Life had been dealing them badly. (8 of hearts) Unless you’ve personally held one of life’s really bad hands, (Ace of diamonds) be cautious how you judge others. (8 of clubs) Your shabby pair of deuces might look mighty tempting to someone else. (Ace of Spades) Be cautious how you judge. Aces and Eights. (Queen of diamonds) Queen kicker.

Life had been dealing them badly. The car busted down, the rent over due, the series of bad decisions they made and the hard knocks life was passing around – a prolonged bout with too little job jabbing on the one side and too much beer belting on the other. They’d spit the word “divorce” at each other like it was poisonous venom hurled with invective accuracy. But they’re love-matched opponent simply refused to lay down and die.

Life had been dealing them badly.

But this was it. I mean – this was it.

Their son unconscious, hooked up to more wires than they could count with more different fluids and medicines dripping into him than they even knew existed.

And it was all for nothing.

The doctor had told them so.

The boy would live at most a few more days. He would not waken to say good-bye to them. If his eyes were to open, he would not see them. He could not feel the touch of their hands of the moisture of their tears on his face. He could not hear them … would not hear them.

How’s the hand you’re holding looking right now, partner?

The doctor had walked out of the room. He had asked them a question. The moment he asked, she threw up violently into the sink. He told the doctor to just get on out now, get out. She could not bring herself to stay in the room with the senseless collection of organs and tissue that her son had become – and so she walked into the 3 a.m. waiting room of the hospital. Her almost-husband followed her.

There was only one other soul in the waiting room at 3 a.m. A man dressed in a severe black suit with a black string tie against a crisp white shirt. He wore a black, broad-brimmed hat, had his nose stuck in a floppy black book and he looked for all the world like one of those preacher’s you see in the slasher movies who ends up murdering people for Jesus can I get an AMEN?

She put her head in her hands and her hands on her knees. “Whatter we gonna do?” she muttered over and over. “Whatter we gonna do?”

“Shhh,” he said. “Shh. It will be all right.”

He was lying. She knew it.

“No,” she said, voice guttural – a lioness stalking prey. “No … it will never be all right ever again. Never. Nothing will ever be all right again until I am dead and in the ground and even then it will VERY DISTINCTLY NOT BE ALL RIGHT.”

“Shh….” He said.

“The Holy Bible doth say ‘Ye Shall Wait upon the Lord.’ The Holy Bible doth not say such waiting shall be easy.”

They looked around … there was the man, looking up from his floppy Bible. They stared at him.

“’abla Espanol?” he said. “Sprechen sie Deutsch?”

“Dude, we know what you said,” he said, “Couldja just leave us alone a minute? Couldja?”

“My son is here dying,” the man said. “I am grasping at straws. I’m sorry to intrude.”

The couple looked at each other, and she could bear it no more. She fell into his arms wailing her grief as the wolf wails at the moon. “So much pain!” she cried. “What will we do with all this pain?!”

He did not know what to say … and he did not Shush her again.

“Do not worry for the pain tomorrow will bring,” the man in black said. “Worry for now … for this moment … for the agony of this very breath. The next will come, bringing with it fresh agony all its own. For now – worry about now. Let the next moment’s trouble fend for itself.”

“Our son …” she wept, trying to look at the preacher “Our son is dying, too. We can’t stop it. We can’t do anything … there is nothing anyone can do he is just going to die. He’s only 11 years old…”

“I am sorry – 11 years is such a brief time to be a lifetime.”

“…and I don’t know what to do.” She finished.

“What can you do? By your worry of tomorrow, can you add a day – an hour – to his life? Can you draw for him one more breath? Squeeze from him one more heartbeat?”

“What if I had done something different? What if I had been watching closer?”

“IF is such large word – and so meaningless. There is no if. ‘If’ pigs had wings … ‘If’ the lilies of the field had no fragrance. ‘If’ grass were eternal … but pigs don’t, lilies do and that grass which blooms and grows today tomorrow is cast into the oven and burned. It is what it is … and all flesh … is … as… grass.”

“Why are you saying this to me?”

“Because, child, it is the one thing you must hear. You are almost powerless here. There is nothing you can do to make his life one day more than it is to be. There is nothing you can do to create for him a tomorrow. And nothing is the largest word in the universe. All you can do is now.”

 “Then what are we to do now?” asked the boy’s father.

“Whatever it is which will give meaning to an 11 year lifespan. He has already in living his 11 years glorified God and will continue to glorify God in dying. You will decide how that glory is to be revealed. It is what you are destined to do now. You have no other task. Your duty, is to glorify God in the living and dying moments of your son. The entire universe depends on you.”

They were walking down the hallway. The three of them. She was no longer terrified. He no longer needed her silence. The man in black followed a step behind, carrying his floppy Bible cradled like a child to his chest.

“If we do as the doctor asks,” she said to her husband. “If we do as the doctor asks – then a part of him does live on. I know it isn’t the same – but it honors his life – that little boy life we treasure.”

“It will be the hardest thing I ever do,” he said. “But you’re right. You’re pretty much always right.”

“Thank you,” she said to the man in black, “I can’t tell you how helpful you have been … how calming. I do not know how we would have made it to this moment without your presence. You have been sent to us as a gift.”

“We are the body of Christ,” he said, “We are always in Christ’s presence. It is our baptismal covenant, sign and seal.”

“I am so self-concerned,” the husband said, still holding his wife. “I can’t believe I haven’t asked you. Where is your son?”

“Come with me,” said the man in black. He took a few steps, and opened a door. He pointed them to go inside. “My son is in here.”

They entered the room.

Their own son’s room.

The man in black was gone.

“So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today. Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?  And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.  But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you…”

Do not be afraid.

Amen.