The evening of June 20th, perhaps late enough to be called the early morning of June 21st, after the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, Margaret Pratt passed from this life and returned home to the side of her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. She was 80 years old, and had been suffering a great deal following a protracted battle with cancer. Three years ago, the doctors told her she had 6 months to live, but she continued to survive, and to thrive, up until the day she couldn't anymore. She passed peacefully, having been surrounded by her family for weeks on end.
Margaret Pratt was my grandmother, and I was blessed enough to be able to spend the last few weeks of her life by her side. In that time, I learned more about faith, what it really means and what it really looks like, than I had ever known.
I have known people of great faith throughout my life. I have known rabbis and priests, nuns and ministers, Christians and Jews and Muslims and Sikhs and pagans, all with their own take on what it means to be faithful. With my grandmother, I realized the difference between someone professing their faith, telling you about their faith, and someone showing you their faith. She always held on to everything I wrote and encouraged me to write more, so, I'm going to write about that. About her. I don't know if I can aptly put it into words, but I'm going to try.
Before she died, I went to a number of sermons, and as is usually the case found that the Lord had put me where I needed to be. The things I heard all seemed to illustrate a fundamental point about the life of my grandmother. I'd like to share a few stories from that life, how they tie into the services I attended, and how, at the end of her life, she showed me what true faith really means.
Posts
