Sandy's last days

Some people, it is clear, have more than they can handle. What Scripture has always said is not that we will never face more than we can handle, BUT that with overwhelming testing, God will provide a way out that we might be able to endure.
I had the privilege to visit Sandy the week before she died. Although I hated to see her suffer, I smiled at how each time a nurse, doctor, or visitor entered the room she managed to turn on that Sandy charm – to offer a pun, or ask about how their day was going, and always to express how much she appreciated all they were doing for her. She was particularly excited that day because of a passage my dad had read to her in a devotional book. She wanted me to hear it too but she was having a hard time remembering what it was. We eventually found the passage later that day and I began to realize why it had stirred something within her. I think because it opened up to her a deeper understanding of the work of Christ and how we are invited into that. And, how our own suffering in some ways is an open invitation to share in God’s work of redeeming love. That passage was this – There are three tools God uses to work in our lives: the word of God, prayer, and suffering.
Before leaving, I shared with her Psalm 27. The drugs had kicked in and she could barely stay awake at the time but I believe she heard those words after all. “I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”
I left knowing Sandy was going to die. But, I left smiling because, in every way that day, it seemed clear to me that Sandy had seen the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”