Miss Gloria

I hadn't seen Miss Gloria for about seven years.  She is the most southern woman I have ever met.  I remember that drawl like it was yesterday.  The kind of drawl that takes me days to get out of my system.  I remember in those days, she was a formidable woman. The kind that wouldn't back down from anything. The master of dirty rice and other southern dishes I had never heard of.   I just heard yesterday that she was in the hospital and was drawn there.  I went to see Miss Gloria tonight.  She has been battling cancer.  But that isn't her story.

I went to see Miss Gloria tonight.  But I saw Jesus.  I found Him in the hospital room of a dear, sweet, saint who doesn't miss an opportunity to share.  Her body may be battling cancer but her story is about her Savior.  The one who promises her every evening before she goes to sleep that He is with her, that He hasn't left her, and that she is going to be alright. 

You see she had a conversation with her Savior a while back.  It went something like this.

"Lord, I'll do whatever it takes to bring my family to you." 

He asked, "Whatever?" 

She said, "Whatever it takes."(I think she even added "Bring it on, I can handle it.") 

He saw her love for her family and granted her request. 

He has allowed her to go through cancer.  But she doesn't see that.  What she sees is that she is amazingly untouched by the situation.  Oh, her body still has the effects of the double mastectomy and the titanium vertebra in her neck the tumor ate and the pain in her hip from the tumor there but her spirit rises above all that not to talk about her problems (we had to find get that information from her husband) but to talk about her Savior.  Not the Savior who is going to deliver her from her illnesses but the one who promises He will be with her here or there (heaven) and that her family will see Him too. 

I saw Jesus tonight and He looked like Miss Gloria.

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.  John 15:13 NIV