My dear wife suffered from bouts of severe depression that sometimes required treatment in hospital. Her last clinical depression happened sixteen years ago. I visited her on the Saturday afternoon before having to leave to fulfil a longstanding preaching engagement. The last words she spoke to me were painful, ‘You don’t understand’. And I can still, in my mind’s eye, see her standing at the door of the ward looking so downcast and forlorn.

When I returned home at about 10p.m. the phone rang. It was from the hospital to inform me that my wife had collapsed in her room. I hurried to the hospital. All the entrances except one were shut for security reasons, and the one that was open took some finding. When I got to the emergency ward I was not allowed to see my wife but I could hear the attempts being made to resuscitate her – her heart had stopped.

The attempts were successful, but she could not speak, for she had suffered a massive brain haemorrhage which affected the functioning of all her vital organs. She was transferred to an intensive care unit and then the next day to another hospital where she had a more detailed scan but to no avail. Meanwhile I was able to contact as many members of the family as possible who travelled to her bedside. Together with a close Christian doctor friend we gathered in the ITU’s waiting room. We were advised that my wife was effectively brain-dead, being only kept alive physically by the use of the strongest drugs.

Before we took the decision to have the life support machine switched off we were quietly visited by the sister in charge of the ITU unit. She advised us not to agree to the donation of my wife’s organs as she and her colleagues felt that they had been severely damaged by the drugs with which she had been treated. Shortly afterward the consultant spoke to us and asked us to agree to donate them. We refused having learned that he was notorious for putting pressure on the relatives of patients.

But why did we agree to have the life support machine switched off? Basically because we knew that my dear wife was going to be present with the Lord, and that one day she would be given a body ‘like his glorious body’ (Phil. 3:21). So we were able to gather around her bed and through our tears bid her farewell. Parting was painful, make no mistake, but not despairing. We miss her, but we do not mourn for her, for she, though absent from the body, is present with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8).

A little known hymn by John Ryland (1753-1825) was sung at my beloved wife’s funeral. God’s sovereignty is more than a fact; it is a sustaining truth by which to live in the darkest days.

Sov’reign Ruler of the skies,
Ever gracious, ever wise:
All my times are in thy hand,
All events at thy command.
Plagues and death around me fly;
Till he bids, I cannot die:
Not a single shaft can hit,
Till the God of love sees fit.