Sweet Surrender

Patti’s Story

As the door swung open I was shocked. I barely recognized my former coworker, Patti. Her face and bald head were scarred and swollen from medication. The only hair the brain surgery and chemo had left was a limp rooster-comb patch that drooped above her forehead.

Aching for the loss of the tall, willowy hula-hoop-crazy high-school teacher, I silently mourned every missing strand of her signature chin length blond tresses. Looking into her familiar blue eyes, I found the friend and co-worker who had called the day before saying, “I think you have what I need.” 

She’d previously asked for a large-print Bible which I happened to have because another friend, unknowing, had gifted me with it the day prior.

Now those eyes gleamed in eagerness and her familiar voice echoed from within the distorted body that, even she quietly admitted, was no longer recognizable as her own.

“Save visiting for later,” she said; those few words, as clearly as if she’d written them across her classroom chalkboard, emphasizing that she knew she was dying and had no time to waste.

Three portions of scripture had come to mind as I prayed throughout the 45-minute drive to her home, but now I stood mute and stunned before her grace.

The sight of her struggling to hand me a huge maroon large-print Bible snapped me to attention.  I pulled a TV table next to the sofa and set the Bible on it.  Patti smiled, touched the book reverently, and simply said, “Show me.”

I pointed out John 5:24 and she slowly read the verse, her fingers lightly tracing each word – with love, I remember thinking.   When she came to “no condemnation” she let out a gasp of delight and clasped her left hand to her heart.

In my trance of empathy, I was about to go on to the next verse when her other hand wrapped itself around my wrist in a desperate grasp and she cried, “Wait – get a highlighter!” Surprised, I rose to the table she indicated and returned with the yellow marker.  The tumor, she explained, was affecting short-term memory, and though she might forget who visited, or if she ate lunch, she did not want to forget God’s words.  Once the bright yellow outlined the words for later reference, she sighed, momentarily contented.

 “OK,” she said, like an eager child, “I’m ready now for the next one.” Her voice rose in excitement reading I John 5:11-13 – especially the portion that stated, “These things were written that you can know that you have eternal life”.  When she read the word know, she held the edge of her cushion excitedly, as if she would leap off and dance. “I can know, I can know”, she chanted. “I don’t have to wonder or to hope anymore – I can know.” Reverently, I watched as she marked the verse. Then she surprised me by reading it again, this time putting her name in place of the word ‘you’, now reading in wonder, “ I, Patti can know.”

I joined her happy laughter, watching her face glow with joy.

Finally we looked into the first chapter of Ephesians and talked about all that we have and are in Christ.  Seven yellow highlighted words witnessed our tears mingling as we hugged and talked about the goals she wanted to reach before she died, and ways they could be accomplished.

We visited then, singing and praying with abandon until her family arrived from work. Humbled and awed as I drove home, I replayed Patti’s sweet surrender to the Lord and her excitement and reactions to verses and concepts I had known for years.

Though she asked me to come to give her comfort, I realized then that in the face of her overflowing joy I had also been given a gift, for I knew I had lost the fear of death.  It was gone, and with certainty I could even tell why – there simply was no room for it – it had been replaced, pushed out, been overcome by the reality of the power of God’s Word.  Caught in the tsunami of Patti’s joy and assurance, God’s presence had washed over her and spilled onto me.  For once I did not care that I couldn’t carry a tune, and wove my way home singing through tears, “The wonder of it all, the wonder of it all, just to think that God loves me.”

Have you put your name in that place as Patti did? I,_____________can KNOW.

What verses have you highlighted?