The Change

This evening our elders spent time praying with Towle. He is a man who is late in life. He just found out about a month ago that he had cancer. Two weeks ago his doctor told him that he would die soon. The doctor told him that if there was something in his life that he wanted to and had not done it, he should get to it because time was very short.

Towle came in for prayer and to confess. Times like this with the elders are so hard for me. There was much joy as we prayed because Towle has lived a good life. Yet, at the same time there was much pain because of the quickness of his coming death and the fact that his family is very dear to us at South. These were not the most amazing things, though.

The most amazing thing was how Towle sat at the end of our ridiculously long conference table and shared the struggles of his life--how he continually dealt with lust, how he wished he would have loved his kids even more than he did. He was the quintessential tough old man who would never cry who had been turned into a heap of humility and tears.

It is amazing to me how God could take such heartache in the ugliest of situations like quick death from cancer and make such joy come from it. I fear that the church has underestimated how huge our God is and how ignorant we are to think that we can fully figure him out.

My prayer tonight is that Towle and his family have peace, joy, and comfort throughout the next few weeks and months. I also pray that I have much humility and wonder when I approach my God who holds the world in his hands and measures the mountains with his fingers. (Isaiah 40)