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Yet his mother never complained, and was always appreciative of God's blessings, believing "He kept an eye out for widows with small children," Smedes said. In later years, he told his audience, that gratitude came more fully to his consciousness.

Smedes, whose teachings and books on forgiveness touched the lives of many, said forgiveness comes from understanding the fact that "the God who has the whole world in his hands has grace for the whole world in his heart."

He also said that as he got older he became more grateful, noting a brush with death a few years earlier.

"I felt like a fragile bubble floating in the air, held aloft by nothing but the breath of God. I knew that a little pinprick could break the bubble, and will one day, and I'd be a goner," he said. "But God was keeping for now, keeping on breathing the breath of life into me. And life keeps coming. It won't always come, but for this day, for now, for right now, it's enough."

In what would turn out to be one of his last public appearances, Smedes was the inaugural speaker at a lecture series held at St. Paul's Episcopal Parish in Bakersfield, California. Rev. Mark Lawrence, rector of the parish, said that Smedes looked a bit frail and, using a cane, evoked a "Gandalfian" image in his November 23 appearance.

"But [he had an] inner strength, there was an authenticity to what he had to say about forgiving and forgiveness," Lawrence said.

"In talking with people afterwards, they thought, 'how is he going to get through this?' He did, and in a way that added to the quality of his presentation, his character and strength of person came through in a way that clearly was something that connected with people," Lawrence added.

Along with the lecture, Smedes held a workshop on the Saturday of that weekend and preached the next day, Lawrence said.

"On Sunday he preached on gratitude and hope, that sense of a grateful life and a life that in spite of sorrows and the grief of the world chose — and chooses — to hope is an image that remains in my mind."

Smedes's appeal, said Harper SanFrancisco's Loudon, went beyond evangelical precincts.

"He wrote not just to a Christian in-crowd," he said. "Lew's books, especially Forgive and Forget, had a way of presenting psychological issues in a way that transcended the evangelical seminary world."

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Christianity Today's January 10, 2000, cover story, "The Forgiveness Factor," talked about how Smedes's theological research was later adapted by social scientists studying the healing power of forgiveness.

"30 Good Minutes" has ten sermons by Smedes. Five have audio, two have video.

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December (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46