Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. –John 12:24
I woke up this morning and thought of Papa and Mama, who passed away within five months of each other. What did thoughts of their deaths bring me? Sadness, a vacuum inside, longing, nostalgia, memories, and legacies —but even more, I believe that their deaths continue to bring forth life. They lived a life in Jesus, and God looked after them from birth through life to death, through good times and bad, in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer.
As I reflect on the lives of Papa and Mama, I pray that their legacies will live on so that more people will come to know and experience the amazing grace of God, who gives us life now and in eternity.
Thinking about their deaths also reminded me of a story about a rich man, who complained to his minister: “Why do people dislike me when everyone knows that when I die I’m leaving everything to the church?”
“Let me tell you a fable about the pig and the cow,” said the minister. “The pig was unpopular while the cow was beloved. This puzzled the pig. ‘People speak warmly of your gentle nature and your sorrowful eyes,’ the pig said to the cow. ‘They think you’re generous because each day you give them milk and cream. But what about me? I give them everything I have. I give bacon and ham. I provide bristles for brushes. They even pickle my feet! Yet not one likes me. Why is that?’ Do you know what the cow answered?” said the minister. “The cow said, ‘Perhaps it is because I give while I’m still living.’”
Papa and Mama showed me how to live. They loved God and loved people by serving with their heart, hands, time, and resources.
Papa and Mama were not rich, but they were happy and secure. Theirs was not a life of sunshine and a bed of roses. They were brave in adversity. Mama lost her father when she was three. At twenty-four, she nearly died giving birth to me. For more than four decades, she worked hard to help my dad support our family. She went through dialysis at sixty-four. She had kidney transplant six months after. She had salmonella, shingles, benign tremor and incontinence. She was immuno-compromised from the many medications and steroids she took after her kidney transplant.
Papa lost his eyesight to glaucoma. His knees hurt from years of playing tennis. He had countless falls due to his blindness. He had bouts of panic attacks. At ninety-two, for four months, he grieved the loss of his wife of fifty-five years. He went through peg insertion, pneumonia, sepsis, bowel obstruction. For two to three days, he was pooping through his mouth, his nose and his peg. He had stent insertion to resolve that. Strong meds to cure his pneumonia compromised his kidneys. His bedsores worsened when he had to undergo dialysis.
Papa and Mama were strong in their weakness and showed us how to be brave and endure in the midst of suffering.
They prayed. In good times, they praised and thanked God. In bad times, they prayed on, trusted, and depended on God. They did not blame God. They believed in his promises—that he would never leave them or forsake them, that he would give peace beyond human understanding, and to those that overcome, he would give a crown of righteousness in the life beyond in the presence of our Creator and Redeemer. Today, they are living out that promise. They are together in a place where there is no more pain, no more tears, and no more night.
Papa and Mama illustrate for me how to live well like Jesus. Their deaths reminds me how Jesus died and rose to live, now seated at the right hand of God, the Father. Jesus lives so that we can live well now and forever.
Thank you, heavenly Father for blessing me with godly parents who showed me how to live well like Jesus. Thank you that though today, they are no longer with me, their legacies of new life in Christ continue to live in me. Amen.
