He’s one of the preachers in our community, married to the choir leader and they have a cute one year old son. Last Monday during our prayer meeting, I was touched by his sharing about what happened to his mother who recently had a stroke and how this trial had affected their family not just emotionally but financially as well. Seeing such great faith in Bro J’s eyes as he was sharing the tragic incident, I realized my own problems could not even compare to what he’s going through.

He was sharing to us how, despite the doctor’s insistence that buying the prescribed medicine would not bring any positive results, his mom’s blood pressure became normal. Doctors can be so cruel sometimes, instead of giving hope, they crush it with negative statements like that. Did they also learn that in medical school? To be unfeeling and unsympathetic to the family of patients who are seriously ill or dying? Bro J was full of hope that his mother would recover from the stroke. It was his prayer that she would live longer contrary to what the doctors told him. The community prayed for her recovery as well and contributed whatever we can with the soaring medical expenses.

Last night my sis and I were at the photo shop to have some family pictures printed. It’s been Mom’s wish to have a photo album of the family and her recent travels. She’s not contented with just looking at the computer to view the pictures, thus we bought two big hardbound photo albums, the scrapbook type with onionskin fillers in between. Anyway, while sis was instructing the staff which photos to print, somebody greeted us. It was Bro J.

With sadness, he explained that he needed to have a larger print size for his mother’s photo to be put on her coffin. We found out that his mother died that day. I know it has been painful for him and we didn’t know what to say more to him to comfort his loss aside from the usual condolences. I just asked him for the full name of his mother so we can include her soul in our family prayer.

Isn’t life such an irony? Sis and I were there to print happy pictures of our recent family reunion while Bro J was there for a sad purpose, bringing with him a small photo of a loved one he just lost that day. Life is really unpredictable and things just happen. I still remember meeting his mom during his baby’s first birthday party in their house. Who would have thought something tragic would happen more than a month later.

While I feel sadness for Bro J and his family, this made me value life more and I am thankful to God that both my parents are healthy, strong and active compared to their contemporaries. Having problems with health can be disastrous since you are hit not just emotionally but financially as well. I pray that 2009 will be a year of good health for us, that we will be full of passion in doing what we love most and that we will treasure and enjoy each day as if it’s our last.