Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: TRUTH (08/31/23)
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TITLE: Fulfillment (A work of fiction) | Previous Challenge Entry
By Aaron Menchaca
09/04/23 -
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She was completely spent after the last couple weeks, but it was a good tired. She had found the resolution that she needed her whole life.
Her dad was now dead, passing away in his sleep a week before. It was after his third bout with cancer, and the only one where he didn’t fight back, choosing instead the calm of surrender. The cancer started in his throat and spread down his chest like an invisible, deadly coat of Roman chainmail. She, her mom, and her brother were in the room when he passed, and when things changed with him, he went quickly.
Him dying wasn’t the resolution that she needed. It was what happened right before he died; her dad accepted Jesus as His savior.
A few years after they got married, her mom received salvation at a tent revival on the outskirts of town, invited there by a friend from work. Her father gave her a firm “no’ when she asked him to go with her. That set the tone for his whole life; he never went.
After her mom came to know the Lord, Susan and her brother quickly did the same, and went with her weekly to church. But her dad always said no, and when the most recent news of cancer returning came a few months ago, she worried more deeply for his soul. She didn’t want him to die in his sins.
The last couple weeks started with the report from his oncologist, and then both kids flying out to be with him and his mother. For once in her life, Susan was at a loss when she arrived that Tuesday. But the words flowed as she prayed that night; she prayed like she did all those years ago when she was first saved. After so many years, her faith had become slightly cold and calculated. Now it was once again simple and child-like.
Each night, when they would gather around his bedside, her mom would light candles around the room and then cut the lights, as he complained of his eyes hurting. The candles made eerie shadows out of their forms all around. Susan wasn’t sure if his eye pain was related to the cancer or not, but those tall shadows made her feel like death was already in the room with them.
They would talk with him about the old days, and then sing a song from church, and then her mom would lead a prayer that her dad would simply endure. He would stare up at the ceiling while everyone else prayed, a picture of their family’s spiritual situation. Until that last night, that is.
After their time of reminiscing, her mom started in on the song, ‘How Great Is Our God’. The song stopped when her dad spoke up:
“I want to pray and ask Jesus to forgive my sins.”
The three just stood there and looked at each other, stunned. No one said anything, until her father spoke again, “I want to receive Jesus. Do you guys not believe in Him anymore”. A big smile broke across his face.
Susan’s brother led the prayer, her mom too broken up to speak. She just cried silently, reaching for Susan’s hand. They held hands as the guys said “amen”.
An hour later he died, in the flickering glow of candles, and with a look of peace on his face. This time Susan knew that it wasn’t her sense of hope playing tricks on her, she really saw it.
As she sat in the airplane seat, she had a sense of how complete his decision made everything, how it tied it all up. One word stuck out in her mind: “truth”.
Her father was always a good man, honest, a great example of a selfless father. But after she met Christ, his refusal to submit to a greater power seemed out of character for someone so good, like a tough weed of pride. But what he did that night fulfilled the picture of his life. It completed the character of someone who tried to do what was right.
He died in the truth.
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“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
John 8:32 (NIV)
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Thank you so much for sharing.
Congratulations on your EC place. :-)
Thank you so much for sharing.
Congratulations on your EC place. :-)