A Change of Heart



Mother is dying. I can't stop it. She can't stop it. And neither can the doctors. Short of a miracle from the Lord, soon she will be gone from this physical world.



Photo by Susan Leslie



It seems the majority of people with cancer linger. That is, they die slowly, bit by bit. My dad died almost instantly of an aneuryism sixteen years ago, and I've often asked the Lord to let me die quickly like that, especially since going through this journey of being mom's 'caregiver' through the last year and a half. It's been a very painful time on so many levels for both of us. I've thought of my own children possibly having to go through something similar with me down the road and it tears my heart apart.

But recently I've had a change of heart.

I would never have understood what I now know without having gone through the last eighteen plus months. The situation has caused me to examine my thinking and my way of doing things and make some much needed changes. The emotional upheaval we have both experienced at times has been shockingly horrible and scary, but without this time and opportunity to work things through, neither one of us would be at the place of peace in which we now find ourselves. We have finally, after all these years, become comfortable with one another. What a precious gift from the Lord! But for the grace of God.

All of this is a reminder that no matter how awful or terrible, how frighteningly scary and out of control a situation may be to us, or how blind we may be to everything but what we are currently going through, the Lord is unceasingly, lovingly at work in the background making all things work together for our good. When we enter into that place of rest in the here and now, we see death for what it is—a temporary rite of passage that moves us from the temporal to the eternal, reminding us that the sting of death truly is swallowed up in victory. Death becomes merely a doorway into that place of continued, eternal, sweet rest in the arms of our Lord. And therein lies our hope.