"Take nothing with you." Jesus is saying, be Knights of Faith. Do this journey right. Do it the way it is supposed to be done. Journey with grace. Make your journey without any visible means of support. Make your journey with the spiritual equivalent of "no hands," so that others, seeing your faith, seeing the way that you make your journey, will be astonished. How does she do that? And give glory to your father in heaven.

And I have seen that with my own mother. I have stood there and asked, how does she do it? She knows what's going to happen. The doctors have told her. She knows that it is not far away. But look at her. She laughs; she makes jokes about the way her wig looks. Then she asks about me. She asks about my family, the children, where we are going to spend our summer.

Then she cries. Because you know, it's not the right time. Things are not the way they should be. There are still things that she wants to do. There are joys that mothers know that she will never experience. There are celebrations that are coming, and she wants to participate in them. But it's not going to happen. So she weeps. Then she says, "But I'm going to keep on going anyway. I'm going to go right up to the end. And I'm not afraid."

I stand there, and I watch her ride through the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil, sitting there, straight and tall, perfect balance in her life, no hands. She is at that point in her journey when she is traveling on faith alone. She is taking nothing with her now, but faith. I stand there in awe, and I give thanks.