God made me sleep and rest today. Sunday, Mother’s Day.
When I got up, I saw what my son gave me these for Mother’s Day. He left it on the table for me to find.
The gesture made me cry.
It used to be that he’d give me flowers, a greeting card and cake too – the Home Depot store card was what made me cry!
He knows I work on my Mission Van & always need supplies from there for when I do my little mission work by myself. 🙂
What a God thing too! For Him to touch people’s hearts to the point of them reaching out to me to let me know they remembered. That they “see” me too. And still “remember”. :-).
My “other Mom, Mom Dolly” – my son’s paternal grandmother, she has been like a spiritual Christian Mother to me for more than 25 years – she passed away a couple of months ago, so suddenly, a heart attack – we always sent each other text messages exchanged bible verses.
So her birthday last week was tough & Mother’s Day too. Surely the rest of her family (she has 6 children) are grieving too – first Christmas without her, her birthday, and Mother’s Day).
My relationship with her I can’t explain except for the story I found in the bible. We were like Naomi & Ruth – difference is Mom Dolly & I were really “bound” extra – I bore her her first grandson whom she truly loved and cherished.
And she also hated that her own son did what he did to me. Mom Dolly has always been on the side of “right” – whats right in God’s eyes. She made sure that her relationship with me remained strong, she respected me when I said her son’s infidelity was irreparable.
She and I remained “great close friends” and she also opened up a lot to me. Life shared. Love and compassion and kindness shared. She loved me like a Mom would love a daughter. Also Mom to Mom, Christ Follower to Christ Follower.
She “saw” me for who I am. And I “saw” her too. She is one of the kindest, if not THE kindest person I feel so privileged and honored to have known. She was so open and we both felt “free” to share the good, the bad, and the horrible with each other.
Like no boundaries – she wanted that!
I remember when she was in the U.S. many many years ago, one time, her son asked me to “check in on her” and he gave me her U.S. Based number.
So I made it a point that after work, I would call her up and we were on the phone for hours – I LISTENED to her, she had a lot to say, to share. That’s how I truly knew her, and her family. I’ve always kept her confidence because there ARE things that a Mother may not be able to share with their own family in order to “keep the peace” in the family. I will bring those stories to my grave.
She always would advise, too. As a Christian, we can pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to always bring it to God, but to be humble enough to share with another Christian who can pray for us too. Preferably prayer warriors.
Mom Dolly was a Prayer Warrior. She had her ministry and she also bought and gave away bibles. I did and do that too.
She knew about my Bible App project and I texted her links to my bible app. My Digital Ministry.
Our relationship with each other, people scorned us both for. And we laughed and prayed a lot. Her sense of humor is so contagious too, and the sound of her laughter, i think the sound of my son’s laughter, he got it from his paternal grandmother, Mom Dolly.
That’s why when we all “meetup” – we all truly enjoyed sharing stories and laughter and prayers. A truly Godly woman. I’m grateful I have all these memories of her and a LOT of pictures too! I can’t write about it without crying.
But God created our tear ducts so we can use it to cry and relieve our bodies of stress.
Cry me a river. 🙂
My relationship with my own biological mother greatly improved because of Mom Dolly. It’s tough when spirits of grief attack. As I’m sure it’s tough for those whose Moms have passed on.
I write and will share this with those who have also lost their Mom. We are not alone. Jesus understands our grief. Then an idea came to mind. I still have my Mom Dolly’s phone # on my phone with our old text messages.
So I wrote her my heart felt “Happy Mother’s Day” greeting! “Message sent”!
Our Moms are in heaven with the Lord, it’s the enemy that attacks us in our grief. We will always miss our Moms, but our Moms will always want us to be strong in the Lord.
We share the hope that the apostle Paul said:
“13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.
15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.
“16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.”
“17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.” “Those Who Died in Christ – (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18)
We have HOPE and we have JESUS.
And JESUS is ALWAYS.
The enemy wants us to stay stuck in “grief hell”. So we stand up, we acknowledge our grief, we reach back out to those who “remembered us” this day, offering a hand up because they remembered that we might be feeling down.
