What is the longest you’ve ever gone without talking to your mom? Until today, I think the longest I’ve ever gone without talking to my mom was maybe a week. Still, even a week seems too long to me.
Did you know there is scientific research that supports the voice of a mother and the well being of her child? According to an article published by Critical Care Nurse Journal, “At least 3 lines of research appear to converge on the notion that hearing our mother’s voice may confer more than just familiar, pleasing sounds to our ears. One line of research supports the long recognized preference that human infants display for their mother’s voice. Another notes the soothing effects that a mother’s voice has on preadolescent girls. A third line of study extends directly into critical care by considering whether the familiar voice of our mother may be capable of penetrating the neurologic impasse of unresponsiveness associated with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI).” An article put out by NBC News also supports this when it claims that, “A mother's voice has the power to settle jangled nerves and maybe even reach through the fog of a coma to bring a brain-injured patient back to consciousness, according to a pair of new experiments.”
Speaking from personal experience, I can attest that I could clearly hear my mom talk to me when I was in a coma in 2006. I remember her explaining to me, “Paul, you’ve been in a car accident and you’re in the hospital. You don’t have any broken bones, but you have some lung damage and they have you on a ventilator to help you breathe.” Mom would reassure me and comfort me by saying, “But you’re going to be alright.”
Comforting our worries, calming our fears, soothing our spirits and loving us unconditionally - these are just a few of the millions of things moms are best at. I don’t care how old we get; the sound of our mother’s voice brings us comfort, peace, and calm. I immensely miss talking to my mom and hearing her voice. I know the rest of my family feels the same way.
Mom was ALWAYS there for us. No matter what measure of time had passed, no matter what we had done to aggravate her, no matter how negative things were left the last time we spoke, mom was always there. Mom was always there to protect us, always there to support us and always there to fight for us when we needed it. When it came to the well being of her children, our mom did whatever it took and had very little fear. She was a significant source of strength for all of her children.
Now, all I have left are pieces of her in photos, videos, and memories. It’s devastating for me to see that it’s been a year since I have seen or talked to my mom. The void in our lives where mom once was has become clearer. As we move forward without her, it hurts. I hate it. And as I drive and see the leaves on the trees changing color, I am overwhelmed with sadness. Such a beautiful time of year has been robbed of its color and vibrancy. I think back to this day last year, the last memories I have of my mom and my mom’s final moments here on earth.
After receiving a phone call that mom had taken a turn for the worse, I was intensely grieved and worried. A week earlier, we had celebrated Mom and dad’s 40th wedding anniversary. Though she was weak and confined to her bed, she was still smiling and talking. I still had hope. But now, after hearing of her drastic decline, I decided I needed to be and stay with my mom.
When I first arrived at mom’s house early that week, mom would sleep a lot. Occasionally, she would smile and interact with us, but she was fading fast. The hospice nurse was seemingly always taking my dad aside and giving him devastating reports. During the night, my mom’s two sisters, my wonderful aunts Paula and Rhonda, took shifts taking care of her. During the day, the hospice nurse would come. For the first couple days, mom was still somewhat coherent, though heavily medicated. She would still occasionally moan in pain when her medication would start to wear off. And while I hated to hear and see my mom in so much pain, the sounds of her pain meant she was still alive and there was still time for God to do something.
But now, mom just laid there still, her breathing becoming more and more shallow and her throat beginning to rattle. The hospice nurse took my dad and my aunts aside to talk to them. Though I couldn’t hear her, I knew what she was telling them. Still, I refused to believe that God was not going to show up. I prayed even more vigorously, my heart and soul crying out to God, “Lord Jesus, please save my mommy!” With my spirit burning with anger, I cursed the cancer in the name of Jesus. In love and tenderness, I held my mother’s hand. I remember thinking, “Jesus, what more can I do?” There were so many things I wished I could do, but there was nothing more I could do. There were so many things I wanted to say, but now, there was no more time to say them. Mom was 100% in the hands of our Heavenly Father.
I looked up at mom and saw what I thought was red medicine starting to come out of my mom’s mouth. I said to the hospice nurse, “I think she’s got some medicine coming out of her mouth.” Why the hospice nurse replied to me the way she did, I’ll never know, but I’ll never forget her words. In a very casual tone, the hospice nurse said to me, “No, she’s passing.” At that moment, I’m not sure if it was the flippant way in which the nurse responded to me, or that I just wasn’t ready to hear those words, but those words literally cut straight into my heart and shredded it into a million pieces. I’ve never been in the presence of someone dying before and, dear Jesus, this was my mommy.
The hospice nurse called in my dad and the rest of my family. I remember hearing the trembling voice of my dad say, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I know he had hoped and prayed, as we all had, that God would show up, intervene and heal my mom. But at this moment, our prayers weren’t answered and God did not show up to heal my mom.
