West Cocoa Chat

You probably have heard the popular country song by Tim McGraw, “Live Like You’re Dying.” In the song, Tim’s Father, the famous baseball pitcher for the N.Y. Mets and the Philadelphia Phillies, Tug McGraw, discovers that he is dying. He devotes his last few days to experiencing things he hadn’t experience in his past and treating people the way he should have treated them in the past as well.

Last night, my wife, our good friends Monty and Sally, and I visited one of our church members, Charles. Charles is dying of pancreatic and liver cancer. And even though Charles didn’t have the strength to sit up in his bed and his pain was being managed by injections of morphine, he seemed to be more “alive” than any of us who came to visit him.

As Charles was talking to us and encouraging us from his death bed, I asked myself, “What should I be doing as I live on this earth before I get to where Charles is, just days away from meeting the Creator of this universe?” I know as a Christian living today, I should be ready to witness to people that come into my life. I know that as I live I should acknowledge the grace God has shown me in the way I live my life. I know that as I live, I should always look to encourage others and appreciate their efforts. I know I should be trying to reconnect with my family.

That’s exactly what I witnessed from a man’s death bed last night. A man who is dying like we’re supposed to live our life. Charles told us that he felt compelled to witness to anyone who he came into contact with. His sweet wife Lenoir told us that Charles was witnessing to the hospital personnel during his stays in the hospital. Now that he was at home under Hospice care, we was sharing his Faith with the people from Hospice. And talk about a man who “sees” the grace of God clearly, Charles has 20/10 vision in the Grace Department.

And that of itself is interesting for Charles is blind. Charles will tell you that he was blind even when he had his sight. Charles says that he was born 2 to 300 years too late. As Jimmy Buffett wrote in a song, he was a modern day pirate smuggling all sorts of things into the U.S. including drugs. Charles was caught and did federal time for his drug offense. He credits the elders of our church for bringing him back to the Lord by visiting him in prison. There’s that final exam thing again.

Charles shared his story with us and how the grace of God has carried him through prison and blindness. As we sat on his death bed expecting to encourage Charles, Charles was encouraging us. He lifted up my work as an elder and how the church had changed for the better. He held my wife’s hand and encouraged her, the wife of an elder. Rarely have I heard such encouraging words since I became an elder.

Finally, Charles spoke about his love for his family and how he was trying to re-connect with (7 kids – some faithful, some not) all of them before he passes from this life. And it was here that it struck me, Charles is dying like he “was” living. He spoke of what he needed to do in the coming weeks. I don’t know if it was him or the morphine talking because Charles only has days to live. But the things that he is doing in his last days I know I should be doing in my living days. I will always remember Charles.