Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 26, 2015, I arrived home  around 9:30 a.m., from The Laurels of Salisbury after feeding my wife, Faye, breakfast.

My morning plans were to turn on the TV and watch part of the Macy’s parade while looking over the multitude of ads in the Salisbury Post. My eye caught a front page article by Susan Shinn about Pastor Gary Weant’s battle with osteosarcoma (diagnosed August 25, 2014).

Gary is a 65-year-old highly intelligent, capable, articulate, impressive Lutheran pastor who has served admirably his entire 36-year ministry in his first call.

I have known about Gary’s battle with cancer for certainly over a year through the NC Lutheran Synod’s newsletter and other sources, and during this same time I have been embroiled in my wife’s cancer battle.

Faye was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer in August 2014 and has been a resident at The Laurels since then. Susan’s article about Gary and his courage, faithful sufferings and trials was an amazing Thanksgiving blessing for me! I can vicariously identify with Gary and his family and could never have expressed my journey in such beautiful, encouraging terms as Gary!

One of the ways in which I escape is playing solitaire on the computer. Yesterday morning I must have spent several hours paying solitaire and contemplating life and theology.

Tom T. Hall sings a song titled “Deal” in which life is compared to a card game. I have compared life to the solitaire card game numerous times. In one way it is interesting to see that winning or losing often depends upon the very last card to be played.  The game of solitaire definitely supports Yogi Berra’s axiom “It ain’t over until it’s over!”

Many of us, from different faith backgrounds, believe and know that the last card to be played in our earthly life is the winning card. And, furthermore, so many times in life after having gone through events and circumstances, win or lose, we have an opportunity to reshuffle and deal again. It is important to win, but the joy of living comes from enjoying the journey, growing and learning from each adventure.

A friend said when the family went on trips she would tell the children that the trip would be fun, and before long the children would begin asking “Mamma, are having fun yet?”

It takes more poetical licenses than I have to see what we generally think of as “fun” in Pastor Gary’s journey or my current journey. On the other hand, perhaps we should examine and redefine our understanding of “fun.” Let me try to do so.

How about something like this: “Fun is courageously, hopefully, and with determination grasping and faithfully playing the ‘hand’ we have been dealt.”

In Susan Shinn’s article about Pastor Gary Weant there is a picture of this pastor standing in the church, without hair and minus his right arm, both being results of what he refers to as the “evil of cancer” and yet Gary was still wearing his servant robe, and such a wonderful smile on his face! Wow! What an extra ordinary picture of faith, hope, love — and courage!

Pastor Weant speaks of his anger. I can identify with his anger. Anger is pain. As a wounded animal, for example a pet dog, suffering from physical pain will often turn and snap at his master who is trying to help, so can angry people. Knowing Pastor Gary Weant as I do, I do not think he does that.

I see Gary more in control of his pain-induced anger. But I surely have to fight against reacting to anger pain by snapping out and seeking to find someone or something to blame.

On at least two different occasions in my life, as I was timidly trying to express myself to them, the person with whom I was speaking, recognizing my difficulty formulating my thoughts, said to me: “You can say anything you want to say to me!”

And I am grateful that God has often said the very same thing to me: “Friend, you can speak to me with impunity!”

Playing computer solitaire helps me relax. Stealing away with God, listening to his still, small voice, can be even more comforting and relaxing.

This Thanksgiving Day I had much for which to be thankful. January 20, 2015, Faye and I, and our family, celebrated our fifty-fourth wedding anniversary. On September 3, 2014 a liver specialist with Forsyth Hospital in Greensboro said there was nothing medical science could do to stem or even slow down Faye’s terminal cancer. This physician predicted she had three months to live.

Other competent doctors confirmed the diagnosis but did not venture to predict a time table. When God gets Faye’s room ready she will be moving into it. In the mean time Faye sometimes still flashes that smile that won my heart some fifty-five years ago!

Susan Shinn’s article on the front page of the Thanksgiving day Salisbury Post is one of the many things for which I am thankful.

So, thank you, Susan, thank you, Gary, for your strong witness, thank you, Salisbury Post, and thanks be to God!

Clarence E. Sifford is a retired ELCA pastor.