Every year at this time of year, as Resurrection Day approaches, I can't help but recall the period in my life when my own conversion to Christ happened. It is because it took place not long after Resurrection Day, 1994. Probably about two weeks after my late husband was converted to Christ.
For long time readers here, you've read some things here about him before - but for the new folks I'll be brief but give you a little background so you know where I come from, a little bit.
When Ben was diagnosed (on our 5th anniversary), the news was terminal, and neither of us were saved. He was 29 and I was 26, and we had 4 little kids in the house. Our youngest was only 6 months old, and the oldest was 8. For the next 3 years and 2 months, we struggled through a hopeless cycle of every possible emotion you can imagine, as we faced all his surgeries, treatments, recovery times and monumental medical & pharmacuetical bills. I say hopeless because it was in fact hopeless. He was terminal and even though the original diagnosis only gave him 8 weeks maximum, the Lord clearly had a different time table than the doctor did. We clung tightly to every single positive lab report, and when he had a good day without any side affects or pain, it was like a Christmas, birthday and trip to Disneyland all rolled into one. When he had bad days it was indeed a black cloud over the house and family and we suffered through it with him through plenty of tears. Even thinking about it now so many years later it really does feel like I'm writing about someone else's life, instead of my own. The further time takes me away from that segment of my life, the more it feels like that. Odd how time does that.
Minus all the details, Ben was saved on Resurrection Day 1994, and I was saved 2 weeks later. His cancer wasn't gone, but the black cloud departed and never did return. Absolutely everything changed in April of 1994, and the most profound hope filled our hearts that it's almost (if not literally) impossible to explain just how different we both saw life, after that time.
Even though everything changed inwardly, that had a significant impact on the way we both handled things outwardly, some things obviously did not change, except to get worse. His cancer became more and more aggressive, and the various treatments (traditional and clinical trials), surgeries & medications weren't working anymore the way the doctors had hoped. Add to that, the levels of medications he was taking for pain control began to cause numerous severe side affects, both physical and psychological. One of those side affects that was extreme, was his sleep patterns. Some days he'd sleep all day & all night. Only waking up briefly & maybe going out in the back yard for a few minutes with a cup of coffee, or sitting in the dining room to chat for a few - then going right back to bed. Other days (and nights) he couldn't sleep at all, and had so much anxiety and energy that when my own insomnia started about that same time, and I'd be up at 2 am - I knew where he'd be. Same place, every time: sitting in the living room with just one lamp turned on, Kenny G playing on the stereo, with his Bible open and deep in study/prayer and thought.
I'd walk into the room and he'd often look up and say "did you know that in Matthew 5 it says...." and then go on to tell me what he'd just been reading. Or he'd ask if I knew where a verse was that addressed children, or being content, or some other subject. I didn't, because as a baby Christian I knew next to nothing about the Bible and where to find pretty much anything except John 3:16 and Genesis 1:1. Those were the easy ones. But on numerous occaisions I'd walk into the room and he'd be crying, in prayer. He was constantly overwhelmed with both God's grace and the depth of his own sinfulness, and this expressed itself in weeping and prayer. Those sleepless nights were the only time he ever had clarity of mind to focus on these issues and study his Bible, and pray - and he took advantage of them every time.
At this time, neither one of us had ever heard a word about Calvinism, the five points or anything relating to that. We were in a charismatic, free will church, and to the best of my recollection never once heard any kind of preaching on the sovereignty of God in all things - but somehow Ben knew it anyway. He would say things like "if I wasn't supposed to have cancer, I wouldn't have it" and "I'm glad I have this cancer because this is what God used to bring me to Christ". Neither of us ever believed in fate or coincidence but at the time were never able to explain why. We both knew that somehow, in a way that was far beyond our ability to articulate or even really understand, that this was all God's plan, or God's design for our lives. Those Word of Faithers we knew at the time became highly annoyed that we thought that way, but that's the way it was.
The reason all of this came to mind this morning was because of this passage:
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you. (Philippians 4:8-9)
Yesterday while I was busy with chores I tried to recite this to myself from memory, and I couldn't do it. That bothered me in part, because it was one of the many passages that Ben was able to memorize, and sort of adopt as his own. It always (and still does) impressed me greatly that with all the things that were going through his mind as he battled cancer, faced his own death, and all that goes along with that -as a young husband and father - that he not only set aside time to memorize this passage but genuinely tried to live it out. He found great comfort in the Word of God and held onto it for dear life, literally.
We talked a lot about what his funeral was going to be like, what life was going to be like after he was gone, and all that sort of thing - and yes, it was and remains to this day the hardest conversations I've ever had in my life. Sometimes though we even laughed about things (like his stupid suggestion that I call everyone and say "great news! Ben's cancer is gone!!! by the way, so is he" - I told him he wasn't funny but he thought that would be a cool way to announce that the battle was over). He did have a most demented sense of humor.
One of the things he insisted on, was that for his memorial service that we use Philippians 4:8-9 for the (what are they called, those little announcement things you get at someone's funeral??). He was adamant that when people would be sad as anyone is when someone dies, he wanted them to find comfort in the things he found comfort in. His one focus was that people who were grieving would find solace in the promises of God.
To this day, this blesses my heart. Ben was a baby Christian in every sense of the word. He struggled big time with his temper, his addictions, his language and his cancer. He knew almost nothing of "sound doctrine" that we all discuss and never had the opportunity to get into the way so many of us do. What he did know in the limited time he was permitted to learn it, that no matter what we deal in life (and he knew this first hand) that there is great joy and comfort to be found in dwelling on the word of God and letting it dwell richly in our hearts.
Ben had a ton of faults that never got all worked out before he left to go meet the Lord. He knew that and I knew that, and that's just the way it was. But the one legacy he left with me was this example to remind me that no matter what, the hope, the joy, and the comfort found in the word of God is something we neglect only to our own detriment. In other words, if we let the circumstance we face become the focus and central point of our lives, we will drift toward the tendency to neglect the truths found in the word.
He wouldn't have said it that way. He would have said "only an idiot would ignore this". In some odd way, that gives new meaning to "from the mouths of babes".
