Path Light at my feet

By Effie Munday

Path Light at my Feet...

When John Munday was diagnosed with prostate cancer, he and his wife Effie were propelled onto a path leading through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. This book draws on many entries and reflections from Effie’s journal, as she and her husband battled with the agonies of terminal illness, and then later as she struggled with the burdens of widowhood and financial responsibility.

It is a romance, telling the story of two people devoted to one another for over 50 years. It is a tribute to the life of an extraordinary man, determined to make his life count. And above all it is a story of faith in a God who knows His children intimately, cares for them deeply, provides for their good, and has given them the promise of a wonderful eternity with Him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ReadOnTime BV
• Release date: Jan 7, 2013
• ISBN: 9781742841816

Effie Munday

Effie Munday lives quietly in her retirement village unit located in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. She has always been a writer and now in her golden years, she is proudly the published author of Called to Freedom, My Irish Ancestors, Path Light at My Feet, with more books in the pipeline.

Book preview

Path Light At My Feet

A Grief Journey

Effie Arena Munday

Smashwords Edition

Path Light At My Feet

A Grief Journey

Copyright © 2012 Effie Arena Munday

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

The information, views, opinions and visuals expressed in this publication are solely those of the author(s) and do not reflect those of the publisher. The publisher disclaims any liabilities or responsibilities whatsoever for any damages, libel or liabilities arising directly or indirectly from the contents of this publication.

A copy of this publication can be found in the National Library of Australia.

ISBN: 978-1-742841-81-6 (pbk.)

Published by Book Pal

www.bookpal.com.au

Dedication

I dedicate this book to those who watch, who wait, who weep; who grieve for what is lost, by separation, divorce, immobility, mental illness, or death. May your path ahead be brightened by the One who said ‘I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’ John 8:12 NIV. His Word also promises, ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’ Rev. 21: 4 NIV

This book is a reprint of the 2008 edition made in order to be available online.

Preface

This small book partially records three journeys taken by a senior lady in company with her husband at the start as they grappled with his terminal cancer; then weary and grief-stricken as she passes through new forbidding territory as Property Developer, without him by her side. In the third excursion she is still walking toward new horizons with God in lessons in prayer.

Because any pilgrimage has stopping-places to rest, take stock and renew strength, this narrative traces changes in prospects, moods, failing courage and fresh hope, as well as interventions of Divine Aid! As a Journal is such a private outlet for one’s feelings much material has been omitted or changed to read less personal. Where things close to the heart do seem openly revealed the reader’s understanding is appreciated.

Apart from immediate family members and a few others, names have been changed for the sake of privacy, likewise identification of hospitals etc.

Contents

God’s Supreme Intervention Vanquishes Death!

The Valley’s Long Shadows

Death a Transition like Birth

John’s Last Months in his Perishable Body

John’s Departure and Safe Arrival in Heaven

Celebrating John’s Life

That Other Grief Journey

Home Alone – Yet Not Alone!

Quiet Reveries

John’s Extra Years!

‘Serendipity’, That Other Grief

Late 2003 – Acceptance And Moving On

Conclusion

Fragments From John’s Ministry

Foreword

By Pastor John Sweetman

We live in a culture that celebrates shallowness. We look for easy answers to complex questions and quick fixes for difficult problems. Relationships easily come and go and each is supposedly better than the last. People want to live without guilt, regrets, and grief. Our culture is gripped by the search for immediate happiness. Yes, it appears we’re becoming a more shallow people.

This book stands against shallowness. Written by a senior citizen with God’s vision upon her life, it plumbs the depths of death and life, breathing reality, honesty, and mystery. Effie and John Munday’s story is filled with pain, fear, grief and suffering, as well as love, hope, passion and joy.

The story made me cry. I felt tears welling up as I appreciated the depth of romantic love that captivates for 54 years and beyond, as I journeyed through the suffering and indignity that rampant cancer causes, and as I felt the deep grief that ensues from slowly losing your life partner. I sensed my own vulnerability and fragility through John and Effie’s experience, and am the stronger for it.

The story made me wonder. It raised questions that plague me. Why does life (and death) have to be so difficult, especially at the end? Why do those who love most have to hurt most? How would people cope with loss if they had no friends? (A parade of caring friends and family strides through the story.) And the biggest question of all: How will I manage when I face grief and death? These are deep questions.

