By God's grace, I will have the opportunity to preach for the morning and evening chapel services tomorrow, on my final day at this post. And as you might expect, my mind is detained with thoughts of disease and death.
Putting my own morbidity aside, these thoughts are provoked in part by two items in need of prayer. One, concerning the soldier I mentioned in a previous post--his wife will have the spots removed from her cervix in the next couple of weeks, hoping to avoid the surgery that would remove the cervix entirely. Please pray for his comfort in his helplessness and her strength to prepare for the upcoming steps while also being a single mom to a two-year-old and baby. Two, another soldier just got a Red Cross message. This is one of my soldiers with a pregnant wife at home. They found tumors on the baby's head. The prospects are bleak. Please pray for a miracle. This soldier will travel home soon.
My wife reminds me on occasion that she was pretty oblivious to death until the loss of our friend, Kortney, a couple of years ago. The loss of this precious woman and unborn baby, and the loss to her widower husband was devastating (especially to him!). Since then, my dear wife sees death all around her. It's as if the curtain on this grievously broken world has been cast aside.
But as we stand naked before the inescapable winds of death, we cling more tightly to the cross. We are encompassed by the hand of the Good Shepherd, never to be let go or lost to the wind.
This (5 minute) tear-drawing video reminds us that the truths we confess will one day be the truths we depend upon (and hopefully even now depend upon!):
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/05/02/whether-i-live-or-die-god-wins/
And here is the happy outcome:
http://jenmcmanus.blogspot.com/
