My mother told me she was diagnosed with leukemia right
after my second daughter was born. She
told me while sitting around the kitchen table.
I can’t imagine how hard that was for her. Here she was, celebrating a joyous occasion,
yet she had to break the terrible news.
But she was a believer in God Almighty.
From the beginning she told me, “I will be okay”. She constantly told me how she knew the Lord
was using this for his glory and she had just decided to surrender to
that. She had many ups and downs. She would think she was cured, then a few
months would go by and her blood work would say otherwise.
About 4 years later, she called me one day,
crying and said she was tired of fighting and she wanted a quality of life over
quantity. That was extremely difficult
to deal with…..your mother, who you think will just be around forever, is
telling you her time is nearing. After
two more years of very hard battles, we gathered together as a family in my
mother’s hospital room. It was time to
say good-bye.
I’m going to back track now to two nights before we let Mother
go be with the Lord. Mother was pretty
much out of it in the hospital….hooked up to tubes, being supported totally by
medicine and a breathing machine. We
knew what we had to do, but oh was I dreading that drive down to North
Carolina. I really did not want to go,
but I knew of course I had to.
I was
very afraid.
The night before I left, I
got up to go to the bathroom. I looked
into the mirror and stood there amazed at how I looked. I looked really tired, awful, thin and just
stared at myself for a minute. I
couldn’t believe how much I looked like my mom.
It’s hard to explain, but I just saw myself in a different light. It made me think, if I’m this tired, then
imagine how tired of fighting mother must feel.
I went back to bed.
Fast forward to the long drive down to NC. I got to the hotel where my sister and I were
staying and we sat down to talk that night.
She told me she had a weird story to tell me. She told me that she had looked in the mirror
last night and her eyes looked just like mother’s eyes. It was amazing and that she just kind of
looked at herself taking it all in. I
broke down crying and she thought I was crazy; then I told her about MY story
of seeing “mother in my face”. We both
could not get over how we had the same strange experience on the same night.
(although it didn’t surprise us THAT much because MANY things had been
happening, and continued to happen after she passed).
I tell you this story
is because God gives us comfort, signs, people, songs etc. at the exactly the
RIGHT time, when we need them. We feel
this was God’s way of saying mother will continue to live on through us, she
will always be with us, and she will be okay.
We spoke to mom a lot
in the hospital. We have no idea if she
heard us, but a tear did roll down her cheek.
After she died, my sister and I left and immediately went shopping to
find her something to wear for the funeral.
As soon as we walked in Dress Barn, “In the Arms of the Angels” started
playing on the store sound system.
Again….we feel that was a sign from God letting us know everything was
okay.
We saw many things like this when mother was sick. My sister witnessed my mom, who was still out
from anesthesia, speak in tongues while she prayed over her. This was something none of us had ever been
exposed to in our lives, but it happened right before our eyes!
A few weeks after my mom died, I was crying pretty bad in
the shower one day; just depressed from everything. I remember telling God I felt like I was in
darkness and asked “where is the light Lord”? There has to be a light at the
end of the tunnel. That night while we
were all sleeping, I was awakened by my husband. He poked me and sort of scolded me for not
turning the lamp off (the one next to my bed).
I told him I never even turned it on and I always turn the lights out
before bed. I had no idea how this lamp
got turned on in the middle of the night; but I knew what it meant. I feel that light coming on in darkness, was
again, God’s way of saying, Yes! There
is light and it will all be okay. My husband
had a hard time believing my story but I think in the end he got it.
I know these may seem farfetched to some, but it is real and
this isn’t even everything that has happened.
But I wanted to tell a few stories to illustrate that God will let Himself be seen if we are open to it.
My
sister was so moved by these events that she got up at the funeral and basically
preached salvation to a packed sanctuary; something she would have NEVER done
before. She said the Holy Spirit just
moved her to do it.
How do we feel the comfort?
We have to be quiet, humble and just have an open heart. And of course we can ask God for it, because
he tells us he will give us the desires of our heart. God can comfort us after loss. We have to ask him to change our perspective
and let us see what he sees. He sees
eternally and we can’t really see past the next 20 years or so.
Our definition of time is not His.
Our definition of healing is not his.
I feel God prefers internal, spiritual
healing over physical, because our bodies are not with us forever. Our souls are what live on in Heaven, but we
cannot get there unless we commit to Him and his son Jesus Christ.
God did heal my mother…..just not on this
Earth.
Although I miss her so bad, she
was really sick. I wouldn’t have her
back if it meant she had to live with that awful cancer. I know she is TRULY LIVING right now. I hope if you have experienced a loss, you
will find comfort in these words. God
knows our pain; he gave us our emotions and is the ultimate comforter. I will leave you with one of my mom’s
favorite verses. It is very simple but
says a lot: “Be still and know that I am God.”
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