Another Letter from Jan

Next week marks the second year of Jan’s promotion. Last December 31 would have been her 52rd birthday and our 25th wedding anniversary. Time has helped lift our heavy hearts. Tears are not as frequent. The kids have stopped expecting Mom to suddenly appear around the corner. But memories of her still fill our minds and dreams, and the character of her children still bear the fruit of a devoted mother. We miss her a lot; we always will.

So here’s part of another letter, found last March as we were packing the last of our boxes before leaving Texas. Jan wrote it to her doctor on December 12, 2006, just twenty days away from the brain hemorrhage that eventually took her from us a few weeks later…

“I often talk to my kids about the “bigger picture” that God has that we don’t see. I am SO GLAD that God has allowed me to live to see my 50th birthday (the year of jubilee in the Bible – captives are to be set free!). And yet, the truth is that the Bible says it is “appointed unto man a time to die.”

Of course, as mere human beings, we don’t know when that time will be, but God does. It may be that this is my time. If so, I am ready. (And have been ready since being diagnosed with metastatic disease – now 19 months ago!) I have so much to be thankful for and what a joy to reach this point in life and have no regrets. I have had a very blessed life!

I feel that acceptance of my condition really is a gift from Him. There is not just acceptance, but joyful anticipation of what lies ahead. I believe God’s promises that there is a heaven, and that it is a wonderful place of rest and reward. My youngest daughter says that the promise of heaven is a comfort to her; that our separation will just be temporal and that someday we will all be together.

The Bible says that our “light and momentary sufferings” here on earth are nothing compared to the glory that waits us in heaven – a place where there are no tears, no sorrow, no pain, a place of total happiness, of worship, where the Lord God Himself will be all the light that we need. It really is my permanent home. (I have never owned a home and am looking forward to having my own home!)…

So, if you hear that I have gone on to join Jesus, don’t be sad for me! The grave is NOT the end of me. That is where this shell of my body will go, but the essence of me will go on to live eternally in heaven. Ephesians 3:20 says that God “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us.”