As some of you know, my wonderful mom departed this earth last week for a beautiful home where sickness and pain can’t go.  We’re in her original hometown this week for a second memorial service, and as we await that service tomorrow morning, I wanted to share with you some of the  thoughts I shared at last week’s memorial service.  Thank you for all of the prayers – we miss her dearly, but know we’ll see her again.

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My mom and I were as different as day and night.  Literally.  She was day and I was night.

She was serious and I was comic relief.

She was The Hunt for Red October and I was Gone with the Wind.

She was painting pictures with an artist’s brush and I was taking pictures with a camera.

She was crossword puzzle books with the answers torn out and I was just a quick peak if I get stuck.

She was music and I was theater.

She was logic and I was emotion.

She was dainty cotton nightgowns with ribbons and eyelet and I was fuzzy footie pajamas.

She was schedules and lists and I was last-minute and forgotten things.

She was a rush to the scene with lights and sirens (as a paramedic) and I was a silent observer.

She was history, biographies, classic literature, and college course required reading material and I was The NY Times Bestsellers list.

She was Norwegian Elkhounds and Miniature Schnauzers and I was kittens and wild animals.

She was an endless source of answers and I was an endless source of questions.

To state an obvious one…she was tall and I was not.

It’s amazing to me how God can take two polar opposites, put them together, and somehow, just make it all work.  On Sunday night, as my dad and I stood at my mom’s bedside, we thanked God for being the difference.  The difference in each of us, the difference between sickness and health, the difference between hope and despair, the difference between death and eternal life, and the difference between what we need and what we think we need.  I’m so thankful that in our relationships that are filled with so many differences…God is the difference that unites us.  In all of our differences…He makes the difference.

Yes, she was sand on a beach and I was snow on a mountain…but God was the bridge that closed the gap between the two.

It’s true – she was pearls and black onyx and I was diamonds and sapphires…but Jesus was the chain of gold that held us together.

She was Mumma and I was Jenny…but the Holy Spirit was Comforter for us both.

I wish there was time to tell you all the stories I remember about my mom from my childhood.  In the last three days, I’ve looked through every old picture in our possession and been reminded of things long ago forgotten – but her life was not about looking back.  It was always looking forward.  And as I look back on the life I saw her live, I need something of her to carry forward.  Not just for myself, but for my family, and for all of you.

During her last few days on this earth, I couldn’t help but ask “why?”  My mom was no stranger to pain and sickness.  There’s not time enough to recount all that she went through in her 62 years, and I don’t even know a quarter of it, but I’ll condense as much as I can into a couple of sentences.  As a teenager, with broken bones and missing teeth, she survived an auto accident that took the life of the other passenger in the vehicle.  As a young adult, she was diagnosed with diabetes and ovarian cancer, went through surgeries, chemo and radiation, and pneumonia.  As I was having children of my own, she went through kidney failure, dialysis, a transplant, and a stroke.  In the last few years, she’s had incurable blood and bone infections, broken legs, an amputation, skin breakdowns that left her bones open to the air, loss of vision, and countless diabetes complications.

My mom spent so much time in and out of doctors’ offices, hospitals, and treatment clinics, that even some medical staff have commented that they’ve never seen one person go through so much.  When I thought about God’s plans for her life, I saw every health issue as an opportunity for miraculous healing.  I never stopped believing in that outcome – something so easy for God to do – something He had already done for her many times before.   But as we look at our own lives and the lives of those around us, it’s so easy to set our eyes on a perfect fairytale ending, even though we’re not writing the story.  When life doesn’t fit my fairytale, and I find myself asking “why?”,  I thank God for His words in Isaiah 55:

My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,
And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways
and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

We sometimes think that a healing (from problems in health, family, relationships, finances, or anything else) is the best outcome possible and anything short of that is just second best.  That if we don’t receive that instant and complete healing, then we just weren’t good enough in God’s eyes.  And we can look around us at people we’ve judged to be less worthy than our loved ones, and we can become bitter toward God for the unfair mistreatment.  But I thank God for being the author of our life stories, because sometimes the roads we travel during the struggles lead us to a place much higher than we would have known otherwise. If we were the authors, we would never write our lives that way.

It’s not only what we learn through our own struggles, but what others learn from watching, and what we learn by watching others.  Through unimaginable physical pain, long-term disabilities, and what had to have been continuous emotional travesties, I never once heard my mom whine about the unfairness or even sigh in frustration.  She never gave up, even for a minute, and she never asked for recognition.

There is only one way to endure as she did, with the grace that she had…and that’s to know the safety and comfort of the Lord’s arms no matter the obstacles that seem so inescapable.  On March 1st, 2010, my mom received her instant healing – it wasn’t my way.  And it wasn’t my dad’s way.  It was God’s higher way.  I praise Him for sending me an example of HOW to endure the struggles of this world, because we’ll all have struggles…daily.  But by watching my mom, I know there’s grace and strength…and true reward…in trusting the Lord with the pen and paper that writes our story.  Once again, I thank God for being the difference between what we need and what we think we need.  I know she found sweet rest in Him daily…that He delivered her daily…and that she now dances with the angels daily.