A friend of mine went home to be with Jesus just the other day. I have conflicting feelings about it, as I think most Believers do. On the one hand I'm going to miss his smiling face but on the other, he's in Heaven with Christ right now. How could I wish him back here? Wouldn't that be selfish of me? I should be happy for him, right? But how can I be happy that he's gone? Isn't that callous?
Scott was in our LifeGroup although he wasn't able to be here much because he was busy fighting cancer. The very first time he came to LifeGroup he actually had his chemo pack with him and was attached to it! He had an incredible spirit and grace about him. He made it very clear that he was ready to meet Jesus whenever God decided to take him home, but in the meantime he was determined to fight the cancer with all he had. He was passionate about his beliefs and fiercely independent. In fact, he told us the very first night we were all together that he did not want his disease to become the group's focus. He didn't want anyone feeling sorry for him either. So we asked him how he was doing occasionally and we called to check on him when he was not able to be with us.
And now I'm feeling torn about that. It's easy for me to say that Scott did not want our hovering and that he prized his independence. He did. I mean, this is a man who went through his first chemo treatment completely alone! Who does that? We asked about taking him food and other things we could do to minister to him but he was very good at keeping us at arm's length. He had children but was not particularly close to them. Maybe he was just used to being alone. I'd like to think that we respected his wishes by not forcing ourselves on him, but maybe we should have. Would it have been more loving (or Christian) of us to just show up at his door with dinner twice a week, whether he wanted it or not? I'm not sure he would have received that gesture as love. And despite myself, I'm concerned that other people are going to think our LifeGroup dropped the ball. We knew that Scott had had his second stem cell transplant and that he had contracted a lung infection afterwards, when his immune system was most vulnerable. We knew he was in bad shape. Jon called him and Scott couldn't even speak because he was so weak. Should we have gone to the hospital? I'm not sure we would have been allowed to see him due to his weakened immunity. Would he have wanted us there? Probably not. We did pray for him as a group many times (both when he was with us and when he was not) and also in our personal prayer time, at least I did. Why do I feel like I need to defend myself?
So I guess what I've learned here is that you need to love people in a way that they perceive as love but also that you need to push the limits. Yes, I think we could have tried harder to get close to Scott and we probably didn't do as much as we could have. I don't think he felt like we didn't care. In fact, I have a feeling that the phone calls he got from our group may have been a new thing for a man who wasn't accustomed to people pursuing him and might have even been annoying sometimes. I feel bad that the pastor had to be the one to call and let us know that Scott had passed on, because the family didn't know to inform us. But I think we could have respected his limits while trying to expand them. Maybe he would have gotten used to being ministered to, over time.
In the end, I will remember Scott as a man who fought the good fight with a smile and complete surrender to his Father. He was ready to go and told us that he was not afraid to die - he just hoped it wouldn't be for a while yet. His hair had just started growing back a few weeks ago, before the last round of chemo made it fall out again. We told him it was strange to see how his appearance changed when his eyebrows came back in and he told us it was only temporary. He probably wouldn't like me saying this but he was a really sweet guy, always taking the time to pet our cats and be friendly to our girls. We'll miss you, Scott. I hope you're having a blast in Heaven with that new cancer-free body of yours, getting all your questions answered once and for all.
