Welcome to Keep the Heart. I've met so many new listeners as well as regulars at recent conferences,

and several of you have shared with me how you allow your children to listen to the podcast,

and I'm really glad of that, but because of the sensitive nature of this topic,

you may not want to have your children listening this time. The decision is yours, but this episode

will discuss what to do when a loved one is dying. So I wanted to mention that. This intro pause

will be your chance to decide who gets to listen and who should wait until they're older.

Welcome to Keep the Heart podcast with Francie Taylor.

Francie is an author, teacher, and conference speaker

known for sharing biblical insights that are practical and inspiring.

Now back to today's valuable study.

Many of you are familiar with death and dying and you've probably walked through a situation

where someone was actively dying, but some of you may have not, and this episode is for you.

My mom had already passed away two years prior to my husband's passing, so when Norman was

getting really seriously ill, I wasn't a stranger to walking through the passing of a loved one,

but I also wasn't ready for another gigantic loss.

It came anyway, but it was hard. In fact, one of the hardest things that was said to me

while Norman was in his final days was this. Francy, you seem to be surprised by this,

but death is part of life. I sure didn't want to hear that.

But as I pondered it years later, it really confirms the Psalms when we are reminded that

none of us can keep alive our own soul. It says that in Psalm 22.9. We had a lot of visitors during my Norman's final weeks on

this side of heaven. He insisted on allowing people to drop by, even unannounced. His visitor list

included former Sunday school students from the bus ministry, the entire department of former

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