Tears!

Because of the layout of our garden, we have two sets of neighbours on one side. Well, one of them came round the other morning with some sad news The other neighbour who is a local farmer was diagnosed with cancer two years ago and was told he wouldn’t see the following Christmas. However, he enjoyed two further years, but sadly passed away the day before writing this ‘thought for the week’ after a short few days in hospital.
This was the news that the neighbour shared, and it all seemed so sudden.

Of course, many things go through your mind and you wonder what words to use when writing to, or speaking with, his wife. She knew, although she is not a believer, that we and our other neighbours had been praying for many months for her and her husband and was very grateful!

Before he died her husband, not a dis-believer, also knew that he had been lifted up in
prayer by “the neighbours”. As his life was slipping away in the hospital, his wife saw tears running down his face and felt he was saying ‘sorry’ to her.

I thought about those tears and really felt that maybe he had met with the Lord and they
were tears of a different meaning. I wondered if the Lord had reached out His hand and
said, “Welcome home” and our friend had realised what a mind-blowing eternal invite it was.

Maybe they were tears of regret that he hadn’t spent his life, as a farmer, knowing and
enjoying the God who is ‘Jehovah Jireh’, the God who provides. Maybe they were indeed
sorry tears, tears of repentance of a life spent missing out on sharing with the God of peace, love and joy.

It did also remind me that we don’t want to have regrets. Could it be a broken relationship from way back and now too late to repair. Could it be a hasty or unkind word spoken, perhaps even yesterday. Could it even be that you have said to someone, “I will never forgive you for this or for that”.  Rather, isn’t it better for us to be able to say, as in 2 Timothy 4:7 “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith”.

By focusing on God’s forgiveness, seeking repentance and living with Christ in the present, believers can find a freedom, living with a sense of joy, purpose and hope for the future