A Christian mother who is dying of cancer has written a poignant open letter to a terminally ill 29-year-old who is campaigning for assisted suicide.
Kara Tippetts says that assisted suicide robs loved ones of “meeting you in your last moments and extending you love in your last breaths”.
“Knowing Jesus, knowing that He understands my hard goodbye, He walks with me in my dying”, she explained.
Lethal drug
Kara was responding to the story of Brittany Maynard, a woman who has decided to have an assisted suicide following a diagnosis of brain cancer.
Brittany has moved from California to Oregon where the practice is legal and plans to take a lethal drug in November.
She said that as a result of cancer treatment her “quality of life, as I knew it, would be gone”.
Tender heart
Writing on CNN, she said: “I plan to celebrate my husband’s birthday on October 26 with him and our family. Unless my condition improves dramatically, I will look to pass soon thereafter.”
She added that she wants the same option to be open to other Americans.
Kara, who has four children, described the pain she feels for Brittany, and explained how she and her friend prayed for her.
“We simply prayed you would hear my words from the most tender and beautifully broken place of my heart”, she said.
Jesus loves you
She commented: “That last kiss, that last warm touch, that last breath, matters — but it was never intended for us to decide when that last breath is breathed.”
Kara implored Brittany in a “whispering, pleading, loving voice” not to take the pill that would kill her.
She continued: “Yes, your dying will be hard, but it will not be without beauty. Will you please trust me with that truth.”
“More importantly, will you hear from my heart that Jesus loves you. He loves you. He loves you. He died an awful death upon a cross so that you would know Him today that we would no longer live separate from Him and in our death.
Eternal life
“He died and He overcame death three days later, and in that overcoming of death He overcame the death you and I are facing in our cancer.
“He longs to know you, to shepherd you in your dying, and to give you life and give you life abundant — eternal life.”
