My Friend, Leigh McLeroy

September 12, 2025

When I called Leigh McLeroy a few days ago, on September 8, she answered in her predictable manner, “Hello friend.” Her tone of voice was a cheerful and pleasant as it ever had been. We’ve kept in touch over the years, usually to compare notes about life as writers who want to use our crafts in ways that bring God’s truth to ‘earth as it is in heaven’. 

But we didn’t talk much about books or work in the recent conversation. 

We talked about heaven and hope and goodness.

She had written me a day previous to tell me that her cancer had abruptly worsened and that she was going into hospice care that week.

Her glad surrender to the likelihood of death brought memories of my brother to mind. The praise she had for the community that is presently showering her with kindness is a clear picture of what faith looks like when it is ‘done right’. 

There really was something that could only be described as joy in Leigh’s voice when we spoke.

That said, her demeanor and the love of her friends don’t keep me from being sad about what will be lost when she leaves the world.

Before calling Leigh, I had thought of her throughout the day. I had pulled her books off my bookshelf and revisited some of the passages I highlighted when I first read them fifteen or twenty years ago. (She sent me copies of her books in 2008 after findingme on the Rabbit Room website.) 

It dawned on me, and I told her, that writers have the special privilege of telling their stories and sharing their thoughts long after they are gone. Ink and paper have death-defying potential.

I’ll read her books with a fresh meaning now. Thank God for ones like her who remind us to see the sacred in the ordinary. 

Praying for Leigh.

October 1, 2025

Leigh was single all her life. I think she would have like to be married. But she lived purposefully, generously, joyfully. She considered herself — and not in some strange, eery sort of way — married to Christ. Again, thoughts of my brother Gary come to mind.

I received a message from Leigh’s phone this morning.

“Leigh is with her groom. Praise the Lord.”

It was an announcement of good news. Gloriously good news. News of a promise kept. 

I’ll miss “hello friend”.

But I trust I’ll hear it again someday.

That, and ‘ihehyabah’.

Amen.