Cloud of Witnesses
Dave Hansen
January 1, 1997
This past summer I participated in two funerals: one for a gentleman in his eighties whom God allowed me to lead to Christ in the month he died, and one for a pastor in his sixties who taught me how to lead dying people to Christ
The pastor was my friend and mentor, Bob Cahill
Bob learned care for the dying from his own dying-in his short life he endured ten surgeries and two life-threatening cancers. He outlived his cancer fifteen years and died of something else. I served as his associate during his years of radiation and chemotherapy and learned from him as his cancer sharpened his pastoral work
"Since my cancer I preach as a dying man to dying men," he told me. "When I look out at the congregation I see people whose lives are passing away and who need Christ. You can't imagine what this does to your sense of unction.
Another time he said, "I have learned through my own cancer that in working with the dying we must be bold. As I lay there nauseated from my treatment, wondering if I would live or die, Christ himself helped me. That is what people need when they are dying . . . they need Christ.
Bob loved to quote from George MacDonald's Diary of an Old Soul:
I rise and run, staggering-double and run.
But whither-whither-whither for escape?
The sea lies all about this long-necked cape-
There come the dogs, straight for me every one-
Me, live despair, live center of alarms!
Ah, lo, 'twixt me and all his barking harms,
The shepherd, lo, I run-fall folded in his arms.
Bob knew all too well that I tend toward reticence in my dealings with people. He never feared I would force my way into a situation; his concern was that I allowed situations to force me out. His normally gentle face became quite stern: "You must ...
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