Many years ago I was working on a Sunday. I felt bad about not going to church that day, but I was trying to get ahead in my job and wanted to finish a large project before Monday. There was just not enough time during the week to accomplish extra projects, so it was work on the weekend or nothing.
It was getting on towards the late afternoon and I was working away when I got a call. I answered the phone and it was my wife and she was crying. My father had called and told her that my mother had just collapsed and was in a coma and was not expected to live.
How could this be? She was just 52 years old and as far as anyone could tell in perfect health. Dad said she had a bad headache one morning and he drove her to the doctor’s office and when she arrived she walked in the door, gasped, and collapsed. It was a massive brain tumor.
I immediately went home and loaded up the family and made the grueling nine hour drive to Tuscaloosa Alabama where she was in the hospital on life support. When I got there she was brain dead and shortly thereafter was taken off life support and died. I was with her and watched the machine flat line as her heart quit beating. There was no chance for her to hear me tell her that I love her or hear me say goodbye.
It is difficult to lose a loved one at any time, but when it is sudden and unexpected it is all the more so. I tried to remember the last time I spoke with my mom and I wasn’t sure, but it had been at least a couple of weeks. Trying to raise two young kids, working a strenuous arduous schedule, and living nine hours away made it difficult to get together in person too, and I had not seen her in person in at least a couple of months or so.
Had I known that mom would have been taken away of course I would have been camped out on her doorstep. Now I must patiently await my turn to submit to God’s call home myself before I can ever talk to her and see her beautiful smile again. I can picture walking alongside the River of Life meandering through heaven and laughing and talking with her once again and I miss her. I lament the fact even to this day that I could not at least tell her I love her and tell her goodbye for that final time before she crossed the threshold of this life and entered heaven.
To be honest I still have a difficult time achieving peace about it. I feel guilty for working on Sunday that day. I feel guilty for not calling home more often. I feel guilty for not visiting more often. I am sad that she did not get a chance to know my sons and their families.
Such is life. We will know good times and we will know the sad times. The Bible tells us to look ahead and not behind and to trust in God. If we are to know peace we must take that advice. It is difficult beyond measure to let go and not dwell on the memories of my mom and the guilt that I feel and instead look towards that day when she meets me at heaven’s gates, but if I want to know peace that is indeed exactly what I must do.
If you think God has turned His back on you at these times, then think again. He will love us forever and has promised peace in our lives. What we need to understand is that WE are the only ones who can remove His peace by drawing away from Him instead of towards Him at these sad times.
Isaiah 54:10
“Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you.
March 31, 2014 – Click here to listen