Peter Witkowski Memos

Memo: As Death Draws Nears: April Update 6.19.22

Decline has become April’s new norm. Though her doctors credit her resolve and determination for having propelled her beyond that initial two-week prediction that expired this past Wednesday (June 15, 2022), her trajectory remains unchanged. Over the past seven days, she has moved from traveling up and down the stairs between our living room and bedroom, to traveling between her hospice bed and her favorite chair a few feet away, to staying in her hospice bed. As her mobility has declined, her fatigue and mental fog have increased. She eats and drinks very little and sleeps much of the day, gaining clarity of mind at best for thirty minutes here and there during the afternoon. At times, she can engage in conversation and respond to messages. But after a few minutes, she must surrender to the impulse for more sleep, lower her bed, and set aside her best intentions to carry on.

The Vocation of Death

In his book Surprised By Suffering, R.C. Sproul described death as being a type of vocation, a calling…if you will. To associate death with say one’s call to preach will undoubtedly sound strange, but I believe the idea proves poignantly true. Solomon bluntly notes in Ecclesiastes 9:5, “For the living know that they will die.” We should not seek out death, but we also must not pretend that death will never come. It is appointed for all men and women to die once. Rather than shunning discussions of death, we should diligently mine the things of God so that we are prepared for that moment when our mortal and broken bodies will be swallowed up by life (2 Cor 5:3-8). As the Puritan John Flavel noted,

“It is the high point of wisdom to look upon things which shortly will not be as if they were not.”

May seeing Jesus face to face be our true purpose, the telos of our existence. In short, the vocation of death is the calling to depend upon Jesus as we walk underneath shadows of death so that we might reach the joys of heaven.

To steward this her final vocation well, April and I have devoted those ever-shrinking moments of her mental clarity to the task of preparing for eternity. I read her our daily Bible readings and then pray with her. We talk of Jesus’s sweet promise that he “will never leave you nor forsake you (Heb 13:5), of his pledge “to come again and take you to myself (Jn. 14:2),” and of how sleep can be a common mercy in times of sorrow. We also talk through some of our family’s plans for the immediate future which inevitably must touch upon April’s demise. While April floats in and out of consciousness, I spend my energy managing April’s medications, assisting her with daily necessities, studying how to shepherd (as much as can be done on this side of eternity) her heart towards Jesus, parenting our children, and praying for her, our family, and our church family. When she’s able to break free from the fetters of fatigue, April summons her small amounts of energy to reaffirm her love for me, our children, her parents and her sister, the Witkowski family, and her many friends. There have been many tears and “I love you’s” these last few days. After swallowing her pills or bite or two of food, she blesses our children with one those faint and yet, all important hugs and then closes her eyes.

Her time grows short. The ‘when’ still remains obscured behind providence’s heavy curtain. So, we continue to take one day at a time, valuing these precious moments.

As long as April retains her earthly citizenship, I plan to stay close by her side surrounded by our children.

What Comes Next

Once her funeral is complete, I will be out of the pulpit for another 2-3 weeks to begin the process of slowly transforming our family of five into a family of four. At the conclusion of that time, I will return to my church duties and eventually resume dissertation, relying upon the support of my fellow elders, deacons, church members, family, and friends.

Gratitude

Dear friends, April and I will forever and always will cherish your visits, messages, cards, and those times of prayer, fellowship, and song that we have shared together these last few weeks. We also appreciate your many generous gifts that have been given to us and appreciate Fresta Valley Christian School (FV) for having generously secured our children’s education for the next school year. Lastly, we appreciate our church family gifting me the freedom to devote myself to April this past month. You have loved us well! Thank you!

Prayer Requests

Please continue to pray for God to encourage and comfort April with a special awareness of his spirit. Pray for me, the elders of ABC, and for the Witkowski and Gentry families to have the wisdom needed to navigate what comes in the days before after her death. And Pray for God to save and comfort our children and our extend families, our church family, and our many friends as who are grieving her cancer and who will soon grieve her death.

May God be merciful.

Frequently Asked Questions

Contact/Support Info

Please note, we long to responded to all texts and messages. But with the many challenges facing us, our responses will probably be increasingly slow.

EMAIL US AT: BIBLEFIGHTER@GMAIL.COM 

SNAIL-MAIL: P.O. BOX 158/ AMISSVILLE, VA 20106

CALL US AT: 540-937-6159.

