Tonight marks eight months since Jona’s Home-going. Ten days ago, I had opportunity to tell how God answered prayer during the past year. I told the ladies at our church’s Missionary Prayer Group that it was difficult to decide what to share; I finally settled on the event that had the greatest impact on our extended family. Because it was hard to fit “everything” into the allotted five or so minutes, I wrote out and read my thoughts. I now share what I wrote for that evening...
Many of you know that our Good
Shepherd led our extended family through the valley of the shadow of death this
past spring. My nephew, Jonatan Torres, had been diagnosed with cancer right
before his fifteenth birthday in August of 2009; twenty months later, in April
of this year, God took him Home.
In late March of this year, John
Mark and I returned from an afternoon walk with the children to find a message
from my sister on our answering machine. She told us that Jona was not doing
well, and she asked us to come. As we prepared to pull out of our driveway,
John Mark prayed. My mind was numb, but I remember his asking the Lord to deal gently with our extended family; I
was struck by his choice of words. Tonight, I would like to tell you some of
the many ways that God specifically answered that prayer.
God dealt gently with us!
The hospice nurse on call that
evening arrived shortly after we did. As the evening progressed and she
assessed the situation, the tell-tale signs were there: That evening should
have been Jona’s last one with us. But his ministry here was not yet done, and our
gracious Shepherd gave us almost four “bonus” weeks with him.
In that time, He allowed all
Jona’s grandparents to come from Uruguay and spend time with him.
While the US Embassy in Uruguay had been denying visas, God provided a
visa for Jona’s Aunt Julia from Uruguay
to come as well.
And on a Saturday in mid-April, as
a friend of the family was trying to “buy” a ticket with airline miles for
Jona’s Uncle Daniel, God opened up a seat on a flight leaving Uruguay that very
next Monday (just two days later) – something that in this man’s experience as
an international business man “just does not happen!”
Our loving Shepherd also dealt
gently with me, arranging our travel schedule so that we as extended family
could participate in Jona’s care during those last weeks – and be eye-witnesses
of God’s grace to him.
During his middle-school years,
Jona had taken his struggles (specifically peer pressure and consequent lying)
to his father. Esteban had taken Jona to the truths of Romans 6 and 7: “If you
belong to Christ, you no longer are a slave to sin.” Over and over Esteban
emphasized these truths of the believer’s identity in Christ to his son – and,
by God’s grace, Jona embraced them. In retrospect we can see that God was
preparing him for what was yet to come.
Every one of us who participated
in Jona’s hospice care can give the same testimony: “Jona never complained!” A
friend recently wrote:
One comment that keeps coming to me about Jona is
that he never complained. That’s impossible! These cancer kids go through so
much...
I was able to respond:
God’s grace is amazing! Jona truly never
complained. Only Christ can enable
one who is suffering so much to follow His
own example...
Our Good Shepherd dealt gently with us in allowing us to observe that
reality first-hand in Jona’s life.
Because he wanted to remain alert, Jona asked that he not be
over-medicated. God gave Esteban great wisdom in the administration of the pain
meds in order to honor that desire. The result was that we were more clearly able
to see God’s grace through the valley of the shadow of death.
Jona would often request two favorite hymns: Be Still my Soul and Bow the Knee. We could see him
mouthing the words and sometimes hear him singing even though every breath came
only through extreme effort.
We were able to enjoy his amazing
(and sometimes crazy!) sense of humor, teasing or telling jokes even when he
could hardly breathe.
We were witnesses of God’s grace
to Esteban, encouraging Jona when his pain was greatest to pray for other
believers who were also suffering but who, unlike him, were suffering in the
shadows, unknown, without a whole support network to pray for and encourage them.
Because he was not in a
medically-induced coma, Jona was able to tell us what he saw as his Shepherd
led him through the valley: the angels, the second step he needed help to
climb, the door he could not open. At one point he told his mom: “We’re all
dressed in white – and Jesus is coming for us!”
In August of 2009 when we first
learned of Jona’s cancer, we prayed for complete healing. Before the definite diagnosis
was given, Esteban’s research had convinced us that we were asking for a
miracle. So, we continued to pray for healing up until the very end. During the
nights of hospice care when Daniel James would wake me, I would also go and
check on Jona. “Will this be the night? Will God heal him tonight?”
When God chose to take Jona, He gave
us grace to accept His answer as the best.
Certainly it was the best for Jona. But more importantly, it was best for the
glory of God.
Our pastor recently drew our
attention to an incident in the life of Elisabeth Elliot:
Life Magazine photographer, Cornell Capa, told of an interview he
had with Elisabeth Elliot: “I wondered how Betty could reconcile Jim’s death at
the hands of the Aucas and the Lord’s apparent failure to protect him from
them. Her answer came back without hesitation:
I prayed for the
protection of Jim, that is, physical protection. The answer the Lord gave transcended what I had in mind. He gave
protection from disobedience and through Jim’s death accomplished results the
magnitude of which only eternity can show.~ from The Savage My Kinsman(New York, NY:
Harper, 1961), 9
Paraphrasing what Elisabeth Elliot affirmed, we can say:
We prayed for healing for Jona, that is, physical healing. But the answer the Lord gave transcended what we had in mind. He gave ultimate healing and protection from disobedience – and through Jona’s death accomplished results the magnitude of which only eternity can show.
Yes, our Loving Shepherd answered
abundantly. And He continues to deal gently with us. He is giving us grace. And
He is reminding us that He is causing all things to work together for good,
conforming us to His perfect image – so that ultimately He, the preeminent one, will receive the glory He so
richly deserves!
