I don’t remember how old either of us was at the time. I do recall vividly a brief conversation I had with my dad about dying. What brought the subject up I can’t remember.
Don Kirkland“I would like to die peacefully in my sleep,” I said to my father. No doubt, I had in mind the short children’s prayer I had learned: “Now I lay me down to sleep?-?and if I die before I wake- .”
My dad did not share my view of the end. He wanted to be alert and conversant at the end. “I might want to say something,” he declared. We both laughed at that. “Dad,” I said, “You’ve already said it all – in your words and by the way you’ve lived.”
That didn’t completely satisfy him. “Well, I still might want to say something,” he said.
The day my father died, he was a patient at the Baptist hospital in Columbia. It was February, and I was in Columbia, too, on Courier business covering the 1980 state evangelism conference at First Baptist Church.
At lunch that day, I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness and loneliness. I went back to the afternoon session of the meeting, but the feeling never left me. I decided to go quickly to the hospital.
When I entered his room, my dad already was in distress. His heart was failing him. A medical team arrived and took him to a trauma room. As he passed by me, I took his hand. Nothing was said. He already was slipping away, and within minutes, he was gone.
There was no time for goodbyes, no time to express love. Only the grip of a hand.
My dad did have something to say, however. I discovered it later. On an ancient Underwood typewriter with a wide carriage for “cutting stencils” for church bulletins, he had pecked out in his typical two-fingered fashion his testimony. It consisted of a single page.
It told of his love for his family, for the church and for the people of God. Mostly, it spoke of his love for, and devotion to, Jesus.
“Living for Him, serving Him, resting upon His promises have brought me His ever-increasing blessing.”
He mentioned that his life had not always been easy, there had been problems and troubles as are common to mankind, but he emphasized, “I’ve never had to bear them alone. Jesus is always there.”
He continued, “He makes everything work together for my good. When I think of His love for me, His suffering for me, my heart just cries – for sorrow and shame that my sins caused His suffering, and for joy that He loved me, died for me and saved me.”
He wrote of his love for Christ’s church. “Nothing gives me more real joy,” he said, “than to be with His children in a worship service and hear His wonderful name praised in song and testimony. And my heart overflows with gratitude when I have been able to help one of His children along the way.”
I knew from our life together the truth of his next statement: “My one consuming desire is to be more like Him each day and to be used of Him to bring blessing into another’s life.”
My dad knew his shortcomings and no testimony of his would be complete without mention of that fact: “He knows all about me – my weaknesses, my failures, my unworthiness – and yet He trusts me and leads me to higher ground each succeeding day.”
“Truly,” he said in conclusion, “the longer I serve Him, the sweeter He grows.”
My dad wrote that testimony when he turned 65. He was 69 when he died. My father knew the importance of being a witness for Christ by the way he lived and by what he said. And by what he wrote on a sheet of typing paper that is beginning to grow yellow with age. The testimonies of our believing brothers and sisters can, and should, inspire us to live in closer and humble fellowship with our God and with his children.
My dad’s written testimony, which he prepared primarily for his family, consisted of relatively few words. But those words represented a life that in itself spoke volumes to his family, and, I hope, to others. And I know that he would want my walk with the Lord – like his own – to be one of close fellowship with Christ and the people of God.