One of the most wonderful things about being sick is I get to read. For some reason, it’s really the only thing I desire to do when I’m sick and as long as I can stay awake, I enjoy it. There’s something about reading literature, specifically in the area of biblical principles and applications, which I find quite soothing. I don’t enjoy novels or fiction much anymore. They used to be my staple, but now I really enjoy reading biographies, autobiographies and stories about real people who have persevered through this life portraying a God-glorifying testimony of the gospel.
This book is one of them. I stumbled across it just before I became sick. The book: A Promise Kept: The Story of an Unforgettable Love. In my busyness, I had not taken the time to sit down to read it even though it is a small book of only about 90 pages. And many of the pages contain art which decreases the word count considerably. Still, I was in this reverse thought process that because it was so small, I’d get to it later. Thankfully, by God’s wonderful sovereign plan, I did get to it “later” when I became sick for about a week. Once I picked it up, I couldn’t put it down.
For many of you who may not know who Robert McQuilken is, he was president of Columbia Bible College and Seminar (now a university) from 1960 to 1990. He taught ethics and hermeneutics and prior to his duties at Columbia, he and his wife, Muriel, served as missionaries to Japan for twelve years (1956-1968). Dr. McQuilken stepped down from his position at the college when his wife became too sick with Alzheimers and needed full-time care. His stirring resignation speech is here.
Getting back to the book, I’d like to take some quotes and post them here. I think it will give you the best look into why this book is so charming.
“We chose to accept the verdict and not chase around the country after every new miracle treatment we might hear about. Go standard. We would trust the Lord to work a miracle in Muriel if he so desired or work a miracle in me if he didn’t.”
“People who do not know me well have said, ‘Well, you always said, ‘God first, family second, ministry third.’ But I never said that. To put God first means that all the responsibilities he gives are first too. Yet sorting out responsibilities that seem to conflict is tricky business.”
“A letter to a national columnist read, ‘I ended the relationship because it wasn’t meeting my needs.’ The counselor’s response was predictable: ’What were your needs that didn’t get met by her in the relationship? Do you still have those same needs? What would she have to do to fill these needs? Could she do it?’ Needs for communication, understanding, affirmation, common interests, sexual fulfillment–the list goes on. If the needs are not met, split. He offered no alternatives. There is an eerie irrelevance to every one of those criteria for me.”
“My imprisonment turned out to be a delightful liberation to love more fully than I had ever known. We found the chains of confining circumstances to be, no instruments of torture, but bonds to hold us closer. But there was even greater liberation. It has to do with God’s love. No one ever needed me like Muriel, and no one ever responded to my efforts to totally as she. It’s the nearest thing I’ve experienced on a human plane to what my relationship with God was designed to be: God’s unfailing love poured out in constant care of helpless me.”
“A friend wrote, ‘Muriel doesn’t know you anymore, doesn’t know anything, really, it’s time to put her into a nursing home and get on with life.’ The day may come when, because of a change in my health or hers, she could be better cared for by others. But for now, she needs me and I need her. I responded, ‘Do you realize how lonely I would be without her?’”
After Muriel had passed away:
“Grief. For fifty-five years she was flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone. So it’s like a ripping out of my flesh and –deeper–my very bones. Some think I must feel relief from the burden. After all, it was ten years of total caregiving. But it doesn’t work that way. One woman I don’t know wrote to comfort me from her own experience of caregiving and reported the same response I had, a response that she said surprised her: ‘There is a bonding, ‘ she said, ‘with the one who is totally dependent on you. It takes love to a deeper level. The pain is greater, not less.’ And so it is. But there is also profound gratitude.”
“For ten years I’ve delighted in recalling happy memories. I still do. No regrets. Gratitude.”
“Now she has emerged from her long dark tunnel into the light of her Savior’s dear presence. Home at last. As son Kent said, ‘Not restored; better than ever!’ So grateful.
In a letter to family and friends:
“Thus I wrote family and friends. Not really the closing chapter of Muriel’s life, but for her the beginning of real life. That we celebrate!
To say the least, I felt great emotion reading this book. In part, my guilt and conviction for some of the thoughts and attitudes regarding my own (very short) illness. Other times, it was because I resonated so very deeply with the abundant, all-sufficient grace and mercy that God showers on His children through both prosperous and lean times. And still other emotions surfaced because of the great promised hope of seeing, not just Muriel in heaven, but her and my Savior, Jesus Christ.
Any book that points to Jesus Christ as the greatest prize of eternal hope is surely a book worth reading, in sickness and in health.