The images of my mom’s final minutes were terrifying and they continue to haunt me. I fear those images and memories will stay with me for the rest of my life. Completely helpless and in shock, I watched as mom left this world. At that moment, I had no tears, though I wanted them. No words, though I needed them. No comfort, though I needed it. Nothing. I had nothing. I just had nothing.
Breaking the silence were the shouts and cries of my sister who was desperately holding onto my mom, begging her not to leave. Joining in my sister’s tears were the cries of my mom’s two sisters and my wife. Still, all I could do was just stand there, completely paralyzed. My mom was gone. My dad’s wife was gone. A sister was gone. A daughter was gone.
“Well, that’s it,” dad’s voice cracked. My mom’s battle with cancer was over, but so was our time with mom on earth.
What happened next is a blur. I know I didn’t want to be in the room when the paramedics took mom away. I didn’t want those to be the final images of my mom. Though, thinking back now, they couldn’t have been any worse than what I already witnessed. Somehow, I wanted to believe that mom would stay right there, in her living room, in her house. Where she belonged. I took one last look at my mom, now an empty shell of the vibrant, warm and loving mother I knew and loved, and I left the room.
The next thing I remember is sitting upstairs in my dad’s old blue recliner staring into space. I was trying to process everything... anything... something... but the overwhelming pain and grief flooded every bone and cell of my body. I was there, but I wasn’t there.
I don’t like remembering the afternoon of October 17, 2017. When I think back to those final minutes with mom, death itself seems to rip open the wound that hasn’t yet begun to heal. When I remember those moments, they hurt every bit as much as they did that day.
I think of Job in the Bible and I wonder how he must have felt when, in just a matter of minutes, he lost all of his livestock, his servants, and his children. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, Job was then afflicted with painful sores from his head to his toes. The Bible tells us that the pain and grief Job felt was so intense, he cursed the very day he was born.
When I consider his circumstances, I empathize with Job. Yet, there is one thing that sticks out to me about Job’s story. In lieu of the seemingly inexplicable events that suddenly happened to him, despite all of his anguish, his overwhelming sadness, and unbearable grief, Job never cursed God. Never.
Now, who could blame Job if he had cursed God? He likely had every reason to. The Bible describes Job as a blameless and an upright man; he feared God and shunned evil. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East. The Bible explains that Job would even sacrifice burnt offerings for his children, just in case any of them sinned and cursed God in their hearts. He was a devout and dedicated servant of God. Why would anything bad ever happen to a person like Job? But now, here Job was. Without any reason or justification, God had allowed these horrific circumstances to fall on him. Job didn’t deserve this.
To be honest with you, and Jesus please forgive me, but I’m sure I’ve cursed God for fewer things in my own life. Yet, the Bible makes it very clear that Job did not curse God. Even when Job’s wife told him to “Curse God and die,” Job replied to her, “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”
Trouble from God? But God only brings us good, right? If we believe in God... if we accept Jesus into our hearts and make him Lord of our life... then trouble and stress and loss and death will never come to us, right? False. In fact, Jesus promised us the exact opposite. In John 46:33 Jesus said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” The hard truth is this: We are guaranteed to have trouble in this world, Christian or not. We will all face trouble. We will all face stress, and loss and death. But what Jesus says in the rest of that verse can encourage us and remind us that even death does not have to be the end for those in Christ Jesus.
After Job lost almost everything and after his friends tried to comfort him with their own wisdom and advice, Job questioned God Himself, asking God to justify why He let these things happened. But God questioned Job and through His questions, reminded Job of whom Job was who He is. Afterward, Job realized He had no business questioning the sovereignty of the Creator of the universe. He realized that God doesn’t owe him (or any of us) anything. And, in the end, Job despised himself for even questioning God in the first place and repented for doing so (Job 42:6).
My friends, we must have a new perspective on God. We must! We must understand that our God is sovereign, He is perfect, and everything He does has meaning far beyond what we can comprehend. Yet, at the same time, He is our provider, our Redeemer, our hope, our healer, our comfort, and our peace. We must understand that the way God does things is far greater, far more significant than we could ever do ourselves or even imagine. Still, in all of His power and might, He loves us dearly - all of us. And, because of His love for us, we can rest in His sovereign grace. We can find contentment and peace that His grace is all we need, and He has given it to those of us who believe in Jesus Christ.
Yet, some may ask, “His grace is enough?” “ Really?” “After all we do for Him?” “After all we’ve done for Him?” Some may feel that we deserve more than just God’s grace. But do we, really? Do we really understand the impact and value of God’s grace? Do we really understand who we are, what we’ve done and what we’re capable of doing? If we really understood who we are and who God really is, then, like Job, we might see that God’s grace is more than enough. More than we deserve.
