Fragile whispers

Just a few days ago I attended the memorial service for Claude. He and his wife of 50 years, Ginnette, are one of the two founding couples of Famille Je t'Aime, the family ministry we work with here in France. Celebrating the life of Claude was again a reminder of how fragile life really is. It was also a reminder of the bitter sweet experience it is to loose someone who has been suffering from illness for quite a few years. (He had Parkinson's disease for 12 years.) There is the aspect that he is no longer suffering, yet the very reality that he is indeed gone leaves a hole in our lives. With our schedule of traveling I had not seen him in several weeks. I happened to go by the hospital to see him and spend a little time with Ginnette the afternoon of the day he died. I am so grateful for those slight whispers from the Holy Spirit that prod us into action and I know later that He gave me an opportunity that I might have missed and never had another chance to do. As I stood beside Claude's bed I watched him struggle to breathe. He had not responded in any way for over a week. Ginnette and I went out to the waiting area to visit and she said that he appeared to have already gone, that his body was still here, but he wasn't there any longer. That evening after he passed away, she told a close friend that she was wrong. She understood now the difference when he really died, he was gone. Signs of life may be diminished but there is still life. Up until that final breathe there is life and therefore there is hope. Once death arrives our hope shifts toward eternity. Life is a whisper of the hope we have in Jesus who is there through it all. Fragile though it may be life holds so much- joy and delight, pain and sorrow, questions and adventures, crisis and suffering, challenges and fulfillment. I am grateful for every breathe the Lord gives me to live.