WHEN LIFE COMES TO
MOMENTS
The wall clock struck 1 a.m., as the blue cuff tightened its
vice grip around my arm and clacked off its slow, steady decompression. The
face of the ER doctor was visible through my partially drawn curtain, and his
expression was grave as he spoke on the telephone in hushed tones with our
family doctor, whose office we’d visited thirteen hours earlier. Mom and I had
heard the preliminary diagnosis (based only on crude x-ray and fuzzy CT scan
images) moments before, and although the precise name of my mortal enemy had
yet to be determined using an MRI and biopsy, the line that rang in my ears was
“These things go south fast; we’re prepared with specialists to do surgery or
necessary procedures at a moment’s notice.”
Within hours, a team of nine high-powered physicians and
surgeons (some with specialties I’d never heard of) was assembled on my behalf.
“You must be important,” one doctor said later. “I just stood at the nurses’
station and no fewer than seven specialists were discussing you!”
The next day, a surgeon would say, “We have ways of getting
operating rooms to open up at any time.”
“Even on Christmas?” I’d asked, looking at the calendar and
realizing that was a definite possibility.
“Anytime!” was the answer.
So in that ER, knowing my reality had changed and my life
might well be brought to moments (yes, I know it always could, but this was a
more obvious possibility), my mind raced. I looked over at Mom and started
thinking through a list of all the things she needed to know. If only I’d
sensed this coming, I’d have prepared something for her. In my shock, I started
rattling off instructions.
Passwords, definitely she needed to know my complex and
quirky system of passwords for both personal and business-related apps and
sites. How to find someone to help with her taxes. How to pump gas. I’d saved
her from that task all these years, but if I weren’t here, she’d need to know.
Which clients still owed me money and which still paid royalties every year,
since she’d be receiving those in my … uh … absence. Which business-related
accounts to cancel immediately so she didn’t rack up unnecessary expenses.
We needed to talk with our family lawyer and other advisors.
She needed to know where I keep certain documents and to have a plan of how to
dispose of my things and pare down hers. She needed direction on how to choose
a more manageable place to live for the long-haul. And the list went on and on.
I started talking through these key points with her, as
nurses were prepping me for a quick move to the cardiac care unit for an
inpatient stay of undetermined length. I glanced at her red-rimmed eyes, and
realized Mom looked absolutely overwhelmed. She listened as intently as she
could, considering the shock she was experiencing. I’ve always been the one to
kick into high gear—stay at sharp attention—in crisis moments. She, though,
feels the pain more intensely and immediately. I collapse later. That’s just my
way.
My deeper thoughts, which I didn’t share with Mom at the
time, centered around how I was going to tell Daddy when I arrived in heaven
that I came on ahead, leaving Mom behind all alone—after I’d promised him in
that same building just five years earlier that I’d care for her with all my
heart and strength. Funny the places your mind goes in a last-minute situation.
LAST-MINUTE PREP
Last-minute thoughts and directions take on an urgency. They
distill life down to its most concrete and bare-bones essentials. They have a
way of cutting through the fluff and of hitting you in the face with the fact
that you just may not be as prepared as you thought you would be for an
unforeseen eventuality.
Several years ago, sometime after completing my study of
Jesus’ last-hours prayer for His followers in John 17 (which became my book,
Praying Like Jesus), I started studying backwards through John’s
Gospel—focusing my attention on what happened earlier that evening—on the words
Jesus spoke to the remaining eleven disciples before leaving the Upper Room.
(Judas had already stolen away to carry out his dastardly errand.)
What He said to the eleven was intense, direct, crucial to
their survival. Just like I’d done with Mom, and Dad had done with me, Jesus
gave His followers a long list of life-essential, last-minute instructions.
It’s those instructions I’d like us to examine together in the pages that
follow. They’re worthy of special attention now, in these troubling days,
because they give us a roadmap, or to mix my metaphors an instruction manual,
on how to live for Christ through the uncertain times that absolutely will come
for each of us. Several key lines ring especially true, including this one from
the last verse of the passage: “I have told you these things so that in Me you
may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have
conquered the world” (John 16:33 HCSB).
Well there goes the pie-in-the-sky notion that life for the
believer in Christ is going to be a first-class flight right up to the pearly
gates. Trouble is coming. More to the point, troubles are here. Everywhere
around us. Unsettling, doubt-inspiring, world-shattering trials. But they don’t
have to shake us to the foundation—not if our foundation is the Lord Who
already has (not just will, but has) conquered. Or to express this matter of
faith the way the translators of The Message Bible paraphrase put it, “Don’t
let this throw you! You trust God, don’t you? Trust Me.” That’s a strong
invitation issued by Jesus Himself—
Well, friend, you’ll just have to get the book to find out
what happens next! I hope and pray I’ve whet your appetite … so that you, too,
can become unshakeable the next time life tries to throw you.
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