Posted on 10/29/2001 8:13:34 PM PST by falfa
I am a newbie with a prayer request. On the mind-numbing day of September 11, my mother (age 64) underwent what was to be routine gall bladder surgery. Instead they found advanced cancer.
She is already down to her last few weeks of life. (Making it to Thanksgiving would be miraculous.)
The prayer we request for her is for physical comfort. She is very much at peace, knowing that her eternal reward is waiting for her. She has long said she has no fear of death but she does fear dying because she has never done it before.
Thanks in advance.
For he will give his angels charge over you,
To guard you in all your ways.
They will bear you up upon their hands,
Lest you strike your foot upon a stone. (Ps. xci. 11-12)
Your mother is strong and she reared you strong, too
Yoru mother does not fear death...but the unknown.
Tell your mother that all of us came into an unknown world from our mother's womb. How frightening that is...if only we could remember, no?
God protects us, even in birth and death.
Some years back, I had an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy rupture. I lost half of my blood volume before they got me into surgery. I remember drifting off to sleep under the anesthesia, a small space of blackness, and then I heard someone say, "She's stopped breathing!". Instantly I was in another place, being held by a tall, strong man. I couldn't see His face, feet, or even His arms. All I could see was the soft robe across His chest. We were surrounded by a warm, fragrant mist...and just outside this mist I could hear the voices of many excitedly happy people talking and laughing. Music was everywhere...the most beautiful music I have ever heard, and it seemed to me that each person had a specific melody that was his or hers.
I was so happy and comfortable, I didn't want to leave. I told this to the Man holding me, but His thoughts came through loud and clear in my mind...I had to go back, there were many things I needed to accomplish. I began to protest, but instantly found myself cold and shivering in the OR.
I never once experienced any fear, nor was I in any discomfort. My hematocrit plummeted to 7, and there was talk of blood transfusions, but I asked them to wait until the next morning. 12 hours later, my hematocrit was back up to 14, and they decided against transfusions.
Jesus gave me a tiny taste of Heaven in those few moments. Your mother (and all of us) is going to an unbelievably beautiful place.
You and your dear mother are in my prayers...
God Bless you & your mother....
My prayers are being sent.
And much support for the family. Thanks.
Bless her heart, and yours. The Rev. Peter Marshall told this wonderful story, and it popped into my mind immediately for comfort for your Mom.
"In a home of which I know, a little boy, the only son, was ill with an incurable disease. Month after month the mother had tenderly nursed him, read to him, and played with him, hoping to keep him from the dreadfull finality of the doctors diagnosis-the little boy was sure to die. But as the weeks went on he gradually began to understand that he would never be like the other boys he saw playing outside his window. Small as he was, he began to understand the meaning of the term death, and he too knew he was to die.
One day his mother had been reading to him the stirring tale of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table, of Lancelot and Elaine the lily maid of Astelot, and about that last glorious battle where so many fair knights met their death.
She closed the book as her little son sat silent for an instant, deeply stirred. Then he asked the question weighing on his childish heart, "Mama, what is it like to die? Mama, does it hurt?" Quick tears sprang to her eyes and she fled to the kitchen, supposedly to tend to something on the stove. She knew it was a question with deep significance. She knew it must be answered satisfactorily. She leaned for an instant against the smooth surface and breathed a hurried prayer that the Lord would keep her from breaking down before the boy and that she would be able to tell him the answer; the Lord did tell her. Immediately she knew how to explain it to him.
"Kenneth," she said to her son, "do you remember when you were a tiny boy how you used to play so hard all day that when night came you were too tired even to undress and you would tumble into your mother's bed and fall asleep? That was not your bed, it was not where you belonged. You would only stay there a little while. Much to your surprise you would wake up and find yourself in your own bed in your own room. You were there because someone had loved you and taken care of you. Your father had come with big strong arms and carried you away.
"Kenneth, darling, death is just like that. We just wake up some morning to find ourselves in the other room. Our room where we belong, because the Lord Jesus loved us and died for us." The lad's shinning face looking up into hers told her that the point had gone home and there would be no more fear, only love and trust in his little heart as he went to meet the Father in heaven. He never questioned again. Several weeks later he fell asleep just as she had said and the Father's big, strong arms carried him to his own room (in heaven)."
Praying for physical comfort for your dear Mom, comfort for your family, and a wonderful homegoing. Bless ya'll.
falfa, please thank your mother for touching all our hearts today!
I will pray for her.
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