When our friend’s email came to me, I immediately knew that you, dear reader, deserved to hear his story. With his permission, this post is Reid Lamphere’s vulnerable account of his severe crisis with COVID, what he learned, and his life-changing conclusions.
I’ve been home about 3 days since my nearly miraculous discharge from the hospital. I may have a couple of months (they say) to let my 70% damaged lungs heal. But I feel very good, other than what they call “Covid fog”. I had to have my daughter Tiffany teach me how to read my email and text messages, and even how to make a phone call. It’s pathetic how mentally fogged I’ve become.
Eating food hasn’t been a problem. Many saints have dropped off meals, and Tiffany is a great cook. I enjoy eating now. The hospital food had nothing like “joy” in it. I lost 24.6 pounds during my Covid scourge.
Great friends from our church’s Small Group helped my wife Carolyn and me with the logistics of the hospital. Stephen spent about 8 hours on back-to-back days checking us separately into the hospital. Since Stephen and his wife, Sherry, had Covid last January, they were comfortable being around us.
On one of his visits, Stephen asked me the question:
“Reid, if God gives you your life, how do you want to use this life?”
My response had four parts:
1. I'm half-done writing a book that will chronicle the things God has done through our ministry over the last 50 years. I’d like to have time to finish that, so as not to leave it in a jumbled mess for Carolyn to try to sort out.
2. I’d like lots of time with my family. I want to see my two grandsons (maybe more?) grow up to be men of God.
3. I want my life to end when I am totally excited about being in the presence of Jesus for the rest of eternity. I actually do look forward to being in the presence of God forever. But to be totally truthful, I’d like to be MORE excited about it. Still not where I should be. I’d like to desire the presence of God, not just escape the difficulties of earth, but rather for a true love of the Savior. I'd like to see my mind shift more in this direction - along with the apostle Paul when he wrote in Philippians 2:21-24.
4. There’s one more thing that goes along with the desire to “know Christ”. This is the desire to "make Christ known”. I've had 50 years of opportunities to do this, but I’d love to live a few more years to see what God might want me to do. I want life so that I can have a passion to do both these things: Know Christ and make Christ known.
There is a quote from Charles Spurgeon that often comes to my mind:
““If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for.”
”
Night after night in the hospital, I felt that hell could be no worse than what I was experiencing. I’ll take as many days as God has for me so that I can help show sinners the path to glory rather than a road to hell.
Living With Eternal Intentionality®
What is your response to the question Stephen posed to Reid?