In a 2018 article, written by Stephen Altrogge, called “5 Reasons God’s Grace Is Sufficient For You (Even In The Darkness),” Altrogge provides fives reasons God’s grace is sufficient for us is. I’ll paraphrase them below:
1. God gets the glory - if we could sustain ourselves through trials, we would only glorify ourselves.
2. It shines the spotlight on God’s power - we don’t have the physical, emotional, mental or spiritual strength to endure every situation in our lives. We need God’s power.
3. It highlights the glory of His deliverance - He loves to give people victory in such a way that no one can say, “They did that on their own, without the help of God.”
4. It forces us to trust God alone - sometimes God allows the circumstances to become so bleak, so dire that we literally have nowhere else to turn but to Him.
5. It deepens our trust in God - when everything is going great, it’s easy to trust more in ourselves and in our own understanding, rather than in God. When we’re leaning on our own understanding, we’re failing to trust in God alone.
As the article concludes, the solution to any impossible circumstance is not to give up or harden our hearts or to walk away. The solution is to lean on God. The solution is to throw the entire weight of our burden and all of our sadness all onto Him. In doing this, God’s power can be made perfect in our weakness and His grace can be extended to us.
The story of Job concludes with the Lord restoring Job’s life and giving him more than he had before. The Bible tells us that the Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He received more livestock, more children, and more grandchildren and lived to be an old man “full of years.”
If Job had known what God was going to do from the very beginning, what would Job have learned about God? Would Job have drawn closer to God? Would Job’s perspective of God have changed for the better? If Job, a man who was blameless and upright in the sight of God, a man who feared God and shunned evil; if God could make even Job a better person and improve Job’s relationship with Him, what more can God do with us? As believers, we say we want to grow closer to God, that we want to experience more of Him, but do we really trust God with that request? With our very lives? Maybe not? Then perhaps this is why His grace is sufficient for us.
I don’t know for what higher reason God took Mom home last year on this day. I may never know. When Mom was sick, my prayer was that God would use her sickness to heal her and let her healing shine the light on God Himself. I don’t think this was a bad prayer for me to have. But that was my prayer and my will. That was the way in which I would have done things. But, I’m reminded of what God says in Isaiah 55:8-9, “‘for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’” Therefore, if God’s thoughts and ways are higher than my thoughts and ways, how much greater His ways must be than even the best of mine. I didn’t create the universe. I didn’t create the heavens. I do not know every star in every galaxy. I did not create the earth or form man from dust. I can breathe life into nothing. Therefore, I will trust in the Lord with all my heart and lean not on my own understanding. In all my ways I will submit to and acknowledge Him. Because His Word promises me that, if I do this, He will make my paths straight.
Friends, listen to me. We live in a broken world. None of us are immune to trouble or violence or sickness or death. Not even one. This is just the broken and sinful world we live in. And while this broken world is NOT the world God intended for us to live in, through His son, Christ Jesus, He has given us a way out - a way out of the brokenness and for us to spend an eternity with Him. Through Christ Jesus, this broken world does not have to be the end for us.
I’m so glad mom knew this. I’m so glad that, one-day, I will see my mom again. I’m so glad that, one day, I will leave this broken world behind and spend an eternity with my Heavenly Father. I’m so glad that my time in this broken world will seem like a speck of dust when compared to the eternity that I will one day spend with God in Heaven. Because of this, I have hope. Because of Christ Jesus, I have hope. Because He lives, I CAN face tomorrow. And this is the hope that God desires all of us to have! This is why 2 Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
God does NOT want you to perish. He doesn’t want anyone to spend eternity without Him.
As my own children get older and become more independent, I realize that it has become more challenging for me to get their attention. It is not always easy to call them over or to pull them closer. They’re distracted doing their own things. I’ll say to Myles or Millie, “come here and let me give you a hug.” But sometimes they ignore me or wander away because they’re worried about what I might want from them. Sometimes they only come to me when they’re hurting or need something. Regardless of if or when or how they come to me, I hug them, I kiss them and I tell them how much I love them. Even if they ignore my calling or run away from me, I find them. And when I find them, I embrace them and tell them I love them. Because that is what a good father does.
This has been a significant reminder to me of our Heavenly Father. It’s a reminder to me that God is calling us; He always wants us to come closer to him. Not for Him to tell us what we’ve done wrong, but for us to experience His love, His peace, and protection. He knows first-hand the trouble and brokenness this world brings to each and every one of us. He knows our pain, our sickness, and our sadness. He is calling each of us over to Him. I pray every one of us will recognize the sound of Father’s voice. That we trust Him and that we will go to Him so He can love us.