The story made me rejoice. Effie never doubts that profound love is worth the sacrifice and pain, and you can’t help but agree. The wonderful memories linger well past the agony of grief. There is also a clear gospel orientation to the whole story. God loves, comforts, saves, answers prayers, gives strength, and provides joy through the most trying circumstances. Underneath are the everlasting arms, is the recurring refrain. The property Serendipity turns out to be just that, despite the setbacks. Then there is Effie’s confident hope of an eternity with God (and John). That’s something you can’t help but savour.

In this book, Effie is honest. She hides nothing of her own fears, frailty and failures. She paints herself as ordinary, yet the stories, poems, emails, and journal entries all point to an extraordinary woman who has a strong and good heart and a great mind.

It’s such a blessing that so much of Effie and John’s journey with God has been retained through Effie’s prodigious writing. This story will leave you treasuring your close relationships, facing your own mortality, and appreciating some old words with deeper passion.

Dying with Jesus, by death reckoned mine

Living with Jesus a new life divine

Looking to Jesus till glory doth shine

Moment by moment, O Lord, I am Thine.

Chapter 1

God’s Supreme Intervention Vanquishes Death!

Today’s Thinking on Death and Dying

In looking squarely into the face of the greatest loss and grief I have ever known, I recognise the need of my heart is to fully express that grief and then to look for any gain I may find from this painful experience. My desire is that this exercise be based only upon what is absolute truth.

Sadly, even many evangelical Christians are being impacted by the pagan thinking around us which is the antithesis to what the Bible teaches. There is great confusion in our midst. Too many have concocted wishful ideas as to what happens after death and too many are happy to embrace those blind beliefs. Everyone will be in heaven! It’s as if God is not holy, separate from sin, and from sinners who are still in their sins. But man is without excuse for God has given His authoritative Word to enlighten our darkness.

A good question to ask is, ‘Where would we humans be if our Lord Jesus Christ had not visited our world 2000 years ago?’ If, before the creation of time, space and matter, the Son Who dwelt in supernal glory, face to face with the Father, had not offered Himself to become a man and to die in our place, fallen creatures that we are, though still retaining something of God’s Image in which we are made?

Imagine our planet, this global village of over six billion souls, without the Good News of the Saviour’s birth, of His pure life lived to show us God the Father and His death and resurrection bringing salvation to all who repent and ask forgiveness! Imagine a world where sin and death reign as triumphant arch-enemy over all. Picture this fallen, fractured race with no Saviour to free us from sin and death.

I can’t imagine it because a song of victory resounds in my heart ringing out the certainty that my Lord Jesus tasted death for me, for my John and for all Christ’s followers that we might not have to partake of its bitterness. As Christ’s redeemed ones, we may simply know the experience ‘absent from the body, present with the Lord’. 2 Corinthians 5:8 KJV

For us ‘death is swallowed up in victory’ as the beloved 1st Century St Paul described the Christian’s death in 1 Corinthians 15:54 NIV: ‘When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory’.

Seeking God’s Help Facing Death

The Christian lives with absolute assurance, nevertheless to learn one’s beloved marriage partner of 42 years, and best friend of 49 years, has advanced prostate cancer, meant we were propelled onto a path leading through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. We trod that vale together from a day in September 1997 to December 4, 2001 when as he slept, God quietly took my precious one Home to Himself.

One day in our journey’s first weeks I wrote what we both were feeling:

Sometimes we seem suspended – waiting, hoping, praying,

For the time when the pain and trouble of these days will be over,

When the endless trips for radiotherapy – and other treatments

Will be gone – into the past

When we’ll be free of the confused thoughts we share now

And free of the fears we do not share, facing them alone!

But now what we do share of all the beauty and blessing

Of our life together

These are spoken with unrestrained happy laughter

As I say of some joyous recollection or else John says it,

‘I was just going to say that!’

At that time we exercised expectant faith. We hoped God would answer our and others’ prayers with complete healing or long-term remission. Didn’t his General Practitioner say nonchalantly ‘You could live another 12 to 15 years with prostate cancer!’? That was after the first PSA (prostate specific antigens) test showed a reading of 33 and he referred him to a urologist. But would he have sounded so light-hearted after the ‘advanced’ verdict that followed the biopsy? We never knew because we were then in the care of a urologist and visits to our friendly G.P. had ceased.

God, our loving heavenly Father chose not to heal my John and remissions in the progress of the disease were brief, giving us just enough time to recover from one form of treatment before commencing the next. That is how it was.

