"What is your life?" is a question asked by James. Most of us consider our lives unique and priceless. These qualities are highlighted by the famous therapist, Erik Erikson. In his widely-used description of the human life cycle, he defines the final stage of life as having either integrity or despair. By integrity he means a sense of coherence and wholeness. This wholeness, enables us to accept the limitations of life while defending its dignity. It results in the wisdom to convey our singular heritage of lived experience to children and grandchildren. Those who do not achieve this integrity, he says, finish life in the discomfort of despair.

Two recent events have reminded me of this description of life and along with it the excellent help we have in Christ for living well and dying well. The first was the poignant experience, about a week ago, of conducting a memorial service for a young woman, named Aimee. Aimee and her boyfriend lived in a culture of underemployment, drugs, abuse and presumed helplessness. A week before her death, she remarked that she could no longer take the pressures of life. In her despair and desperation she committed suicide. I do not say this to blame Aimee. From her family she received few resources for handling life, and she lived among people who, like herself, were usually able to help each other survive, but not to thrive.

The other experience came through a letter that Gladys and I received from Ed Humphrey, a dear friend of thirty years, who is now living in a hospice. When we knew him, at Golden Gate Seminary in northern California, he was serving as professor of theology there after returning from mission service in Nigeria because of his wife's health. For twenty-five years he tenderly nursed his wife until she finally died of multiple sclerosis. When we sympathized with him about the encumbrance of taking care of her in her helplessness, he replied, "It's a privilege."

I want you to hear Ed's letter which arrived only yesterday and which he wrote to all his friends, since he is no longer strong enough in body to write each of us separately. It demonstrates the strength of the human spirit, integrity, wisdom, and God's resources to face with courage the entirety of life. The letter reads:

"Some of you already know that I am in a late stage of terminal lung cancer. I am now under the tender and loving care of "Hospice," a wonderful organization for the relief of the final stage of mortal life for those who find themselves in just my present circumstance. They are measuring up to the splendid reputation they have established over the years.

"I want to thank my God for bringing you into my life at some juncture along the course of my eighty-one years. And, I want to thank you for allowing yourself to be drawn into the deeper recesses of my own affections - I do hold you in my heart! I want, moreover, to express my profound gratitude for this blessed privilege of sharing with you once more a word from the heart.

"Mortality is closely hedged about in many significant ways, including its longevity. But in my case, God has graciously granted me long years in 'the land of the living.' He has adorned those years with the most precious of temporal gifts - in particular a great host of dearly treasured friendships, such as that which I have experienced (and loved!) with you. He has planted in my heart, and nurtured there, a love for goodness and truth and beauty and holiness. Any and all failure to appropriate these heavenly treasures is chargeable to my own account. God, moreover, has graciously granted me the rudiments of a great and precious faith and has embraced my heart with the joy of a blessed hope.

"Before taking leave of you, I want to express once more my profound gratitude for all that you have brought into my life. I am the richer, the stronger, the better person for having known you as friend and fellow pilgrim. God bless and enfold you in His love.

"Finally, let me assure you that God has granted me a peace that indeed 'passes all understanding.' With an indescribable joy in my heart (unworthy as I am), I have a holy desire 'to depart and be with Christ.'

Eternal peace and grace to you,
J. Edward Humphrey

I was struck by the sense of wholeness and confidence that Ed seems to feel. His life clearly has the integrity and wisdom Erikson speaks about. In spite of his suffering, he has no sense that he simply cannot go on. He utters no complaints. His letter is zesty with gratitude. When I read it, I think of Peter's description of life and the spiritual assets Christ gives us for experiencing it fully until we enter the eternal kingdom. In his second letter he says (vv. 2 - 11), "May grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness . . . . Thus he has given us . . . , his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature. For this very reason, you must make every effort to add to your faith goodness, and to goodness knowledge, and to knowledge self-control, and to self-control endurance, and to endurance godliness, and to godliness mutual affection, and to mutual affection love. For if you are growing in these virtues, they will make you effective and fruitful . . . . For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you."

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