A little over a year ago, my boss was diagnosed with LGL leukemia. It came as a surprise, but he didn't allow it to become his primary focus. He seemed more annoyed that it interfered with his pastoral duties on occasion. He wanted to keep everything as normal as possible. I honored that wish by maintaining normalcy on my end in the office, with the exception of occasionally pestering him with questions about a bone marrow transplant.
For most of 2019, doctors treated his condition with medications. When it became apparent neither drug would work, a second bone marrow biopsy was performed. Aplastic anemia was added to his condition. It was time for chemo.
During those first two (awful for so many) weeks in January, my boss was in the hospital—the first week receiving bags of chemo, the second week recovering. He might have been out of the office, but he was never gone. Even as poison dripped into his veins, as he put it, he was sending me emails and giving direction for several tasks, including funeral preparations for a member who suddenly passed away, which I had to help coordinate. I was totally out of my element and appreciated his input.
After chemo, he had to isolate for two months, emerging from his medical hibernation just as the coronavirus pandemic began. He was determined to get back to his duties, though, and did so even as he socially distanced and quarantined. During these months, we watched him grow deeper in his faith and closer to the Lord. That growth was evident in his sermons and in the articles he wrote for the newsletter.
But the chemo didn’t work and there was finally talk of a bone marrow transplant. Still, he worked, and he wanted to work until he had to take leave. We called him the most active, healthiest-looking sick person we knew.
Until last week when his condition suddenly deteriorated. He stayed home this past Monday and Tuesday. When he didn’t show up for work yesterday and we didn’t hear from him, the director of music went to check on him. Sometime the previous evening, our boss had sat in his favorite chair to rest and slipped into the presence of the Lord.
 |
| The perishable left behind. |
We were a mess yesterday as we dealt with the shock of his passing. Some people came to the church just to be there and to cry with others. People are asking questions. Someone wanted to know why the Lord took him. They can't view it like that.
Death and the evil of this world tried to make my boss and so many others like him suffer and to destroy him. That's a result of the Fall and the subsequent fallen world. But having saved my boss and made him a member of the Body of Christ, God plucked him up before he could be destroyed. As Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians:
For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”Death and evil failed to destroy my boss. Not only did he grow closer to the Lord and deeper in his faith during his ordeal, but in a victorious act over death, God rescued him. The staff and the congregation at this church will miss him, but we know he's worshipping his Lord and King, his Savior.
Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.