Testimonies

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During my eighty-third Christmas season (2004), we received a total of fifty-six Christmas cards. Nothing notable or noble about that--in fact, quite commonplace. Almost everyone exchanges cards of good cheer during the holiday season.

But this year it was very different. The Year of our Lord 2004 enclosed for me "the best of times and the worst of times" to borrow from Dickens. I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in April, had major surgery, outcome very iffy. Myriad prayers ascended from those who love me. There were thirty-one days in the hospital--a major disruption in the lives of family members and friends--and months of painful recuperation at home. But the God of all grace answered those prayers, and I was given some "Hezekiah" time.

When all of this was finally processed, it came to me that I was not the same person that had gone under the knife. All through life, faith in God has been my stronghold, but now there was something different. A whole new perspective/dimension was in place.

One of the times this was noticeable was when the Christmas cards began to arrive. They meant something different this time, very different, from what they had ever meant before. Always looked forward to and appreciated, they had become this year a kaleidoscope of our lives. Each one represented people who had touched our lives with love, friendship--and loyalty! Many of the relationships go back more than fifty years, most more than thirty--and still we communicate with newsy notes at least once a year. Each represnts a location and a separate time in our lives and presents a vignette of memory. Tears, laughter, loss, sorrow, pleasure and grief all shared and secured by love for God and each other. We paused for a moment to remember and enjoy it all over again. Precious people, precious times, precious memories. And it took me all those years to see for the first time what a wonderful life we have enjoyed and how many lives have been entwined with ours. These cards gave definition to our lives, where we've been, what we've done and whom we have loved: the diamond hallmarks of our history.

And not just Christmas card attitude had been altered. Almost suddenly every dawn became a miracle: the world is so beautiful, and I was still in it! Please know that I have never feared death, but perhaps have not appreciated life enough. Now it seemed that everything I had ever believed in suddenly was proved and played out, leaving not a shadow of a doubt before my wondering eyes.

Life is indeed a wondrous gift. Nothing touches its glow: neither sickness nor death, nor pain nor poverty nor any such thing.

Lived under the aegis of our Maker, the gift of life takes one's breath away! Limitless love, limitless joy, limitless beauty, limitless possibilities! Does the Scripture, "All things are possible to those that believe" come to mind?

So in my newly-dawned world of utter delight, you can imagine how sharpened has become my anticipation of the next world. The Creator of both of them assures us that the glories of the latter, as well as the time-line, far exceed the existing one. Having been where I've been, seen what I've seen and felt what I've felt, I have not a whisper of doubt that it shall be exactly as He says. Exceeding precious promises have already been fulfilled before our eyes, and there are many more awaiting.

"Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and forever. Amen" 1 Timothy 1:17

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