By Lilia Potters
My father and mother returned from visiting a sick friend and his wife one night, my mother’s face tearstained and my father somber. Yet they glowed as they gathered us four kids around them to tell us what had happened.
Corrie had called my mom earlier and asked if she and Dad could come and see her that evening. The condition of her husband Chris, who had skin cancer, was rapidly taking a turn for the worse. The doctors had done all they could and then sent him home to spend his last weeks with his wife and two young children.
Chris had reacted bitterly to the news and cursed God for afflicting him. Corrie was a believer and wanted nothing more than to comfort her husband and help him accept God’s hand in his life. Though he loved his wife, Chris resented her childlike faith and forbade her to speak to him about it.
Corrie’s faith was unshaken, however, and she continued to pray that her husband would turn to Jesus before his death. As the cancer progressed and the pain became almost unbearable, the doctor prescribed morphine. She sat patiently by his bedside, praying silently at first, but as he slipped more and more often into a state of semi-consciousness, she would pray for him in a soft hushed tone, or tenderly sing her favorite hymns to him.
Whenever Chris regained consciousness enough to communicate, though he appreciated his wife’s faithful presence beside him, he let her know that her prayers were in vain. He could not believe in a God who allowed such suffering. Corrie listened sadly as he rejected God’s love, and she pled with him to accept Jesus on numerous occasions.
The closer the inevitable moment of his passing from this life into the next came, the more earnestly she tried to convey to him the comfort and peace he would find for his tormented soul if he would only believe.
No matter what the response, she persisted in praying for faith to be born in his heart. She continued to sing her favorite hymns when the suffering was at its worst. Her beautiful young voice often quivered with emotion, as she looked at her beloved husband’s drawn face and felt his fingers tighten in anguish around hers.
As the end drew near, not wanting to subject their young and impressionable children to their father’s suffering any longer, Corrie took them to stay with their grandparents for a while. It had also become increasingly difficult for Corrie to care for both her children and her dying husband.
It was during their last week together that Corrie noticed a change coming over her husband. He no longer protested when she prayed for him, and asked her to keep singing when he didn’t hear her voice near his ear. Her heart was overwhelmed with joy! Could it be that her prayers had been answered and that a little flame of faith had been lit in his heart? If Chris would only believe! That way, they would both be assured that even though they would be apart for a time, they would be reunited and spend eternity together in Heaven.
When my parents arrived at their home that evening, they found Corrie sitting beside the bed of her dearly loved husband, who had passed away only a short while before. Relatives who had already arrived to help her make funeral arrangements went about their business with hushed voices.
With a tearstained yet shining face, Corrie told my parents that in his last moments, Chris had suddenly sat up in bed. With remarkable clarity he told her that he had asked God to forgive him for his bitterness and so stubbornly rejecting His outstretched hand of mercy. Then, with his weak voice, he had begun to sing her favorite hymn, “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!”
Tears had streamed down his face, and with a trembling voice he had asked her to forgive him for not yielding sooner to her gentle persuasions to believe that God loved him. He passed from this life into the next with the words of this hymn on his lips, as he feebly sang along with her, “O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear-all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.”
Though she was saddened by the loss, my parents had found Corrie thanking and praising God through her tears for answering prayer and assuring both her and Chris of their reunion in Heaven.
I was only eight at the time, but this story made a profound impression on me.
Yet as time passed, the memory faded. During my teen years, I passed through a crisis of faith and grappled with my own belief in God. Instead of asking for His help when in trouble, I was tempted to give in to the persuasions of some of my nonbelieving friends to reject faith in a God one cannot see.
I was at this difficult stage when, at 16, a friend invited me to a youth gathering where there would be lots of good music, fun, and folks our age to hang out with. It sounded appealing and I wanted relief from my depressed state, so I went.
The guitar was passed around, and we all sang along to popular blues numbers and country music. Then a girl who seemed to have a special glow about her introduced the song she was about to sing. She explained it was one of her favorites, yet different from what we’d been singing. A hush fell over the crowd as she started to sing the words to the very song that had made such an impression on me as a child, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”
The memories of the evening my mom and dad told me about their dear friend dying with the words to that song on his lips flooded my mind. Something happened to me that night. Faith was rekindled in my heart, and I knew that attending that youth gathering had not been a mere coincidence. God wanted to assure me that He cared, that He was watching over me, even though I had been straying from Him.
Many years have passed since then, but to this day I cannot hear this precious hymn without tears welling up in my eyes as I think of God’s great love that never stops loving, that never gives up and is always there.
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What a Friend We Have in Jesus
By Joseph M. Scriven and Charles C. Converse
What a friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer.
Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged,
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful,
Who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness,
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Are we weak and heavy laden,
Cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge,
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do your friends despise, forsake you?
Take it to the Lord in prayer,
In His arms He’ll take and shield you,
You will find a solace there.