SUPPORT US AT GOFUNDME.COM: APRIL WITKOWSKI MEDICAL FUND

Peter Witkowski Memos

Memo: At the Journey’s End: April Update 6.10.22

I have started and stopped a hundred times. The depth of emotion tied to this moment resides beyond the bounds of keystrokes, black lines, and white spaces. No good means exists to say…what must be said.

We have decided to shift April’s care from oncology to hospice.

Though her cancer has responded positively to her last three chemotherapy doses, her liver has only continued to worsen over the last month. Even this week, her bilirubin numbers have increased from 20 to 22. No cure remains. No secret path to health exists. Additional chemotherapy treatments would only inflict unneeded nausea upon an already weak stomach and further her complications from low hemoglobin and a lack of white blood cells. Death’s dark’s cloud has settled over our hearts as dense fog. Only a few more misty steps remain.

As the days progress, April will become increasingly fatigued, requiring more and more sleep. Her cognitive abilities will also become weaker as a result of her liver failure. And then sometime soon, she will go to sleep and never awake.

Though April and I intellectually grasp the bleakness of death and its cold, temporal finality, we do not fear it. For the believer redeemed by the blood of the lamb, death is but the final encounter with sin before an eternity of peace. It is the portal through which all men and women must pass and through which all who have believed will successfully pass for Christ has rolled away the stone. The apostle Paul notes in 1 Corinthians 15:42-44,

“What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor: it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body…The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus.”

Though she dies, she will live.

As our many tears and hugs evidence, Luke, Lily, Lacey and I (as do a throng of others) would happily prolong April’s life if given the option. Together, we fervently prayed for such an outcome. Still, we do not begrudge our heavenly father for this state of events. As Paul makes clear, April will soon experience a glory that defies our earthly imaginations. We should not so much want to keep her here with us as make plans to join her in paradise.

Though she must go and we must stay in this bleak world a little while longer, we are not alone. God has promised us that he will never leave us nor forsake us. The Word of the Lord will stand forever. Jesus will be with April, me, and our kids as we walk through this crucial hour. His character is defined by grace and mercy and abounds in steadfast love and faithfulness. Though the days are dark, our God is good.

As we shift from pleas of healing to pleas for eternal preparation, we ask you to join us in beseeching God for the mercies needed to steward these lasts weeks and days well. April and I long for this short season of physical sorrow to be defined by spiritual joy and hope. We hope to rejoice even now in God’s goodness and mercy. Pray also for God to draw the hearts of our children to himself and to provide them and me with comfort as we grieve the loss of April and then enter of time of unprecedented transition and change.

May God be merciful.

Frequently Asked Questions

Contact/Support Info

Please note, we long to responded to all texts and messages. But with the many challenges facing us, our responses will probably be increasingly slow.

EMAIL US AT: BIBLEFIGHTER@GMAIL.COM 

SNAIL-MAIL: P.O. BOX 158/ AMISSVILLE, VA 20106

CALL US AT: 540-937-6159.

SUPPORT US AT GOFUNDME.COM: APRIL WITKOWSKI MEDICAL FUND

Peter Witkowski Sermon on the Mount

Blessed Are the Persecuted

Despite the prayers of some overzealous, first-year seminary students, most Christians do not long for suffering. They do not grab their morning cup of coffee hoping their day ends with their home on fire, their fingers broken, or their heads chopped off. We prefer peace.

Still, persecution finds us. Jesus declared persecution to be the inevitable outcome of the Christian life. He closed out the beatitudes with these words: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Mt. 5:10). Those who mourn their sin, pursue purity, and facilitate peace receive both God’s blessings and their neighbor’s hatred.

We should not be surprised by such an outcome for Jesus experienced the same fate. Jesus loved those around him with an intentional level of perfection, sharing truth, casting out demons, and healing the sick. Despite earning the pleasure of his heavenly father, Jesus still ended his life very much nailed to a cross. He followers should expect the same fate. Jesus noted in Matthew 10:25

If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household.

Christians will be persecuted for righteousness sake.

What is Persecution?

