Discerning the Season

“It would be fun if I could put up some of the hay this summer,” my husband John said as he rested on the couch. Though cancer was rapidly robbing him of strength, he still held out hope to continue caring for our livestock.

While he looked forward to more days of work, I prayed fervently for his physical healing. Online I researched health regimens that would keep his body going. I tracked down dietary strategies that might suppress cancer. In my midnight prayers I envisioned him well, strong, robust.

But one day he said to me with quiet acceptance, “It won’t be long now.” It was devastating, but I trusted that he now knew with certainty that his life was drawing to a close. After all, he had spent a lifetime of watching how animals came to the ends of their lives.

And so I saw that the time had come for me to lay down all my frantic searching for ways that might heal him physically. I saw that we had come to a sacred season of physical life ending. From that day forward, I focused on helping John finish his life. I found help from friends and hospice workers, and I stopped talking about the needs of the farm or my own desires and expectations. I wanted to give John complete freedom to leave in peace.