In the midst of Holy Week and on this day, which marks Dad’s first birthday since his death, I am pondering the prompt for this year’s Prayers of the People: spiritual guides. I am reminded of a note sent to supporters a little over a year ago. You may have read a tribute to my husband, Hunter, who died in 2021, in CBF’s fellowship! magazine. Hunter and my dad shared the unenviable bond of simultaneously battling cancers. After completing a series of chemotherapy treatments in the middle of 2021 with mixed results, Dad had been ready to put an end to the treatments. Then Hunter died more quickly than we had hoped. At that point, Dad asked for another round of chemotherapy. (I would be told these things after he had begun these treatments.)
Why the change of heart? He wished to stay longer to console me and to spare me additional grief so quickly on top of Hunter’s death. For a brief season, I struggled with this choice. For my part, I would not have asked him to do this. In fact, it is likely that I would have discouraged it. I knew what awaited this faithful follower of Christ—and smile now when I think of him in God’s presence even as I long to hear his voice. While I did not want to lose him, I would have spared him the suffering that his choice to remain entailed. Like the characters in O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi, we would sacrifice our desires for the joy of the other.
As Good Friday approaches, yes, I consider the great sacrifice made for all of us on that day. I also see so many of the faces of those who draw others closer to the sacrificial One through their acts of love and joy-infused sacrifice. “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:12-13). God loves lavishly, and people respond with daily acts of laying down their lives. Through the years, ever so slowly, I have learned to pay attention to those acts. Some of those acts, like my Dad’s, are hard to miss. Others are easy to overlook: a listening ear, a kind word, a necessary hard word not easily spoken, patience beyond measure, abundant provision disguised as daily bread, humble instruction, a “widow’s mite,” “seventy times seven” forgiveness, and on and on and on. God is speaking and acting all around us. May God, give us ears to hear and eyes to see. Thank You, God, for each of Your children whose love brings us closer to You.
