When Cancer Wins and Sun Shines with Amazing Grace.

It’s the drive that those who love, never want to take.  The one where lives dangle from last breaths…..and winter has no spring coming.  The time where no more stories will be told. No more eyes will see…..the beauty of God in Creation.  In people. In this world.  This God gift all around.

And we make our way to where Tio has chosen.  The Care Center that has been the home to dear, sweet uncle.  The one that happens to be Christian.

This place, our home as well….at least every day possible…..since uncle has been stricken with cancer.  And it is true what they say…..”Like God….Cancer is no respecter of persons.”

And these moments before death…..who can plan.  These weary last breaths that lift tired souls from earth…to eternity.

Holding Tio’s hand.  Talking…..whispering.  Rubbing his hands with lotion so carefully…..in hopes for a few more memories before He takes His last breath.

And family floods the departing place.  Things left unsaid, hearts wounded…..healed again.

And for this alone….this healing of souls…..this recovering from offense…..this reuniting of people once broken and torn apart by silly wounds……It all seems to be worth it.

Yet, on this day…..this last day we drive…..Husband and I get the call…..“I am sorry.  He is gone.”

Emotions, like arrows, running through our heads….as we try to make sense of it all.  Why we were only moments away….and he died without us there.

And though husband talked continually about Jesus….and I shared openly about what Christ did in me….

Though simple confession, I struggle to wonder…..”Was it enough to get Him into heaven”?

And emotions surface in mind whirling……as I hear the Father speak……“He is waiting.”  

And I know what that means.  “He is waiting.” 

And within seconds….Heaven’s part. Grey days that haven’t tasted sunlight for weeks, now part, almost instantly, as we squint and struggle to see through the bright light, driving down the freeway.

And it does not cease….these Heaven rays.

But then I hear Him whisper while husband in silent with pain….“Sing…..Amazing grace.”

And what insanity it seems.  Singing after just getting word that someone we love, who suffered painfully….died.

But, me.  Obedient.

And soft, gentle whispers flow from my mouth…..as tears shoot out my eyes at the disbelief of it all.

“Amazing Grace…..how sweet the sound…..that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I am found…..was blind but now I see.”

And I always knew Amazing Grace was my song….my grandmother’s song…..who died with the same cancer that uncle just suffered from….

But, in these words of sweet utterance….I hear….. 

“This is Tio’s Song…..Tio is now healed.”

And I know Uncle struggled to receive grace.  Yet, in last hours of questions and suffering and pain…..He seemed to embrace Jesus.  But, more amazingly, somehow, someway…..I realized through this pain……that I had never fully understood grace, at least as completely as I did now.

See, I understood…..Grace washes away all sin…..but to witness in that moment….sun shining, tears flowing…..the erasing in action…..the erasing of a lifetime…..a whole different thing.

In those final breaths where all sin is washed away…..In this birth before death.  A remarkable thing.

And I taste grace’s sweetness……as song grows louder…..“How precious did that grace appear, the hour I first believed.”

And I get it now…..Grace does not simply cross out all sin…..it erases it completely.

And I wonder why…..at the end of our life….in pain….through suffering…..can we see Jesus so clearly?

Is it because He suffered?  Is it because through suffering and pain Jesus more easily surfaces?

Or is it our scales….our scales of pride….somehow get washed away by pain and trials?

And I wonder….

As I sing in full force now….bellowing out the overwhelming goodness of grace despite this hour of sorrow.

Tio was such a good man. Yet, through cancer….Uncle’s goodness did not provide the peace and happiness he thought it would when caskets call and darkness takes over the heart.

And I think how….

There are not good people and bad people in the world.  There are only bad people and forgiven people.  

And how good people don’t go to heaven.  It is only by the accepting and believing and faith in the blood of Jesus that anyone finds mercy.

The giving over of self….and letting Christ be Lord…..over our tomorrows.

And why is it at the end of our lives….everything comes into perspective?  What matters surfaces?  And all the petty things of the world seem to drown in the truth and the knowledge that we in fact need a Savior?

And what if Tio had acknowledged Chirst while acting….or traveling around the world. What if he had known Christ before His last breath…..

Oh, how his life could have been different.

But, then…..heaven’s continued parting and the rays of light come drowning into my own mathematical mind.  And I see that I am not God…..and I don’t need to understand or ask why.  I just need to love and try to show the world Christ.

And it is through this trip to the lifeless shell and back home again, that Jesus light flows and the truth of this hard journey makes me see clear….

Last time I saw Tio alive……He told me.  I asked Him……

“Will I see you again?” 

He knew. And I knew……exactly what that meant.  And his answer was not frail like the words coming prior.  His spirit was not withdrawn like when we had shared about the Bible. This time……

He was certain…..As I cling to this frail man’s hope for life.

“For sure” he pronounced.  “For sure” he repeated.

……And we leave a piece of ourselves in that Care Center at last….until, we can reunite.

And the sun keeps shooting down it’s rays….all the way home……to the tune of…..“Amazing Grace”.  

And in this final, painless, liberating conclusion…..all somehow seems grace.

Linking with Ann @ A holy experience