Marxia Naquila

Life wasn't easy on the young Marxia. Our family moved a lot during preschool years. I remember the three of us sisters sleeping with only one pillow to share. Meal on time was a luxury. We wore hand me downs shoes during elementary years - they were a size bigger and we used them for several years. School lunch was brought from home and it was not in an insulated container. We ate it at room temperature. Sometimes it was close to going bad but we ate it anyway. High school years, we recycled spiral notebooks. We’d take the spiral out of the old ones, collect all the unused pages and re-bound them together with the same spiral. Mom had to save up so we could buy one annual class picture. Having little can make or break someone. It can turn someone selfish and hardhearted. Notwithstanding, Marxia flourished as a trusting, gracious lady. Life threw more difficult times at her. Moving to a country foreign to her at the age of 21 for work. A single Mom at 22. Language and cultural differences made it difficult to blend. A miscarriage. A breast cancer diagnosis. Metastatic cancer. Years of chemotherapy. In spite of those, she continued to blossom, nurturing and thinking of others rather than herself. May 3-10, unknown to me, would be the last week to spend with her. I witnessed her experience diverse struggles- interrupted sleep, being woken up at 4 am for tests and x-rays, requiring 40-60 liters of oxygen continuously, extreme chest pain with minimal exertion- even just to roll on her side, emptying her bladder and bowel using hospital equipment, agony in the middle of the night from her distended abdomen. Did she get weary? For a second, maybe a minute. Time and again, she was cheerful and bright, greeting every staff member by their first names as they entered her hospital room. I saw her joyously reading her Bible and devotions. She was animated when she received her hospital food tray- even though it was a challenge to swallow and protect her airway at the same time. She was sunny and merry as she cleaned her bedside tray with the disinfectant wipes, made a trash can out of her water pitcher, straightened her pad and blankets. No one, not even the closest person to her knew how much she has truly suffered - we do have a good idea but not the full extent of it. That was something that only her and her Creator knew so well, and that was all she needed. Life threw what it had at her but she didn't flinch. She loved, forgave and made life easier for others every single chance she got. In the end, life knew it lost to her and let her go to be with her Creator who loved her, forgave her and restored her every single time she needed it. Romans 1:20 says “For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.” That was her secret to life. She knew God. Intimately. And she wishes for you to know Him as well. She believes this is how you can make it through life here on earth. Knowing God and being loved by Him doesn’t mean you’ll have an easy life. Marxia had many many scars from her battles here on earth- but now, like the song says, the only scars in Heaven are in the hands that hold her now.