Death will come forJimmy Cartermuch sooner than it will for many others, but he has found peace.
Returningto teach Sunday schoolat Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, where he has taught for years, the 95-year-old former president reportedly talked about dying and the promise of life after dying that is central to his Christian faith.
But he did reflect on his 2015 cancer treatment — his most harrowing health episode.
His parents and siblings had all died of cancer years before him, and he did not expect to survive either after learning that the disease had infected his brain.
“I assumed, naturally, I was going to die very quickly,” Carter told the congregation, according to ABC.
“I said a prayer about it,” he said. But Carter “didn’t ask God to let me live.”
He was looking for peace of mind,according toThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution: the right way to face whatever was coming next.
“I found that I was absolutely, completely at ease with death,” he said, according to the AJC. Instead, he survived, thanks in part to innovative immunotherapeutic treatments.
Former President Jimmy Carter in 2019.The organizer/China News Service/Visual China Group/Getty
Former President Jimmy Carter at Habitat for Humanity in October.Mark Humphrey/AP/Shutterstock
From left: Former President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter in September 2018.John Amis/AP/Shutterstock
During his Sunday school lesson this week, Carter talked about his evolving views on the Christian promise for the devout of eternal life and resurrection, according to ABC and theAJC.
He said that while he’d had earlier doubts in his life, his faith had grown stronger in part because of his own struggles.
“I’m going to live again,” he said, according to theAJC.
“It’s hard to live until you’re 95 years old,” hetold PEOPLE in October.
He said that he and Mrs. Carter, because they are older now and more frail (he actually used the word “decrepit”), plan only one year in advance. They will travel to the Dominican Republic with Habitat in 2020.
He said theysavor periodic pausesin the public life from which neither will yet retire.
source: people.com
