Examining purpose-driven lives

I had finally fallen asleep, the burdens of the just-completed day finally set aside and the turmoil of the coming day staved off for a few precious hours, when the phone rang. Sleepily, I answered, dreading whatever message waited for me on the other end. Middle-of-the-night phone calls rarely, if ever, contain good news.

This time was no different. A staff member informed me that she would be unable to report to work as her adult son had been jailed and she had to make arrangements to bail him out. That meant that my hours of respite were shortening by the minute and I would have to be in the kitchen by 5:30, brewing coffee and scrambling eggs for 120 residents.

As it happened, that staff member missed more than one shift. Her husband stopped by later that day to inform me that she would need the next two weekends off. When I inquired further, he sheepishly replied. "She's in jail." It seems that when she went to the jail to tend to her son's need, they ran a background check on her and there was a failure to appear warrant for her arrest. Ten days.

When I placed the phone in its holder after that initial call, I remember struggling to return to sleep. Among my concerns were the minor chest pains I was feeling.

It was undoubtedly stress-related because of what I came to call the "Job from H E double toothpicks."

I clearly remember thinking, as I ignored the pains and slipped off to sleep, that it would be just fine with me if I woke up dead of a heart attack.

Obviously, I didn't. I woke up, alive and fully capable of fulfilling the demands of the coming day. And so, to the best of my ability, I did.

Nearly every time I have seen John Paul II on the television in recent years, my heart has filled with pity for the man. Each time it seemed he was slumped even more than the time before and it was obviously a struggle for him to accomplish whatever task was before him. I would think, "Why don't they just let that man lie down and rest?"

Seeing now the manner in which he died, I realize that he was the one who woke up alive each morning and, though wearied by each breath taken, he chose to press on through each day intent on accomplishing whatever tasks were before him. He knew fully the weight of the burden of his call. He knew fully how people looked to him for direction, for answers, for peace. And he sought each day that he awakened to fulfill his holy call.

And he knew when it was finally time to lie down and let God bring his days to an end.

And God did.

Contrasted against John Paul's commitment to his call to give glory to God, a man of dubious character -- proven by his adulterous relationship -- played God in bringing his disabled wife's life to an end through dehydration and starvation.

Long before that, he, as her medical guardian, halted any forward progress by stopping all therapies designed to bring her to the highest quality of life possible in her condition.

And there was no one to tell him yea nor nay in his decision-making, though her parents fought valiantly and pled Terri's case to any who would listen.

Would I want to continue to live in similar circumstance to Terri's? Certainly not. None of us would willingly choose to live in that restricted body, with our once healthy minds clouded and unresponsive to the most basic commands.

Nevertheless, some of us are indeed called to that life as surely as John Paul was called to serve as spiritual advisor to a billion people.

Some are called from birth. Others are called later in life, due to accident or illness as was the case for Terri. Perhaps part of our reluctance to wholly embrace those with disabilities is our instinctive understanding that we are as vulnerable as they -- one breath, one misstep, one car accident away from a similar fate.

To some, that life may seem utterly without purpose. I disagree. For I myself have witnessed their purpose in each encounter. And I have heard the testimony of those immediately impacted by their existence. One father remarked, "I wouldn't have wished this on my child for anything. Yet, because of it I know so much more of God. Things I would never have learned otherwise. Things I needed to learn."

I do not presume to know the mind of God. But I do recognize when he has been glorified in his created man. Each time a mother bends to kiss her child's contorted face or stoops to tend to that child's most basic needs, God is glorified. For these actions are actions of love and of service. God was not glorified, nor was man, in the choice made in a Florida hospice. Whatever your theology, he was glorified, however, in the full life of service lived by his servant John Paul.

"As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?'

"'Neither this man nor his parents sinned,' said Jesus. 'but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.'" John 9:1-3 (NIV)