The Abundant Life

I worked in a nursing home for awhile. This particular nursing home was for the affluent as it cost $100,000 to register and $4,000 per month thereafter. Evidence of the status of the residents could be seen now and then. One man had one picture of himself with President Gerald Ford and one with President Ronald Reagan. He had been an engineer with NASA. I was personally struggling with a decision I had made to leave the military and the resulting huge financial sacrifice of now working part time for $10 an hour while going to school. I looked at these people who were on the other end of successful lives, trying to make sense of it all. This all seemed like a lonely and anticlimactic end to a lifetime of attainment. Most of the residents could no longer dress well and few had much recollection of their lives. As their lives faded into the sunset, they all had one thing in common: each had pictures of family, friends and loved ones on their night stand. At the end of their lives, this was what they had left, this is what mattered. I reflected on this with a very coherent patient who was 98 years old and felt he only had a few hours to live. I described my decision to prioritize the people in my life over things, money and the trappings of so-called success. "Sounds like you got the rope around the right end of the horse, son," he said. Yet still, there was something missing, something empty about this ending. Then, I met Aleta. The gospel music spilled out of her room into the hall. I was there to assist in lifting her with a special crane because she couldn't move her body. During this painful process, most patients get grouchy and cuss you out, but Grace, with tears of joy streaming down her cheeks would sing along with the gospel music and say, "Thank you Jesus, you are so good, thank you sweet Jesus." Her eyes sparkled and the smile beamed from her almost glowing face. "Yes," I thought, "Jesus came to give life more abundantly." At the end of our lives, what will be important? Will we be able to say we lived the abundant life?