I always wished for a sister, even when my mother was pregnant with my younger brother. \u00a0I had a wonderful name selected, but Madeline, became Bob, and the wish was over.\u00a0 But I had Vicki, a female cousin, with whom I was especially close, from our days as teammates in all the family football games to her many years as the Secretary\/Treasurer to my Presidency of Disciple All Nations, Inc. Last week, I officiated at her graveside funeral service. Like the fighter she was, she beat cancer, then fought a long, courageous battle with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. \u00a0As the Apostle Paul was writing his final letter, realizing that his days were quickly passing, he wrote, \u201cI have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith\u201d (2 Timothy 4:7). He could have written that about Vicki. A couple of weeks ago, I received an updated text from Vicki.\u00a0\u00a0After sharing the most recent evaluation from the doctors, she wrote, \u201cI\u2019ve been fighting this disease for almost 2 years, but it\u2019s time to stop fighting, and let nature take its course, unless God decides to intervene.\u201d She \u201cfought the good fight.\u201d\u00a0 Furthermore, she \u201cfinished the race.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0We wished for more, but she lived a full life.\u00a0\u00a0Many have lived less.\u00a0As she put it, \u201cSo, it appears God has chosen to heal me in heaven, rather than healing me on earth.\u201d Vicki \u201ckept the faith.\u201d In my last long visit with her, two days before she died, we talked about end-of-life things, funeral plans, burial plans, then she surprised me. \u201cI want you to do one more thing for me\u201d she said,\u00a0\u00a0\u201cTell me everything you tell others that you know about heaven.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0A deeply committed believer, her request was not an admission of lack of faith.\u00a0\u00a0It was an affirmation that she believed everything I said.\u00a0\u00a0She \u201ckept the faith.\u201d\u00a0 Vicki will be missed. She was the sister I never had, and now, no longer have.<\/p>\n
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I always wished for a sister, even when my mother was pregnant with my younger brother. \u00a0I had a wonderful name selected, but Madeline, became Bob, and the wish was over.\u00a0 But I had Vicki, a female cousin, with whom I was especially close, from our days as teammates in all the family football games…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3378"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3379,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3378\/revisions\/3379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}