Some Thoughts for Lisa

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On Monday I encouraged mamas to encourage their parents. I received a very sweet response from a longtime reader. I’ll call her Lisa. With her kind permission, I’m sharing this excerpt:

This models exactly who I hope to be as a Christian. . . . And those words about your mom made me cry as I’m at the gym on the treadmill. I love my mom dearly and talk to her daily. I can’t bear to think of the day that I can no longer call her! It’s a thought I often have to take captive. I wonder if you shared what got you through the days when your parents passed if that could help others who also struggle with fear and dread of those days.

What got me through the days when my parents passed away? I don’t know how many times I’ve heard Christians say something like the following in relation to the death of a close loved one: “I don’t know how people get through this without God.” It is true. I don’t know how people get through this without God. Praise Him for being faithful.

I’d like to offer a few words of encouragement. I hope they will be helpful. I will speak mainly about Daddy’s passing. Though I had lost beloved grandparents and great-grandparents before Daddy passed away, his passing was sudden and my grief was severe. Though it certainly didn’t take away the pain of losing other precious loved ones since then, it did teach me.

Accept the Reality That It’s Going to Be Tough

I can’t give you a specific Biblical teaching about the idea I am about to share in this paragraph, but it seems to me that we each have a special place in our hearts for each of our dear ones. When that person passes away, his or her special place feels empty. I once thought that the space would always be empty, but that is no longer how I describe it. Now I think that the empty feeling is a beautiful reminder of the person I still love and long to see and touch. The space will always be there because no one else will ever fill that particular place in my heart, but for me it doesn’t feel empty anymore.

During a recent outing with friends, our friend who is a widow mentioned her husband several times. He passed away three years ago. She was especially missing him on that day. She related a recent three-way conversation she had with a new widow and a widower whose wife died about a year and a half ago. The widower said that you just have to keep going. “You have to,” he said. “If you don’t, you’ll just die—and you can’t do that!” This widower and both of these widows are deeply devoted followers of Jesus. It’s okay for them to talk about their sadness. Each of them has a firm conviction that their spouses are with God. They have a firm belief that God is taking care of them. Their grief does not mean that they are not trusting Him.

Expect to Be Surprised at Yourself

Saying goodbye to a loved one may cause you to do things you would never have dreamed of before. My parents needed me at younger ages than many parents do. I had been attending doctor visits with Daddy for some time before he died completely unexpectedly at age 72. To go to the doctor with Daddy, I either drove two hours away to Ashland City to pick him up and then drove him to his appointment in Nashville or, on the occasions when he could ride the senior citizen’s bus from Ashland City to Nashville, I would drive to Nashville and meet him there. Daddy and I had been to one of those appointments on Thursday, December 18 before his sudden death on Friday, December 19 (he technically passed away on December 20 but only because he was on life support).

Not long after Daddy died, I attempted to drive to Nashville. I got on I-40 and started driving. After about 25 miles, I had to pull off the Interstate at a rest area. I simply could not go any farther. I was powerless to continue at that moment. I called Ray to come and get me. It wasn’t long before I was back to driving to Nashville and also going to see Mother in Ashland City, but not that day. It was just too much. The route was too familiar. My body had to stop that day.

Trust God to Be God

My family had depended on me to take care of Daddy for so long that I felt as if I had let everyone down when he passed away. I felt as if I had not done my job well enough. I had to accept that God was God, and I was not. It wasn’t my fault.

In Daddy’s case, my mother, brother, and I had to make the decision to remove Daddy’s life support. I was the holdout until one of Daddy’s first cousins, who was a physician, came to the hospital. He looked at me across Daddy’s bed and asked me to come into the hall. He very kindly told me: “There is prolonging life, and there is prolonging death. This is prolonging death.” I believe God sent him to Daddy’s bedside just for me. After that conversation, I was able to say to Mother and Steve that it was okay.

Hold On

Saying an until-we-meet-in-Heaven goodbye is, of course, one of the hardest life events we face. It can bring on a crisis of faith, but it is time to hold on tightly to God, a time to believe what you have always said you believe. It’s a time of recommitment, a time to make a conscious decision to go deeper in our faith, a time to believe God’s promises, a time to pour our hearts out to Him and draw near.

We really can trust Him.

Come close to God and He will come close to you.
James 4:8a

He will keep His promises.

But we do not want you to be uninformed,
brothers and sisters, about those who are asleep,
so that you will not grieve
as indeed the rest of mankind do, who have no hope.
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead,
so also God will bring with Him
those who have fallen asleep through Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 4:13-14

Use Your Grief and Healing to Help Others

When you lean on God and allow Him to heal you, when you learn to live with the empty space that your loved one left inside of you, you will be able to help others and that feels very good.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,
who comforts us in all our affliction
so that we will be able to comfort
those who are in any affliction with the comfort
with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance,
so also our comfort is abundant through Christ.
2 Corinthians 1:3-5

 

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One comment

  1. Thank you for taking the time to post this. I will be saving it. I pray my parents are here many many more years or the rapture happens before I have to say good bye. My mom is turning 73 on Friday and my dad is 74. I am so blessed to have had them all through my own growing up years and while I raised my own children (my youngest is 15 so I’m not quite finished with the raising). And even though I think when I hear of others losing their parents at a young age “I can’t imagine losing my parents at that stage, I need them so much for advice and wisdom and just to know they’re praying for me” I have slowly come to realize, I need them at every stage, I’m never gonna be ready to give them up. I, too, like Lisa, have to hold those thoughts captive because, quite frankly, they can destroy the present. Thank God I’m promised His grace when I need it. I can’t take it on yet because I’m not there yet but I’m trusting His grace will meet me there.

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