An Unlikely Angel
I remember the day I first met Renee. It was a sunny Sunday on Treasure Island, located in the middle of the San Francisco Bay. I was in the courtyard outside our church, greeting people and making them feel welcome. Three women arrived together. I said “hello”, asked their names and discovered it was their first visit. I helped them find their way around and invited them to come inside as the worship service was about to begin.
When church was done, the three ladies left together. On their way out, I let them know I’d love to have lunch with them some time soon. Even after that brief encounter I could tell they had a story. One of those three women was Renee.
Renee came back to church the next week, and she brought more women with her. She kept coming back, bringing more friends each week. Back in those days, the first thing you noticed about Renee was her hair - long, gorgeous hair. It was her crowning glory. The next thing you noticed was that she didn’t have any front teeth. And then you forgot all that because her warmth and generosity of spirit eclipsed her physical appearance. When Renee worshipped God, it was extravagantly and with all her being. Hands raised high, singing at the top of her lungs. She was so in love with Jesus.
It wasn’t long until Renee told me that she was in a residential transitional program for women who had been incarcerated. The women she was bringing to church were her fellow program participants. Each of them had their own story. Some had been in prison for relatively short periods. One woman I met quietly told me that she had just been released after serving a life sentence. I can’t even imagine what courage it took for her to come to church that day, let alone divulge that to a total stranger.
Renee and her friends had overcome a lot to make it as far as they had. Some still struggled with addiction, despite knowing it could send them back to prison. Others were trying to adjust to the new challenges that post-prison life would bring. Through it all, Renee loved on them, encouraged them and pointed them to Jesus. Many women came to know Jesus in that little church. Several of them were baptized. All of them loved Renee.
Many months later, Renee told me the reason she felt comfortable bringing her friends to church was because I had welcomed her so warmly on her first visit and made her feel like she belonged even though she had no teeth. She told her friends that if we could accept her with no teeth then we would accept them too. Boy, am I glad I looked past her missing teeth!
Renee had totally committed her life to Christ while she was in prison, largely thanks to the ministry of Prison Fellowship. She completed bible school while she was incarcerated and had begun on-line studies with the hope of one day becoming a social worker. Her dream was to help others who struggled with addiction. Renee was never shy about telling anyone who would listen that Jesus is the answer to their problems.
While Renee was in the transitional program, she was reunited with her two youngest daughters, who were about 11 and 13 at the time. I remember how she anticipated their visit during the summer months with excitement. They were her pride and joy.
About a year after I met Renee, she was released from the program so she could move back to her home town of Fresno, in the Central Valley of California. Her dad was ill and her mother needed caring for. Renee was still on bail, but she was able to relocate to help take care of her parents. Very soon after returning home, her father (whom she adored) passed away. Renee was devastated but she had her hands full caring for her mother, her two precious youngest daughters, while trying to make ends meet – which is hard when you can’t get a job because you have a record.
It wasn’t too long after returning to Fresno that Renee started experiencing severe abdominal pain. The preliminary reports didn’t sound good. Then one day she got the report you never hope to hear, “You have pancreatic cancer.” I recall the day she called to tell me. I was on a street in San Diego where I was attending a conference. The sun was beating down on me, but it seemed incongruous with this terrible news. My heart sank. This was not good news. The prognosis was bad. Renee’s thoughts were immediately with her young daughters who had just regained their mother. What was to become of them? And should she do chemo? There was almost zero chance that it would save her life, but if it could buy her some time maybe it was worth it to have time with her girls. On top of that, her husband had been deported to Mexico and she couldn’t travel to see him because she was still on bail. I had no words to adequately express my deep sadness for my dear friend. Her troubles were so far beyond anything I had ever experienced. It just all seemed so unfair.
