Holding her hand!

My mother’s birthday was November 27th, so oftentimes it fell on Thanksgiving. Since this is Thanksgiving week I post this as a giving of thanks to the Lord God for her!

My birth mother died when I was 6 years old from breast cancer and my dad remarried soon after to my step mother, who I came to consider my very dearest mother! Her name was Iva. We were the only ones to bond in our mixed family and that bond remained until her death 3 years ago. She was full of integrity and faithfulness to remain in the circumstances she found herself with my dad , to care for us girls, but remain she did! She worked so hard to make a home for us amidst the dysfunction, I have never forgotten those years nor her committment and I thank God that He sent her into my life.

I went to see her in July the year she died, my usual yearly trip. She was living in Texas with my sister and we had a wonderful visit. She never professed faith in the Lord Jesus and I was given by the Lord one more opportunity to speak the Gospel to her, pointing her to Him alone and I was so thankful for that.

I received a call in August that she was failing quickly and so I went to be by her side and by the time I got there she was in a coma, from which she never recovered. I had two days to sit by her side, to stroke her face, to pray and to sing to her. I sang to her a favorite hymn of my own and the chorus says:

God shall wipe away all tears;
There’s no death, no pain, nor fears;
And they count not time by years;
For there is no night there.

I imagine the singing was for my own comfort because I didn’t have any consolation of heaven for her soul. My comfort is in the Lord God alone for all things are possible with Him and it was He who gave me the great privilege of ‘holding her hand’ as she took her last breath. It was the sweetest thing I have ever been allowed to do in this life.

There is a time for every purpose under heaven!