[QUOTE=Lynda;3698]So many times in our lives Jesus is speaking to us through others and if you are too busy to listen you will miss a very important message. Last February My mother passed away from alziemers. The end was not pretty for her at all. My sisters and I went to see her and she was having a very bad day. Did not recognize any of her children and was very agitated and wailing nonstop. We decided that maybe a stroll outside to see some sunshine would help her, so we got her all wrapped up in her wheelchair and took her outside. No matter what we tried we could not comfort her or get her to stop crying or be calm. Then this little man come out to the sidewalk and seeing her in distress starting calmly telling her that everything was going to be O.K.. That Jesus loved her and was making a new home for her in heaven.That it was a beautiful place and he was waiting for her. Shortly after he started talking, she became very calm and listened intently to what he was saying. She then reached her hands and eyes up to the skies and said thank you, several times to the skies and to this man. It was her ONLY cognizant moment of the day.It was her ONLY unagitated moment of the day.The man it turned out was a 92 year old retired Seventh Day Adventist minister. I believe that the spirit of Jesus was speaking through him and that is why he was the only person all day that could calm her.[/QUOTE]
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GOD is Good. Amen and Amen
Lynda, my mother passed away this past March. She had a brain aneurysm erupt. And instead of going quickly, she lingered, hanging on between life and death for days.
I was her only daughter among her many sons - and her only child who expresses belief in God, and trusts in God. She, herself, gave up on her childhood conviction that the God of the universe was a benevolent, loving Father. She tried to hang on to her childhood convictions, believing in a loving God - and succeeded through the births of her six sons... unfortunately, she lost hold of her beliefs in God, when I was yet a small child. Therefore, God, was not to be mentioned in our home again. My mother was a very wounded, angry woman with a past history that left not only herself, but many, many people, like herself, hating a God they refused to acknowledge the existance of any longer.
My mother, praise GOD, gave her life to Christ five months before she expired. She prayed with me the sinners prayer, and the prayer of faith in Christ as her LORD and Saviour, her Messiah; at the end of October 2007, during my last visit with her before March 2008, when the aneurysm in her brain erupted.
It wasn't only God that she had hated. She had hated me most of my life, and had completely disowned me by the the time I was twelve - not realizing, it wasn't me that she hated - she had only been projecting her own self hatred, her own fears, bitterness, her own tragic history, onto the closest female figure in her life she had around to identify with - and project everything she hated about herself, and her history onto - - which was me, her only daughter.
I became her scape goat. (my father had passed away when I was still quite young.)
The night I arrived at the airport, I rented a car and went directly to the hospital. When I entered her room, she was in terrible distress, and two of my brothers who had made it there before me, informed me she was dying right then. I asked their permission to be left alone with her a few minutes, which they granted me.
I stood there looking at this woman who had hated me all my life - and on whom I had spent many years financially supporting, and lavishing upon her, gifts - my husband and I made sure she wanted for nothing. I did all of this out of my own desperation to gain her approval, in hope of her validation of my worthiness to be loved by her. I know how twisted this logic was - but most of the time, I was completely unaware of my own motives.
All I could do, standing there, was to cry - Abba Father, what do I do now? My awesome, Merciful Father, LORD GOD, Immediately responded to my distress - and His peace washed over me, complete and perfect, nothing lacking, nothing lost. I went to her bed-side and began to gently combed her hair with my fingers, and I softly sang to her, "Keep your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things on earth shall grow strangley dim in the light of His glory and grace.... " and my mother's panicked struggle to breath, became calm, and she began to breathe with far less distress. When a nurse came in to check to see if she was dead or alive - she stood staring at her, slack-jawed - with a look of unbelief in her expression. And for the next week she was up and down, back and forth, ready to expire one minute, then recovering the next. I never left her side. Finally a hospital chaplin came in late one evening and explained to me that sometimes a person might want to pass on but a family member(s) won't let go, and the person dying will fight to hold on for them. It was something for me to think about, she said.
When one of my brothers walked back into her room, I asked him to stay with her awhile, I needed to get some fresh air. I walked out of her room - straight to the nurses station, asked for directions to the hospital Chapel. I went straight to Chapel and got on my knees, and fell into the arms of my loving Father GOD in prayer. When I was again calm, and peaceful, I knew what I was to do next. So, back to my mother's side I went. And my brother who was very tired, took his leave, and I was left alone with my mother. I went to her side and I began to pray, and as I prayed, her breathing became more labored and distressed - until I leaned over and kissed her forerhead - and softly spoke into her ear, "I forgive you, Mom." That was what I believe the LORD revealed to me - I needed to forgive her, and she needed to hear me say to her ,"I forgive you, Mom, I forgive you, I love you, and I forgive you!" Her breathing became less labored, and she became more peaceful again. The next morning as the sun was rising, she went home to be with the LORD.
Even if we should find ourselves unable to speak, the LORD will find a way to speak for us. Even as He did with your mother and with my own mother.
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