The term persecution conveys the military idea of total annihilation. A persecutor would be one who commands his troops to hunt down and annihilate all his opponents. Prior to his conversion, the apostle Paul did this. He testifies that,

I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering to prison both men and women, as the high priest and the whole council of elders can bear me witness. From them I received letters to the brothers, and I journeyed toward Damascus to take those also who were there and bring them in bonds to Jerusalem to be punished (Acts 22:4-5).

Paul looked far and wide for Christians so that he could crush them out of existence through physiological manipulation and physical force (Acts 26:9-11).

Throughout church history, groups of Christians have experienced such physical persecution. The seventeen-year-old girl Margaret Wilson was drowned for her faith off the coast of Nova Scotia in 1685. Graham Staines was burned to death in his car in India in 1999. All over the world, Christians are harassed, imprisoned, and murdered for their faith.

Though countless groups and governments still pursue Christians as Paul did thousands of years ago, millions of Christians are blessed to live in nations with stable borders. They do not wake up contemplating whether they will be imprisoned because they attended church. This reality brings us back to those over eager seminary students. Do we need to pray for and seek out physical persecution to achieve the kingdom of God? Do we have to be flogged to be blessed?

Jesus says no. In Matthew 5:11, Jesus expands upon the concept of persecution with his disciples associating the term with reviling and lying. Our savior teaches that much of the persecution that we will endure will be verbal. As the famed reformer, Martin Luther, noted, persecution often consists of “bitter slander and poisonous defamation.” Even if a Christian never kneels to prepare for the executioner’s sword, he can still be certain that his good name will be assaulted by the world. To be slandered for righteousness sake is to be persecuted for Christ.

Not All Persecution is Equal

But not all slander and lies constitute biblical persecution. Once while walking in a rough part of Louisville, KY and sporting a University of Louisville jersey, I was verbally accosted by a slow-moving station wagon jammed full of kids and one loudmouth dad. Those insults brought God no glory. Similarly, the insults we receive after we post about our favorite political candidate, share our ideas on nutrition, or discuss our views on fashion do not constitute righteous persecution. God still uses those moments to shape and model our hearts, but they do not prove our membership in the kingdom of heaven (Jm 1).

Similarly, persecution associated with our sins brings God no glory. A pastor in Alabama has been excoriated on twitter and elsewhere for plagiarizing sermons. Though I believe the Alabama pastor meant well, seeking to grow the body of Christ, he still bore false and presented the intellectual property of another as his own to grow his brand. He has suffered much but not for righteousness sake. He suffered because he sinned. The twitter attacks should not lead him to rejoicing but to repentance.

To suffer for righteousness sake, one must be criticized for being like Christ. The deacon who was asked to step down because he regularly mocks people’s Instagram posts has not suffered for Jesus. The deacon who builds a ramp for a widow in the church and then is wrongfully accused of coveting the widow’s inheritance has been persecuted for righteousness sake. The woman who was fired from her job because she said such and such a political candidate deserves to be removed from office (if not shot) has not suffered for Jesus. However, the woman who is fired because she shared Jesus with a grieving coworker at lunch has suffered. And when we do suffer for loving God and others well, we should rejoice.

Rejoice in Suffering

When we find ourselves attacked for helping the poor, visiting the sick, and evangelizing the poor, we can be tempted to respond in bewilderment and anger. We should do neither. Rather we should rejoice for the displeasure of the world reveals we have attained the pleasure of God. Those who are persecuted may lose out on jobs, friends, and a host of earthly amenities. But they get so much more than the trinkets of today. The get Christ. When Stephen who shared Christ and cared for widows was executed after being falsely accused, he did not stumble into sorrow. He was raised to glory. When the stones reigned down upon his head, he got Jesus. Acts 7:25 reports, “And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” Rejoice when people dislike you because you are like Jesus for you like Jesus will too be in heaven.

But we do not have to wait for heavenly vindication. Throughout history, God’s people have been persecuted. Isaiah was thrown in jail. Jeremiah was thrown into a mud pit. Daniel was tossed into a lion’s den. The prophet Uriah was hunted down and executed because he declared the message of God. As Jesus noted in his parable on the unjust tenants, the world has taken God’s servants, “and beat one, killed another, and stoned another (Matt 12:35-26).” To suffer for righteousness sake is to be on the right side of history. Instead of bemoaning their hardships, Christians should rejoice when persecution comes for they walk in the footsteps of giants.

Blessed are those who persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.