Thanks be to God

February 3, 2017

Day 34: A Gift of Light
"We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love." —1 John 4:16

Today's anecdote is about a woman named Rhonda whose bone marrow transplant awakened a "virus that was dormant since childhood." She did not survive, but Dr. Anderson describes her death as filled with love and peace. He and her family prayed together and Rhonda was reassured that her kids would be "left in her husband's capable hands to continue her legacy of love."  She was at peace and didn't say another word over the last two hours of her life, "but her face glowed as her body slowly released her soul into eternity."

Dr. Anderson said, "When Rhonda left us that day, she left the world a better and brighter place because of the love of God she had showered on all who knew her."  I wish I could say I had the same experience as Rhonda's children.  I wish I could have been at peace with my mother's passing.  I wasn't ready and the loss was felt deeply...profoundly...inexplicably.

(a poem I wrote shortly after my mother passed away)

I don't think I will ever "get over" my mother's death, but the deep pain of it has passed.  The main reason I was not able to be at peace with my mother's passing was because of all I had been taught as a member of the International Church of Christ. I felt that my mother was going to Hell because she was not living according to how I was taught a follower of Christ was supposed to live. What was I supposed to think and feel?  I was devastated and then I was angry at God for taking her before I had a chance to help her. Where was God's love and his patience?  I was lost.

You would think that I would have been comforted by the fact that God allowed her spirit to visit me twice to put my fear at ease, but I was not. There was a part of me that felt it was so real and that I could trust what I saw and felt and another part of me that believed I was imagining it as a way to deal with my overwhelming grief.

The first time was the day of her funeral. We came back to the house and I sat on the bed that my mother had been using before she was admitted to the hospital. I could not stop crying.  I was holding my face in my hands and I felt her spirit sit on the bed beside me. I actually felt the bed move down a little and she gently moved my hair back over my ear and said, "Don't cry, baby. I am fine." I whispered through tears, "I miss you." She said, "I know, but everything is going to be fine." ...and then she disappeared.

The second time I was driving to work, thinking of her with tears streaming down my face. I could hardly see the road. I was just about to school when I felt her spirit come through the passenger side door and sit beside me. I said, "Mom?" and though I did not hear a reply, I knew it was her. She just sat there for a minute as if she was thinking of what to say and then she told me again that she was fine and that I shouldn't cry. She let me know that she would not be able to visit me again and that she was going to travel and see the things that she never got to see in her life. That was the last time I felt her presence.

I found some comfort in those visits, but not enough to convince me that she was with God or was going to be. I still believed it was my way of coping. When I think of it all now, I realize how stubborn I can be. How frustrating I must be to God, not just in this instance, but in so many.

Thanks be to God for He is "compassionate and gracious, Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness." —Psalm 103:8

Yes. Thanks be to God.