40 Days – Time with God (Dealing with Loss & Grief) is the title of a new devotional book co-authored by Pat Baxter and I that will be released in a few months time.

Pat and I co-authored 40 Days – Time with God in 2021, a 40-day devotional book for those in ministry and we were planning on starting another devotional book in 2023. We had not settled on a theme for the book yet, when Pat was told in April that she had advanced pancreatic cancer and given six to twelve months to live. She knew she would not be here to finish the book. I told her I would finish it for both of us.
This book is a tribute to her life and her death.

On the 21st of June 2023 I was in the process of booking my flight tickets to Johannesburg to visit Pat (I live in Cape Town) to discuss the book, when I was given the news that Pat had gone to be with the Lord, less than two months after being given the news of the cancer.

When she was given the news of the cancer, Pat had only two main concerns.

One, was that her congregation were desperate to hold prayer meetings for her healing and she was concerned that if God didn’t heal her here on earth her congregation would be disappointed and angry with God. The second concern was the pain she may have to endure as the cancer progressed.  I spoke to her three days before she died, and she had no pain.

Pat believed that God would either heal her physically here on earth or her healing would come when she died.

A few days after finding out she had cancer she wrote the following in a message to me “I do know God’s presence. It is a very serene and peaceful time in the midst of the raving cancer”.

40 Days – Time with God (Dealing with Loss & Grief) is a collaboration of 16 writers consisting of Pat’s friends and colleagues and people who never met Pat but were willing to write about their own journey with loss and grief.

Pat’s writing is also included in the book as I was able to use her Bible studies and notes to form devotions.