“I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” (Genesis 28:15)
Last Saturday, on the religion page of one of the newspapers where my column is featured, was a memorial to a young lady, who died almost a year ago today. While she left long before anyone was ready to see her go, her family has accepted that God’s timing is perfect, even though they continue to grieve for her.
Her dad is a friend of mine. I met him at East Carolina University thirty years ago and have frequently lifted him and his family up in prayer since I learned about his daughter’s death. Randy Cash is a fine man, and his family has been through one of the most ferocious storms of their lives over the last year. The winds still rage from time to time, but they’ll be okay. They know the Master of the wind.
The memorial to his daughter has been running every Saturday for the last year. The Cash family has decided that it’s time to bring closure to this chapter of their life as a family, and Randy has asked me to help him put into words what he’s been trying to say over the last year. Normally, memorials placed in a newspaper represent a family’s way of expressing their love and grief for loved ones they have recently lost. However, this was not the case in this instance.
Cassie was a beacon of hope and a ray of sunshine to all who met and knew her. She modeled in life exactly what Jesus meant when he said, ”You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven”. (Matthew 5:14-16)
So you see, her picture was never meant to be a reminder of who she was, but rather who and what she stood for.
Cassie died from complications related to auto-immune hepatitis. When she first started to get sick, her doctors misdiagnosed it as lymphoma. Her pastor was so startled by the news that Cassie couldn’t help but notice, and comforted him by saying that he shouldn’t worry. “I’m not afraid of dying,” she told him. “I know where I’m going.”
Indeed she knew and she pointed others in that direction everyday. When she died, her father told me that 3000 mourners showed up at the funeral home. One little girl went through the line three times, finally working up the courage to tell the family that Cassie had led her to the Lord.
The night before Cassie died, she wrote something that the family inscribed on her tombstone. “The Lord is my Conqueror, Strength, Hope, Tomorrow, Today, Life, Father, Light, Gift, Shelter, Maker, Savior, Jesus, My Everything.”
When her father recently visited Cassie’s grave and read that inscription, an old friend of Cassie’s showed up to pay his respects, too. Cassie had witnessed to him, prayed for him, and never gave up hope that his life could be just as changed as the life she lived for the Lord. He kneeled and kissed the picture on her tombstone and wanted her to know that he had asked Jesus to come live in his heart, explaining to Randy that he felt the call to become a pastor.
We often don’t know the differences we make by letting others see the life-saving, life-changing power of Jesus Christ. Sometimes our prayers may not be answered until we are in the very presence of the Lord Himself. But rest assure, as Cassie so clearly understood, the things of God are eternal and will not diminish with time.
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