Dedication
For Effie, I have loved you all my life.
Acknowledgements
Effie, thank you for your numerous suggestions and encouragement. You have been a worthy helpmate in all phases of ministry. Daughter Laura Myer has been of inestimable help in the technical aspects of assembling a manuscript. Dr. Jenny Morris, also a daughter and writing professor, has provided valuable input and guidance. Clint, who has always loved a good story, has patiently listened to the experiences of his father. Daughter-in-law Deidra has been a great help in choosing the images for the cover. Greg Lane has been gracious in sharing his artistic skills in designing the cover. Sons-in-law Richard Myer and Scott Morris have graciously fended for themselves to allow their wives time to help tie up the final steps of the publication process.
I am indebted to all the families who have trusted me to walk with them in difficult times. As you have opened your hearts to me and shared your deepest feelings, I have counted it a sacred privilege to stand with you and share in your grief.
I am grateful for the encouragement of Carolyn Cole, and the Hospice of the Valley, with whom I ministered in its infancy. There are a number of unnamed individuals in the churches that I have served who recognized my spiritual gift for compassion, perhaps before I did, and encouraged me to follow wherever it led.
Finally, I am indebted to the Robert Peck family and Peck Funeral Home for providing me the opportunity to extend my ministry far beyond normal retirement age.
Foreword
Having to walk with someone you love through a terminal illness can be a life-altering experience. The knowledge that a loved one is nearing the end of life is emotionally and mentally exhausting – almost to the point of being overwhelming. Additionally, thoughts such as “I don’t know if I can get through this” or "why is God allowing this to happen?” are just two of the distressing questions that can complicate the process. It is during these times that people are not interested in a sermon, nor are they in the mood to read a tract or receive advice. What they need is a shoulder to cry on, someone who cares and will listen to their story, someone who will help bind up their emotional and spiritual wounds.
As a Hospice Chaplain myself, I understand the difficulties that families face when a loved one is terminally ill. Traveling the road of suffering during the difficult days of my own parents’ terminal illnesses was certainly emotionally draining and spiritually frustrating. I understand what it means to have someone willing to come alongside and help lessen the pain.
This is why I found A. Ray Lee’s experience as a pastor and hospice chaplain comforting. Through these pages Pastor Lee offers reassurance that the negative unrelenting daily turmoil is a side-effect of having to deal with life threatening illness.
But the frustrations do not have to dominate the situation. Pastor Lee reveals that God is in the midst of the heartache and pain. As you read these stories you will begin to understand that the hand of God moves silently and steadily through the daily challenges. Pastor Lee’s reflections are a motivating source for those of us who share the experience of walking through the “Valley of the Shadow of Death.” A. Ray reveals the power of God as the eternal light that warms and illumines the dark pathway of suffering and crisis.
As it has been said, “People don’t care how much we know, until they know how much we care.” That is the heart of a chaplain, and this is the heartbeat of A. Ray Lee.
Dr. Harold Fanning
Chaplain Alacare Homehealth & Hospice
There is a Time
"To everything there is a season and a time … a time to be born and a time to die.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1,2)
In nearby groves, stately oak trees were clothed in delicate spring green as their leaves were emerging. Dogwoods boasted abundant blossoms. Grass was awakening from its dormant state to provide a lush carpet under foot. The only discordant color was a mound of red clay partially covered with a floral arrangement.
In their grief, the young couple talked wistfully of their joy over the birth of this child and their preparations for him. In anticipation of the time they would be able to bring him home, they had excitedly furnished a nursery and gathered together all the right things for his comfort and nourishment. After deliberation and discussion, they had chosen a name for him. They had wondered whose physical characteristics he would possess. Would he look like his mother or father? What interests would he develop in life? Would he be a scholar or an athlete? But these questions would not be answered for he never slept in his cradle nor saw the bright colors of the nursery. His valiant fight for life ended after a few brief hours of struggle.
At a different time and place I officiated at a service for one whose span of years had reached one hundred. After the memorial service, I slowly walked with his family through bone chilling winds a short distance for his interment. Winter’s rains had turned the brown sod to mush. Dark clouds scudded along above trees painted a dismal gray by the weather, with bare branches reaching upward into a bleak sky. No birds sang. There was not a sign of life anywhere. As the family found their place under the sheltering tent a cold rain began to fall.
When the brief interment service was completed, the family hurried into the church fellowship hall to escape the chill that had settled over them. I joined in for a warm cup of coffee and to share in the remembrance of one whose life had spanned a century.
Obviously the length of life for an infant and a centenarian differs greatly. As to why the difference, some would say each departed this life when “their time came." I will leave that debate to the theologians who have more knowledge than I. Nevertheless, through the years I have reflected upon the “three score and ten” theme in Psalms Ninety and the passage in Ecclesiastics dealing with “the times and seasons of life." Although we do not know in advance when that time will come, we do know it will surely come for each of us.
In over fifty-five years of ministry I have had the sacred privilege of ministering to hundreds of families in all seasons of life and as they have walked through the valley of the shadow of death. With them I have shared in both heartbreak and hope. At the urging of family and friends, and an inner prompting to record my experiences, I share the following stories. They are basically true but often details have been rearranged and names have been changed to conceal the identity of individuals. But all are representative of reality.
I write out of a background of ministry as a church pastor, part time hospital chaplain, hospice chaplain, sometimes counselor and, in my last years, as a funeral home assistant where I have sought to comfort countless grieving families.
Do You Have a Chaplain?
“I came to them of the captivity ... and I sat where they sat” ( Ezekiel 3:15)
