From an announcement in my church newsletter I learned that on September 17, 2022 Nancy Reynolds had escaped this earth. She and her husband Charles took my class, I’ll Have It God’s Way, in the Fall of 2019 when I taught it at Nashville First Baptist. At the time that was my home church and Charles was new on the staff as our Chief Operating Officer. We were building a new building and Charles had extensive experience leading other churches through multi-million-dollar construction projects.
Charles and Nancy didn’t miss a class then it seemed suddenly he had resigned to move close to their son near Atlanta as they were dealing with some health issues. I guessed it was Charles who was sick, but I was wrong. You see Nancy was always smiling and so kind. While Charles has the most darling, warm, inviting smile, I could sense he was carrying the weight of this big job then later learned it was his beloved Nancy who was so ill with cancer as was his own mother.
About one month after her leaving us Charles called me. He has the voice of God by the way. He could have had a career in radio with those vocal cords that produce a rich warm baritone sound and being in ministry for 35 years his conversation flows with an articulate blessed assurance. He said, “I have called to encourage you in your work. Your study made all the difference in the world to Nancy and me.” I started to weep because you all know this is a very hard topic that most prefer to avoid. Now the voice of God is telling me to keep on keeping on.
Charles went on to say that Nancy made him promise to begin a ministry to cancer patients and their families as the two of them learned a lot from many months that added up to years of engagement with modern medicine and its ways of dealing with cancer. In his book, “How We Die” Dr. Sherwin Nuland describes cancer this way:
"The disease pursues a continuous, uninhibited, circumferential, barn-burning expedition of destructiveness, in which it heeds no rules, follows no commands, and explodes all resistance in a homicidal riot of devastation. Its cells behave like the members of a barbarian horde run amok--leaderless and undirected, but with a single-minded purpose: to plunder everything within reach."
Charles will agree now that Dr. Nuland has it right and that is why he will launch, Journey of Hope, a ministry to cancer patients and their families. Nancy’s dream for this is to reach the seriously ill and their families for Christ. Nancy has it right that this disease makes the ill and their families open to John 3:16. Our Journey of Hope will point to God’s plan for each and every one of us is to live fully now and into our forever.
