Letter from a dying Christian to her pastor

Sue, a mother of three, became a Christian in the late 1980s. She and her husband gave themselves fully to the work of Christ, especially among young people in their local church. Three and a half years ago, Sue was diagnosed with cancer, but experienced the remarkable grace of God through the illness. She departed to be with Christ in January. The following is an extract of a letter she wrote to her pastor.

Dear Pastor,

I am really looking forward to my funeral to have the chance to get all my friends and family to come together with God's people and to hear a good gospel message. I pray they all come and I pray their hearts will, at last, be open to all my Lord would say to them. Let them know it was my greatest wish that they hear this. It isn't what you're asking. It's what I truly want with all my heart. I would die for my faith. I want them all to know it's really true.

Don't say it was a battle like they say at funerals in the world: 'She lost the fight'. No. It was a joy to know my Lord to be alive in me, to be more at work in me than ever he was. For I would not change places with the beautiful girl I used to be for this battered strange woman I am now. Outwardly my body is being wrecked, but inwardly I'm being so renewed. I praise my Lord for letting me experience this.

Amazing transformation

I'm not dying, I'm being prepared for life forever. I feel this so strongly. I will never die. It's like I'll be getting this amazing new body because this one's so wrecked. It is a bit like some people going to a health farm and having cosmetic surgery. But I'm going on my own to somewhere where I'll have the most amazing transformation of mind and body.

You and I cannot imagine here on earth: 'No ear has heard, no eye has seen, no mind has conceived...' Try telling an acorn that one day it will be a beautiful oak tree with big branches. We have no idea. I think it's incredibly exciting.

Nothing else compares

Every day I'm still here I am more convinced that nothing, absolutely nothing, compares to knowing Jesus. Everything else pales into nothing to knowing him - King of my heart!

I love doing the Lord's work the most, and I love the YPF. I love those young people and many more, and so I hope they might take part in my funeral.

I love it when my house is full of young people upstairs and down praying, and in the garden. If I hadn't been ill I would have had more round. I recall Wesley's hymn: 'my chains fell off' and it reminds me of when in my bedroom on my bed I knelt and gave my life to the Lord completely. Brilliant!

Thank you, dear pastor, for so very much as I have said so many times. Thank you for the good spiritual food I got week after week. Since 1987 when I gave my life to the Lord you didn't just give us all good food, it was indeed a feast. Never ever stop doing this for the Lord. I look forward to seeing you get your reward in heaven. Our reward will be giving our crowns back to him, laying our all before him. We will know pure love. We will be free of the sin that is like slime. I can't wait to be free of it. No more evil in the world. When we see so much evil we cannot really imagine what it will be like without any evil or sin. We really can't understand how it was when that World Trade Centre fell down. We can try, but you have to be there. We will know in full, praise the Lord.

Letter from a dying Christian to her pastor

Dear Pastor,

Amazing transformation

Nothing else compares

With much love in Christ, Sue

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