Then we can say this boldly to the enemy,
“The hell with you! My Mom is in heaven and I WILL REJOICE!”
And it’s okay to miss our Moms. Try texting their old celphones “I miss you!” And that’s it. That helped me acknowledge my grief, try it too! 🙂
Do an external, outward activity – write or type it out. Get the heavy feeling of grief out.
We process our grief first by acknowledging it. Accepting it for the heavy feeling that it is. And we bring it to God.
Then we thank the Lord that we will see our Moms again. 🙂
Because we are still in the land of the living. And there are many who lost several loved ones this pandemic season.
I also lost my oldest brother who was too young to die. A military doctor who served his country and his patients. He died a couple of weeks earlier. It was a “blur” then, but I remember my oldest brother died first, then two weeks later, Mom Dolly died.
It’s tough to just learn of my brother’s death from a “text message” and not knowing at first how he died. Then just looking at pictures of his coffin covered with the flag, being carried by fellow soldiers.
When Mom Dolly died, I knew of it a couple of hours later and I was on a video call bawling howling crying as I was crying with her only daughter too and she put the phone so I saw Mom Dolly in her coffin at the mortuary. She died overseas too. During the height of the country lockdown.
Then the four other friends / colleagues I lost too. Tough times for many people.
Mom Dolly helped me grow as a Christian too. With another “Sister from another mother”, Dymples, who God sent my way when I was in college. A strong friendship spanning decades too. Dymples also died.
I still went on my mission trips. Because there are still a lot of people needing help and JESUS allowed me to “stand back up” – Jesus was and is my strength in my moments of weakness or grief.
The kind of grief that comes and goes – like waves, some come small and bearable, some come like tidal waves and engulfs us.
Jesus is my Anchor.
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” – 2 Corinthians 4:7-9
Jesus allows me to drown a bit sometimes, but He ALSO allows me to come up the surface to breathe.
And write a blog post. 🙂
“33 These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me (JESUS) you may have PEACE. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” – John 16:33
When we are going through life’s struggles – pain, loss, yes we can make sense of it. We change the focus, from SELF, to another man in the bible – in the Book of Job.
The deeper your problem, the more you need to get out of yourself, for just an hour or so – put yourself in the shoes of Job. As you read his story in the Book of Job in the Old Testament. I bet none of us are as obedient to God as Job was.
“I have not departed from the commandment of His Lips; I have treasured the Words of His mouth MORE THAN my necessary food.” – Job 23:12 NKJV
And yet Job suffered more horrors that if we compare his story to ours, ours might not be as heavy as Job’s burden and trials that were inflicted upon him by satan. It went through God’s Permissive Will.
Job did not give up. He stayed true to his faith in God. He stayed strong in his faith, amidst such physical emotional and spiritual pain. And God saw Job’s heart, knows him well.
“10 And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.” – The Lord Restores Job’s Fortunes – (Job 42:10-17) KJV
The same God that many years later in the New Testament Paul wrote about:
“28 And we know that God causes ALL things to WORK TOGETHER for good to THOSE WHO LOVE GOD, to those who are called according to His purpose.” – Romans 8:28
“Those who love God”. Like Job did. There are those who suffer because they DON’T know nor love God.
There are those who are “called by God” who resist God with their hardened heart. Who think they know better than God on what is best for them. So even if they are called, they reject God.
So let’s not reject God when He is calling you, too. To spread His Words, and to share what He has done for you.
To God will always be the glory, because I am nothing without Him. \o/
KNOW that Christ Followers have all the power to RESIST the devil. We are not helpless. 🙂
“7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. RESIST the devil, and he WILL FLEE from you.” James 4:7 KJV
The enemy will always attempt to thwart God’s plan for our life. What did Jesus command His Followers?
“19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, BAPTIZING them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
20 TEACHING them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you ALWAYS, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” – Matthew 28:19-20 KJV
Jesus is ALL, and He is with us ALWAYS.