Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: PLEAD (11/30/23)
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TITLE: Resurrection | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jeremy Kirby
12/07/23 -
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He picked a few things from the stack of items on the stand and began to thumb through them. An old note from his ex-wife, oh how he wished they could’ve made it work, she was his one and only. He opened the old leather bible, rubbing his hand over the golden inscription at the bottom. The bible had been a birthday present. Seeing that day once more in his mind’s eye, he looked on in anticipation at the lady behind the counter as she spelled out his name with tiny lettered blocks, pressing them against golden paper and into the soft black leather. Some of it was flaking off now. Like himself, he thought, only parts remained.
He pulled open the tri-folded letter from his Oncologist:
Chondrosarcoma - typically affecting patients between 50 and 70 years of age - terminal - prognosis, 6 months to a year.
He had written the one-year date and circled it next to that line. December 24, 2023. He glanced at the calendar on the wall, noticing today’s date - December 24, 2023.
He touched his head feeling the rough stubble and the raw incision under his hand, his eyes moistened. “Why Lord, why do I have to die alone with nothing but this little apartment? Why can’t I at least have my family at my side?”
A scrap of paper fell onto his lap with some verses from the Bible scribbled onto it, something from his church days. His eyes fell on the words.
Psalm 27:1 …’ The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?’
“Really Lord? I’m afraid of cancer, of pain, of being alone! I just wanted to be something or someone in this life and now, I’m nothing, and what little I have is withering away.”
He read the next verse. Jeremiah 29:11 … ‘I know the thoughts I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.’
Hope thought Samuel. My only hope is that you heal me, Lord, on this, the last day of my life! Father, I don’t want to die, you’ve healed others, would you heal me? Please just heal me. He waited, listening for a voice from Heaven or an angel to come deliver him but his only company was a scraggly Christmas tree.
Only a few verses remained on the note. Jeremiah 8:13 … ‘When I would gather them, there are no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree; even the leaves, are withered, and what I gave them has passed away.’
He lifted a hymnal Christmas ornament from the tree, thinking back to the worship services of his youth, and how he loved church back then.
He sighed, “Well then, that’s it, that’s the answer.’ He lifted his face to Heaven, ‘Am I not withered, Lord? Are the things which you had given me not gone? Then what is left is for you to gather me.’ Tears streamed down his face. ‘Father forgive me for all I haven't done, and for all the wrong that I have done. I give what’s left of my life to you Lord, all of me is now all yours, do to me what you will.”
Sam resigned to his chair once again and read the last verse on the page. Psalm 16:11 … ‘You make known to me the path of life; in your presence, there is fulness of joy; at your right hand there are pleasures forevermore.’
Friends and relatives poured into the cemetery from every direction. Many of them were new relationships that Sam cultivated through his ministry to the poor and broken. He offered them hope in the form of Jesus, friendship, and healing.
His family cried as the Pastor gave the last words at the graveside. As they lowered the casket into the ground his wife read the golden inscription on his tombstone :
Samuel M. Bailey
A man of peace - A man of faith March 01, 2043
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