Volume 8 • December 2007
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Kathy Smith |
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Living Well in Life and in Death |
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| We honor the life of Trey Smith in this issue. Trey, an LCI board member, passed from death to eternal life this past September after 21 months of battling lung cancer. We invite you to take a moment to reflect on the words of Kathy Smith, Trey’s wife.
“People don’t die this way. I have never seen anyone die like this,” said an oncologist friend of Trey and Kathy Smith. Trey prepared his family for his death and walked openly and courageously with them through the journey. It was remarkably different. While Trey worked full-time until a week and a half before he died, he also found time to plan his funeral, he sent letters to twelve close friends, wrote love letters to Kathy and his four children, prepared wedding prayers for his children, and sent his family daily devotions for the last six months. “Trey started doing the devotions as a written legacy for his children.” But, as Kathy recalls, “I think in the end, that is where God ministered to Trey.” “I am very content to live in the day now. Learning to trust God for my day brings great freedom and peace. We were not wired that way. We were big planners, had busy careers, and were high-energy people. Trusting God is a process of continually surrendering everything to God and choosing to do it over and over again. We would ask, ‘How can we glorify God in this disease?’ and ‘What can we be thankful for?’” There are countless threads of God’s provisions woven into Trey and Kathy’s lives during this difficult journey – through family, deep friendships, and how the Holy Spirit prompted others on their behalf. “God met each one of our needs. God was in the details. It was so comforting to know that God was going ahead and taking care of us. You do learn that God’s grace is sufficient. We can ‘walk by faith and not by sight.’ And, for planners, that is really hard,” said Kathy. Trey and Kathy Smith served as LCI Board members for the past three years and Kathy participated in the Level 1 Training. Although Trey never participated in the LCI Training, his |
life captured the heart of the LCI mission – helping others understand and use the suffering in their own lives to grow in a deeper relationship with God and with others. Trey and Kathy were told from the beginning that the cancer was terminal. In fact, the doctors told Trey that he would live between 8-10 months. He lived for 21 months. “When you are told you have 8 months to live, you have to come to terms with dying or you are going to miss out on the rest of your life. Trey quickly came to peace with the reality of his cancer and it gave him the freedom to live well as he died,” shares Kathy. “In the beginning I was full of fear. How am I going to live without the love of my life? I don’t want to do it! I was delivered of that fear. I have sorrow, I have grief, I have deep sadness, and I have great joy. I don’t have one minute of fear and that is a gift from God. I am content to wait on what God has for me,” reflects Kathy. Trey and Kathy’s children also followed their parents’ example in waiting on God. “You can choose to live in faith or fear – we chose faith,” shared Kristen Smith, along with her two sisters, Julia and Kimberly, when they spoke with Kathy at a local Women’s Church Retreat in 2006. “When faced with terminal cancer, you quickly see that you come to the end of yourself and that is where God shines,” reflects Kathy. “It was during these days that the Word of God |
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This publication provided by The Lay Counselor Institute, P.O. Box 1758, Herndon, VA 20172-1758 • 703-506-8378