That was the start of a long and very painful few months. Renee spent the time savoring her family moments, storing up memories for them, spreading God’s love and “dying well”. What do I mean by “dying well”? It doesn’t mean being untruthful about the pain or the sorrow of leaving behind those you love, or the sadness at having your life cut short just when you were just getting really started. It means finding Jesus in the midst of all of that, rejoicing in Him regardless of the diagnosis, and making every minute count for Him.
Renee’s Facebook page is still current. If you scroll through her timeline, you can’t help but be moved by her posts. Some days you can almost feel her pain jump off the page - but even on those dark days she finds joy and comfort in Jesus. She doesn’t pretend that everything is rosy, but neither does she fake her faith and deeply rooted trust that God is worthy of all her love, her life, her everything.
I’ve included one or two of her posts. They give you a glimpse into her tremendous love for Jesus. From the very first announcement of her diagnosis right up until just before she graduated to be with Him, Renee shouted out His goodness. As I re-read her posts, and remember my conversations with her, I can’t help but wonder how I would have responded. I doubt it would have been with such faith and grace. But Renee had already dug deep wells as she overcame the challenges of her life, the consequences of her past and the losses she could never fully recover. And now the Holy Spirit was filling those wells with living water when she needed them most.
“Pancreatic Cancer Awareness!!! Daughter of the Most High King Awareness too! I love you God! Use me for your purpose that I could be empty of me and FULL OF YOU! #surrenderedtothefather”
“What’s on my mind is how fantastic and perfect and HUGE my God is. He gave me life. He has always provisioned my life. He continues to do so even up to the end of my life. This morning, the plans for my cremation and final expenses were washed out from under me. Before I even got my feet wet, my God had a bridge under Me, and everything is all taken care of.”
Not long after Renee’s diagnosis, a friend asked if she could video her story to share with others. Renee was delighted! Her deepest passion was to serve God by allowing her past to be redeemed for His purposes. There are two videos, both about 30 minutes long. In the first Renee talks about her cancer and why she chose to go ahead with chemo even though, at best, it would buy her a few months. I’ll let her tell you in her own words,
“I can visit the chemo infusion places and sit with those people and tell them about God’s love, even if I don’t have cancer. But it’s different when I have the worst-case scenario and I am in their shoes, and then some. I can sit there with the love of God shining in my eyes and joy and share with them how I got that because you can’t buy that at Target, you can’t order it from Amazon.com. It’s a free gift, but if you don’t have it already and you’ve never seen it you don’t know that you want it, and if you do see it and figure out what it is you don’t know where to get it. And I can tell them that. So that’s my hope for chemo. Yes, it can extend my life and give me a few more months with my girls and all the friends I love so dearly and give me a chance to do some of the work for God and add it to my resume, and I haven’t wasted this time either. I didn’t want to waste my time in prison, and I don’t want to waste this time either, however long it might be.”
In the next video she shares her faith with those who struggle with addiction, speaking with empathy, transparency and conviction.
The videos were a gift to Renee. She treasured the opportunity to leave a legacy, and allow her story to impact the lives of others long after she had left her earthly body behind to inhabit a perfect, pain free one in the presence of her Savior.
I have shared her videos at the bottom of this page. I hope you take the time to watch them, and share them with anyone you know who needs to hear Renee’s powerful testimony.
Hopefully none of us has to travel the road that Renee did - whether it be addiction, prison, the pain and destruction that comes with all of that - or the suffering of cancer. But I hope that Renee’s life inspires you to find Jesus in the midst of whatever challenge you face today, to turn to Him on the bad days and to find comfort in the middle of the storm and say “it is well with my soul.”
Almost two years have passed since Renee received her healing and went to be with Jesus. I’m so glad I had the opportunity to get to know her even a little, and I look forward to seeing her again some day. I think I’ll know where to find her. She’ll either be anointing Jesus’ feet with oil and drying them with her lovely long hair (which I’m believing was restored in her perfected body), or standing with the angels before His throne, arms raised high, singing “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!” (Revelation 5:12 NIV)
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