YET I WILL PRAISE

Margaret Sangster Phippen wrote that in the mid 1950s her father,
British minister W. E. Sangster, began to notice some uneasiness
in his throat and a dragging in his leg. When he went to the
doctor, he found that he had an incurable disease that caused
progressive muscular atrophy. His muscles would gradually waste
away, his voice would fail, his throat would soon become unable
to swallow.

Sangster threw himself into his work in British home missions,
figuring he could still write and he would have even more time
for prayer. "Let me stay in the struggle Lord," he pleaded. "I
don't mind if I can no longer be a general, but give me just a
regiment to lead." He wrote articles and books, and helped
organize prayer cells throughout England. "I'm only in the
kindergarten of suffering," he told people who pitied him.

Gradually Sangster's legs became useless. His voice went
completely. But he could still hold a pen, shakily. On Easter
morning, just a few weeks before he died, he wrote a letter to
his daughter. In it, he said, "It is terrible to wake up on
Easter morning and have no voice to shout, 'He is risen!'--but it
would be still more terrible to have a voice and not want to
shout."


CITATION: Vernon Grounds, Denver, Colorado. Leadership, Vol. 8, no.
KEYWORDS: Afflictions; Adversity; Perception and reality; Optimism;
Easter; Resurrection; Ministry; Health; Perseverance; Praise;
Tenacity; Zeal; Eternal Perspective; Perspective
SCRIPTURE: Psalms 63:4; Habakkuk 3:17-18; 2 Corinthians 4:16;
1 Peter 1:6-7