A Brady Bunch of Love
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For Edward and Dedi Taylor, six kids weren’t enough. When the news of another child hit this family from Sparta, New Jersey, nine-year-old Ned excitedly prepared for the arrival of “my baby brother.”
Jacqui was born in August 1964. “Ooooh nooo!” whined Ned. “I don’t want another sister!”
When Edward shared Ned’s reaction with Dedi, she scribbled a note:
“Dear Ned,
“I know you’re disappointed, but of course it was never up to us to decide the girl-boy bit. It was always in God’s hands. So please try to think instead of how very lucky we are to have a healthy, normal baby. And since you are the oldest of the boys, maybe it’s time for you to have a special job to do. Would you put yourself in charge of Jacqueline—be her special protector? You know, when she goes to kindergarten no bully will ever dare to bother her because all she’ll have to do is threaten to tell you, her big brother! We’ll talk about it when I see you.”1
When Jacqui came home, everyone smothered her with attention—except Ned. He busied himself composing this lullaby for her: “Go to sleep, little creep, / I’m tired and I’m beat. / Go to sleep, little creep, / before I drop you.”
In 1967, Ned’s attitude began to change. Dedi noticed that Ned’s eyes were streaked with yellow. Uuuueeee! one kid squealed, “You got a yellow spider weaving a web around your eyeballs!” A blood test revealed that Ned had hepatitis and must be confined to bed.
Only Jacqui delighted in the diagnosis. Now she’d have her favorite “big brova” home with her all the time. Although a folding gate served as a barrier to entering Ned’s room, Jacqui camped just outside the door to be with Ned. She insisted they have her third birthday party in the hallway so Ned could be included.
Meanwhile, Ned grew worse and was admitted to the hospital. For Jacqui, this was devastating. Even in a family bigger than the Brady Bunch, life was lonely and the house felt empty with Ned gone.
Ned also missed Jacqui. She was replaced by a jungle of cold, glowing equipment operated by strangers. Still, he remained optimistic.
Only once did Ned’s cheerful spirit sour. After two months, he announced, “I’m tired of being sick.” Then he added, “Don’t worry, Mom. Things always turn out all right.”
But things weren’t all right. On Thanksgiving morning, 1967, Ned Taylor died. The puzzled doctors performed an autopsy in hopes of discovering the cause of his death.
A year and a half later, the Taylors received a letter from a stranger, Dr. Israel Herbert Scheinberg, an expert in rare hereditary diseases. He claimed to know the cause of Ned’s death—Wilson’s disease (progressive hepatolenticular degeneration). First recognized by the British neurologist Kinnear Wilson in 1912, there was no test to detect this disease until the 1950s, when Dr. Scheinberg, along with Dr. David Gitlin, developed one at Harvard Medical School.2
Dr. Scheinberg explained that this rare, inherited disease is caused by a buildup of toxic quantities of copper in the brain, liver, and other organs. He said that the odds of passing along the faulty gene to a child are less than one in forty thousand. Nevertheless, he urged that a blood analysis be done on all the Taylor children.
The blood test confirmed that Jacqui also had Wilson’s disease. Fortunately, it wasn’t too late. With medication and a strict diet, she could expect a normal life!
Following the test results, Edward and Dedi talked of Jacqui’s close encounter with death. “It was Ned who saved her, you know,” Edward said. “Without the tissue from his body, they never would have diagnosed her case in time.”
“Yes, I know,” Dedi replied. “Remember the letter I wrote Ned, asking him to take care of his baby sister?”
“I remember.”
“Who could have known how well he would do just that?”
Months later, Jacqui and Mom visited Ned’s grave. There Dedi shared with Jacqui the story of how the disease had been diagnosed only after Ned had died.
Shortly after that visit, Dedi wrote this in her journal: “Sadness and a sense of loss will forever be a part of my being. But that day with Jacqui—sunbeams dancing off her long, shining hair, sturdy legs bent as she concentrated on digging a proper hole for a chrysanthemum plant—I felt the sweet, sad joy of acceptance, of having come to terms with life.”3 Ned’s death had indirectly given Jacqui the gift of life.
You, too, can come to terms with life—eternal life. For the sacrifice of Jesus has been complete. “Christ purchased you at an infinite cost,” writes Ellen White. “He says to the Father. ‘Here is a poor sinner. I have given My life for him. He is saved by My grace. Receive him as Your child.’ Do you think the Father will refuse?”4
Of this you can be certain: the Father will not reject you after giving His only Son to redeem you. The Cross boldly declares the good news that there is no reason to feel uncertain as you stand before the Judge. You can face your eternal future with no doubt.
This assurance of salvation is illustrated in the movie End of the Spear. It tells the true story of five missionaries in the 1950s who died while trying to share the gospel with the violent Waodoni tribe in the Ecuadorian jungles. A fearless man named Nate Saint inspired his team of missionaries to reach out to the Waodoni, who were repeatedly involved in intertribal warfare.
In one scene, Nate’s family gathers around him on the dirt airstrip in front of their house. As he is telling his family goodbye, his son, Steve, spots a rifle in his father’s plane. Concerned, he asks his father, “If the Waodoni attack, will you use your guns? Will you defend yourselves?”
Unflinchingly, Nate answers Steve, “Son, we can’t shoot the Waodoni. They’re not ready for heaven. We are.”5
Can you speak with the same certainty about being ready for heaven? The apostle Paul lived with this assurance of his eternal future. He wrote, “Now we look forward with confidence to our heavenly bodies” (2 Corinthians 5:6, TLB).
Do you have this confidence? You can! How? Accept Jesus Christ as your Savior and you will be saved (1 John 5:12, 13). “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8, 9).
Haffner, Karl. No Greater Love . Pacific Press Publishing Association. Kindle Edition.