has lived gracefully with this ugly disease, ALS, a disease that every day robbed her of more of her ability to function. But she continued to be faithful to God, to trust in His goodness when others may have faltered in their faith.

I have not written much in my blog this summer because I have poured most extra moments into a book I was commissioned to write, taking the journal of a woman who had cancer and turning it into something others could benefit from.  Like Darlene, Sandi said, "Not my will but thine," and "To God be the glory." 

These two women have shown me afresh not just what it looks like to die, but to live.  Both women suffered intensely, physically and mentally.  Think about what it is like to find your body failing you and having to live at the mercy and good will and patience of others - to feel like you must depend on those you longed to serve. Both of these women loved God first, then their husbands and family, and then us...and both would rejoice that even in death they could reflect glory to God.

So today, I am grateful to have known Darlene personally and to have come to know Sandi as I typed her journals and as I talk to those who did know her personally.  And I pray, that I might similarly live and die for the glory of God.

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