Did you love my friend, Pat’s, everyday jesus story on Thursday, or what? Wow, did Jesus ever protect her! He is always present in our days and lives. Always.
You folks are mighty quiet out there. I had hoped many of you would share your stories of how you see Jesus at work in your daily life. What an encouragement those stories would be to men and women who are just trying to make it through another day. Loosen up those typing fingers, friends, and send me your everyday jesus story via email at [email protected].
Ok, now to my everyday jesus story for this week. My story is probably one of the most emotional Jesus moments in several weeks. I’m going to try to get through it without an ugly cry, but if I have to stop, wipe away a few tears, and blow my nose, please don’t leave me. I’ll be right back.
Week before last was a tough, tough week on a couple of fronts. I, along with some other women with whom I collaborate on a weekly link-up, went through a very difficult, very emotional time for several days that week. I felt like I had been wrung out like a dishrag as we moved through the turmoil. Then, on top of that, my mind and heart were taken with my Mother.
If you have been journeying with me for at least 3 or 4 months, you know that my Mother passed away in late November after an almost year long struggle with multi-infarct dementia. The dementia came on suddenly, and progressed fast and furiously. Because I am a pharmacist by training, the responsibility for making medical decisions for Mom fell to me. Although I talked every decision through with my sister, she left the final medical decisions to me. And true to my nature, I powered through the decisions with the help of the Lord, and Mother’s physicians. I never considered the full weight of the responsibility all that decision making placed on me. Until last week….
That is when I began having flashbacks of my sweet little Mother….her face looking up at me from her chair, her trusting eyes, her unquestioning heart. Suddenly, the heaviness of the responsibility of all those medical decisions fell on me like a winter blizzard. Had I made the right decisions for my Mother? Had I done the very best for her? I wept several times. It was almost too much for my heart to bear, to think that I might have failed her in some way. I didn’t tell a soul what I was feeling, because I could hardly put it into words.
On Sunday, our Sunday school class went out to lunch after church. Greg and I arrived early, as did our teacher, Steve, and his wife, Kathy who we have known since high school. As we sat at the table chatting and waiting on the others to come from church, Kathy looked me and said, “Leah, how are you?” I’m not sure she knew what she was asking!
That was all it took. Like a swollen river, my pain burst forth. Brushing back tears, I told Kathy what I had been feeling. In those moments, Jesus ministered to me so tenderly through Kathy. She said, “Leah, you know you made the right decisions for your Mom. You did the best for her that you could. You were so strong through all of this, but you have to eventually grieve, and this is part of the grieving process. Let yourself grieve the loss of your Mom.”
Kathy helped me realize that all of my ‘what ifs’ are pointless. Mother is with Jesus (may I admit to being a bit jealous?), and I did make the very best decisions possible for her at a time when she could not make them because of the dementia. What sweet relief and peace flooded my heart in those moments! Kathy was, quite literally, the voice of Jesus to me in the middle of my pain. What a blessing she was! Thank you, Jesus, for dealing with me tenderly.
There, I made it through without crying! That’s my everyday jesus story. I hope you will be encouraged by it, and send me your story.
Are you walking through a difficult time in your life? Here is a link to a book that rocked my word and encouraged my faith in amazing ways in 2002 when we were told my Daddy had metastatic colon cancer. I have returned to this book time and again over the years.
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Dear friends, today’s post provides me the perfect time to tell you that I have decided to step back from being a hostess at the Grace & Truth link-up on Fridays. I have been so blessed to be a hostess at Grace & Truth. However, I am finding that working through the grief associated with my Mom’s death, plus work, ministry, and home responsibilities are really more than I can say grace over, physically and emotionally, right now. I want to be a good steward of my time and energy, using them to accomplish the tasks God has assigned to me, but also carving out time to heal from Mother’s passing and all that surrounded it.
So, if you normally link up to Grace & Truth through my blog, I hope you will visit one of my friends (click on the links below) and link up via their site. I will still be linking up each Friday at Grace & Truth, I just won’t be a host site for the link-up.
Linking up this week at Grace & Truth,
and Purposeful Faith.
