The Last Letter of John Lewis

On July 30, 2020, the day of his funeral, The New York Times published an essay by Congressman John Lewis — written just days before his death from pancreatic cancer. For sixty years, from the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma to the halls of Congress, Lewis had endured beatings, arrests, and death threats. His skull was fractured at twenty-five. He was jailed over forty times. Yet in that final letter, there was no bitterness, no regret — only an unshakable conviction that the fight had been worth it. "I am filled with hope about the future," he wrote from his deathbed. "Do not get lost in a sea of despair."

That is the spirit of 2 Timothy 4. Paul writes from a Roman dungeon, facing execution, and yet his words carry no self-pity. "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." He does not boast in his own endurance. He points to the Lord who "stood at my side and gave me strength" — even when everyone else deserted him.

Some people collapse at the finish line. Others cross it standing tall, not because they were never wounded, but because Something greater than the wounds held them upright. Paul knew what Lewis learned: faithfulness is not the absence of suffering. It is the presence of the Almighty carrying you through it, all the way home.