Politics Jimmy Carter says he is ‘completely at ease with death’.
Two weeks after fracturing his pelvis in a fall, former president Jimmy Carter was back at church on Sunday, teaching from the book of Job.
Carter, 95, has lived longer than any other former president in U.S. history. He was hospitalized Oct. 21 after falling at his home in Plains, Ga. — his second fall that month and third this year.
But during a sermon at Maranatha Baptist Church on Sunday, from a motorized lift chair before a congregation of 400 people, Carter said he has been “at ease with death” for years, CBS News reported.
Carter has been teaching at church since his teens, according to the Associated Press, and he refused to miss another Sunday school lesson because of his health. The Rev. Tony Lowden said Secret Service agents, friends and fellow churchgoers encouraged the ex-president to refrain from teaching after his pelvic fracture, which came two weeks after the former president fell and required stitches on his forehead.
But Carter came anyway.
“He is pouring out that you might see Christ while he is suffering,” Lowden told the crowded church, according to the AP.
During his lesson, Carter cited his history of health issues as the source of his philosophy on death. In August 2015, he announced he had melanoma — which eventually spread to his brain. Carter said he “assumed, naturally, that I was going to die very quickly.”
“I, obviously, prayed about it. I didn’t ask God to let me live, but I just asked God to give me a proper attitude toward death. And I found that I was absolutely and completely at ease with death. It didn’t really matter to me whether I died or lived,” Carter said, according to the church’s Facebook Live video of his sermon. “I have, since that time, been absolutely confident that my Christian faith includes complete confidence in life after death.
“So, I’m going to live again after I die. Don’t know what form I’ll take, or anything.”
In recent years, Carter has achieved several presidential milestones. He joined George H.W. Bush as the only other president to reach age 94. In March, at 94 years and 172 days, he became the nation’s longest-living former president.
And last month, he and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, made history again; their marriage, at more than 73 years, is the longest presidential union.
At church on Sunday, Carter sat with the former first lady after his sermon, singing hymns.
This presentation contains images that were used under a Creative Commons License. Click here to see the full list of images and attributions:
NEWS PLACE.
0 Comments