This past weekend was a sad one for Newton County. Many of you know Bro. Randy Cuchens, who is the minister of music at Newton First Baptist Church, and his wife Susan, who worked with the Logan and Mayo law office for many years.
As church was letting out around the county on Sunday afternoon, we all heard the devastating news that Susan passed away. Not long ago, she was diagnosed with cancer. I’m pretty sure she was on nearly all of the church prayer lists around the coun
ty.
While she may not have received her healing here on earth, she is now healed and at rest with the Lord.
We don’t know why the Lord allowed this to happen. This has reminded me of losing family members to cancer in the last few years. My Aunt Kay and my Uncle Al from Florida both finished their fights with cancer three years ago.
And a year ago this week, my Uncle Mike unexpectedly went home to be with the Lord after a suffering a massive heart attack after he was seemingly in the best health I can ever remember him being in.
There’s no way to know when your time is going to come.
I will say throughout this whole battle, Randy and Susan have shown great faith and great strength. If I were in the same position, I only hope I can be as faithful as they have been.
Their resolve reminded me of the resolve that was shown by the late Jimmy Valvano, national championship coach of the N.C. State basketball team.
When he received the Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian award from ESPN during their ESPY Awards, he delivered one of the most inspiring speeches I have ever heard.
I think his words apply here to what I’ve seen from the Cuchens family. Here is a small part of his speech:
“When people say to me how do you get through life or each day, it’s the same thing. To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. Number three is you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special...
“Cancer can take away all my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever.”
May we learn to cherish every day of our lives and to live life to the fullest.
Contact Brent at bmaze@-newtoncountyappeal.com.
