Dying Graces

Richard Felix wrote one of the most moving books I think ever written called "The School of Dying Graces". The book discribes his wifes long battle with breast cancer. She endured all the tortures that might bring the promise of healing: a lumpectomy, three rounds of chemotherapy, a double mastectomy, radiation of the lungs and brain, a bone marrow transplant, a miracle drug and some other experimenal drugs as well. After this two year onslaught of agony her oncologist told her the cancer was winning and she could expect to live four to six more weeks. Richard took his wife Vivian to their favourite ocean view restaurant, which had been the setting for so much of their life together and now would be the setting for the beginning of the end. She told him she needed to prepare to die. She asked her husband to assume the role of praying for her so she could focus on the presence of the Lord and away from her disease. "I plan to enroll in the school of DYING GRACES" she told him. Richard writes of how he watched her enter her own personal Gethsemane and while she suffered she had such powerful encounters with her God. On a June day in 2000 Vivians battle with cancer ended and she went home to be with the Lord.
I don't know if you've had you're personal Gethsemane, a place where you cry "GOD if there's any other way". It's a place of much pain but much intimacy, Oh what a place.