Friday 19 February, 2010

UK
Health

Irene Gardner on holiday in Turkey in 1994

By Charles Gardner

The painful dilemma of those suffering incurable and debilitating diseases has been brought into sharp focus by the stepping up of campaigns for euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The case of TV presenter Ray Gosling is particularly shocking in that he has actually admitted to killing his AIDS-infected gay lover because he was in great pain.

Mr Gosling, 70, made his confession on a television programme and has since been interviewed by the police and released on bail on suspicion of murder.

I do not wish to belittle the difficulties of those who are going through pain. The title of this article is borrowed from that of a C S Lewis book, which you may like to read. He went through agonies as he watched his beloved wife dying. And I too experienced something similar when my late wife Irene got progressively weaker over a four-and-a-half year period during which she suffered excruciating pain at times. She started out with breast cancer which later extended to her bones.

The euthanasia campaigners talk about ‘dignity in dying’, but I remember how in her final days, now ten years ago, Irene asked the doctor to be honest with her and tell her how much longer she had. The lady doctor, who was very kind and understanding, replied: “Two weeks,” to which Irene responded with: “Can’t that be two days?”

That was not a hint for the GP to turn up the syringe-driver injecting pain-killing morphine into her emaciated body. It was, more likely, a cry to the Lord in whom she continued to put her trust despite not receiving the healing for which she had prayed.

And, yes, two days later she breathed her last and was welcomed into the arms of Jesus, whom she worshipped with all her heart even as she lay dying. That was dignity for sure!

During that time she would often request that I play Christian worship songs on my guitar beside her bed, and she would join in the singing, raising her hands in adoration and using what little breath she had left following the collapse of one lung which necessitated a constant supply of oxygen.

But she fought, prayed, persevered and, yes, suffered dreadful pain over a long period, yet her faith never wavered – and perhaps even grew stronger as she sensed heaven drawing closer.

She certainly didn’t look for a way out, though obviously she welcomed whatever medication was on offer to dull the pain, but she didn’t want anyone to ‘bump her off’ as it were. God would take her in his perfect time. The Bible declares emphatically that there is “a time to die”. But it is not something we choose; it is God who gives life and takes it away.

The euthanasia movement is another attempt by atheists and humanists to supplant the authority of God by taking life and death into their own hands.

We have to face up to the fact that some pain is self-inflicted. For example, the Bible declares that if we “fear the Lord and shun evil”, it will bring health to our body and nourishment to our bones. (Proverbs 3)

And the Apostle Paul warned the Roman Christians that those who degraded their bodies with shameful lust would pay for it. He writes of men who “abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.”

But today we have a brave new world in which many – especially those without God in their lives – are trying to create their own paradise on earth, and if it fails because pain comes along as an obstacle, they opt for an easy way out by creating their own painless heaven rather than taking the long and winding road of suffering.

But they are looking at life from the wrong end of the telescope. For there will come a time when there will be “no more crying, or pain, or sorrow”, as the Book of Revelation (the final book of the Bible) promises. After the return of Christ to rule and reign on the earth, we are assured that our corrupt and worn-out world will be replaced by a new heaven and a new earth.

‘Pain now; paradise later’ is better than the other way round. The tragedy for those who wish to make up their own rules as they go along is that this slogan can often become reversed to such an extent that those seeking release from temporary pain end up with everlasting suffering – the final state of all who disown Christ.

Photo: Charles Gardner