Suffering saints

It is not fun to watch a man die. My friend, Sherwood Long, is one of the toughest men I know (perhaps the toughest, if not for Charity's granddaddy). He has endured 5 separate amputations in the past couple months; he needed open heart surgery last year, and has suffered through a decade of kidney dialysis, three times a week.

I try to visit him, to place a hand on him and pray for him. I am running out of words to pray; he will not be able to return to his home, he will not be able to walk again (his hope before his second leg was amputated, shortly before fitting a prosthesis for the first leg), he will not be able to leave skilled care again. He will be largely confined to a nursing home or hospital bed for the remainder of the days that God has appointed for him.

I could not visit him today... his bed at the nursing home was empty...my fears for the worst were not realized, but the condition of his return to the hospital was not encouraging. But what would I have prayed?

I often pray that God takes him home, but that is not always comfortable to pray in person. But does he have any life left?

My prayer for sherwood is this: that he live as long as he is able to proclaim your goodness. The aging psalmist writes "even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, O God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your might to all who are to come." (ps. 71)

But if you know Sherwood, or any of the thousands of suffering saints like him, you know that he will continue to share of God's power and might; maybe our prayers should be for the next generation, that they--that we--might hear the testimony of those who are passing into the life to come.