There are thousands of people who have a family member in Hospice right now... and Hospice provides really good end-of-life care. Hospice employees sat at my brother's bedside when he died of AIDS and they were with my mother when she died of heart failure last July. As a pastor, I've worked with Hospice professionally through the years... and I'm a big fan of their ministry. However, Hospice does not get involved unless the families are struggling with matters of life and death. By definition, they work with sad and frightened people who are on a death watch. They work with people who are willing to let go and they work with people who aren't willing. They work with people who praise God and they work with people who curse God. They are angels in the midst of turmoil... and so it was with a Joliet, Il. family this past week. An older member (grandpa) of this family had been very ill for more than two years and his children finally persuaded his wife (grandma) to place her husband in Hospice. However, this didn't mean that she accepted the fact that her husband was dying. She didn't accept it at all, and she continued to give her him medicine for other health-related conditions. Thus, the household was filled with grief, a sense of powerlessness, and unspoken conflict about grandpa's real condition.
To make matters worse, the people involved were NOT religious people. There were no prayers, no pastors visiting, no Bibles to read, and no articulated faith that Grandpa was going to a better place. There were no grand statements about forever and the kingdom to come- just family members waiting for one of their own to die- when a 3 year girl began to get excited. Standing between the dying man's bedroom and the living room, she began to shout, "Do you see it? Do you see it?" She had a big smile on her face and she was obviously joyful... and she kept pointing to the bedroom. "Look," she cried to those who would listen, and the little girl's grandmother asked, "Honey, what's going on?" "Grandma," she replied, "Don't you see him? It's Jesus!" IT'S JESUS, the little girl said. Jesus is with grandpa! She said, "Jesus is with grandpa," ... and when grandma heard these words, she quit trying to fix her husband... and began to say goodbye.
This is a true story. It's a first-hand account from an ordinary and non-religious family. Many people, or course, will dismiss the story because they aren't able to believe it. That's a sad thing in its own right, but it doesn't change the truth of it: on January 7, a little girl in Joliet, Illinois, saw our Lord giving end-of-life comfort to her grandpa... and on Friday, January 8... the Great Healer took him home. Can I get an amen?
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