Dying – and the Christian’s Death: the Puritans

Our Example

Whenever a Puritan of vibrant, holy faith lay dying, without drugs to soften physical trauma, or counselors, aroma-therapists, physiotherapists or precision technologists imaging the invading disease; something more wonderful than many modern deathbed scenes took place. God’s people surrounded the bed of the dying to ‘courage’ their heart with prayers, praises and exhortations, rejoicing together in an imminent departure to the Real, the Eternal, the Heavenly Realm, anticipated since the dying person’s conversion to Jesus Christ.

Eternal life begins at the moment of New Birth when the Holy Spirit baptises the new believer into the Body of Christ through His gracious work of conviction of sin and direction to Christ as Lord and Saviour. At the end of their pilgrimage, death is transition to the heavenly side of their eternal life. These are the facts.

How they viewed Time

Given a prognosis of the chance of survival or escape in any adverse situation the paramount question is ‘How much time is there?’ It was said of many Puritan preachers that they preached every sermon as if it were their last chance to preach Christ and sought to live each day as if it were their last.

Yet theirs wasn’t a morbid pre-occupation with death, for they were a joyful breed of saved sinners. And if God in His Divine Providence should cut off their hold on life or interrupt a sermon with arrest and imprisonment as happens today in many countries, He was to be praised and thanked, trusted and loved, because He is a God who never withholds His tender mercies. In the midst of suffering, danger, deprivation or death, God does not, will not, change. Then (as now) those whose lives were suddenly snatched away were blessed indeed for were they not instantly ushered into the immediate presence of the Bridegroom and to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb to celebrate with the Saviour they loved? Even as do our 21st Century martyrs. International Teams reminds us that the estimated number of Christians who were martyred in 2007 is 173,000 and the percentage of unevangelised people in the world is 28 per cent. (Quoted from ‘New Life’, Christian Newspaper, 19th July, 2007.)

Should not we, like them and today’s persecuted believers, keep a hand to our eyes to catch the first glimpse of our future hope, His appearing; while unthinking, unseeing multitudes jostle round us absorbed by things of this temporary world, and some political leaders of church and state call us ‘evangelicals’, or ‘creationists’, or ‘fundamentalists’, and even maybe (and what a compliment) ‘Puritans’! Should not the world’s values have lost their attractions for the Church? Does Christ and His glory shine before us as a new day dawning beyond the darkness engulfing our world, this planet perfect at creation but fallen through man’s capitulation to Satan’s wiles?

When the Holy Spirit did His divine work in the conversion of the first believers of the English Reformation, their eyes were opened not only to their own sinfulness but to the wickedness of their beloved country, England. Her desperate plight aroused their zeal. Should not the church in the Western World today be so aroused and God’s people, the Church, the Body of Christ – not respected Muslim clerics – be those proclaiming against widespread decadence and corruption?

The First Catechism in the Westminster Confession asks ‘What is man’s chief end?’ It answers ‘Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever’. Wasn’t this the exquisite secret at the centre of the Puritans’ philosophy of life? And it is still God’s superlative gift to the hearts of His redeemed. It is ‘the peace that passes all understanding’ based on a trust in the love and tender mercies of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ regardless of outward circumstances.

To discover this secret is to discover the purpose of our being. What then should be man’s chief objective? ‘To glorify God and enjoy Him forever!’

John’s Attitude to Time, Death and Dying

I know that my John’s innate attitude to time, death and dying, like that of the Puritans, was to trust Christ. His chief desire was to honour and glorify God, his loving heavenly Father. That was his favorite title in addressing Him especially in his last months and days. The difficulties he faced in the shadowy vale we traversed could be likened to that which Christian faced in ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’, the allegory written by Puritan prisoner, John Bunyan. Yes, it must be said that John’s ‘chief end was to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.’ In affirming that this is my secret too I want to write out my grief and the victory God keeps giving me in a way that will honour and glorify Him.

Chapter 2

The Valley’s Long Shadows

It’s been said that the past is prologue to the present. The immediate past as prologue to John’s eternal present in the Heavenly Realm began on a day in September, 1997 when we sat in the Urologist’s surgery listening to his prognosis on the results of a biopsy that followed his first PSA test.

Four years and three months later, on December 4, 2001, the family began preparing our Service of Celebration of John’s Life to be held December 7 in Salisbury Baptist Church, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. What were some of the things that happened during that prologue?

• A wonderful 70th Birthday party at our younger daughter Stephanie and son-in-law Stephen’s home in Clayfield, June 1998

• Purchase of a burial plot, for us both – June, 2000

• Selection of