My Mom

It was the Saturday before Thanksgiving. 1984. I was seventeen. It was the last day I would see my mom alive.

I was in my room playing my guitar. Singing songs to Jesus. I might have been praying or reading my Bible. Mom and I had talked earlier that day about what we were going to do for Thanksgiving. She came into my room and told me that she was going to go to the grocery store.

A bit later, I came out of my room and noticed Mom laying on the couch, sleeping. No big deal. She was taking a nap. Apparently.

The phone rang. “Hello Grandma” She asked for mom. I went to couch to wake her up. She wouldn’t wake up.

I called my dad. Then I called a Christian friend and asked him what I should do. He told me to pray over her, to anoint her with oil. I talked to her. I didn’t know if she could understand or hear me, but I told her about Jesus. Within minutes, rescue was there. They took her away. The neighbors came to see what was going on. Our next door neighbors, the Comers, were Christian. I was crying. I told them, “I don’t understand. The Lord had been leading me to pray for my family, especially my mom.” They reassured me that if the Lord had been leading me to pray, that He would answer those prayers.

A few minutes later the phone rang. I couldn’t make out the voice on the other end. “Mom?” I said. “No. It’s your dad.” He was crying like I’ve never heard. He said, “Your mom’s not going to make it.”

My Uncle Joe and Aunt Liz showed up. They took me to the hospital. The priest from my school came and performed “last rites”.

Two months earlier…….

I was in my room praying. Up to this point, I had never really sensed God telling me to do anything. But, in a quite remarkable way, I knew that God wanted me to go into my mom’s room and pray for her. She was in bed with a REALLY bad headache. You see, one day my mom was driving to work and pulled into McDonalds for a cup of coffee. On her way out of the parking lot, she got extremely dizzy. She couldn’t drive. She managed to get back into the restaurant and call her boss. They came to get her. The doctor said it was an inner ear infection. We found out later it was a mild stroke.

I was trembling in my boots, as they say. You see, up to this point, I had never, ever asked anybody if I could pray for them. I had never walked up to anybody or phoned anybody and offered to pray. But I knew, that I knew, that God wanted me to pray for my mom. By God’s grace, I did. I went into her room and said, “Mom, can I pray for you?” “Of course,” she said, hiding her shock, I’m sure.

I knelt down at the side of her bed and prayed for her and our family. When I was done, she was crying. Two weeks later she was in heaven.

Some time after that very, very tough experience of losing my mom during my senior year of high school, I was talking on the phone to our next door neighbor, Beverly. She said, “Pat, I don’t believe I forgot to tell you this. A couple weeks before your mom died, she came home and I was outside and we began talking. During our conversation she said that she had really seen who Jesus is.”

I loved my mom. I wish she was still alive. I would have loved for her to meet Janet and her three grandchildren. It would be so awesome to be together! I miss her.

Oh, how we long for heaven! When you lose someone you love and they are in heaven, you realize that this life is only temporary. What is eternally significant is what happens after you die. I know that my mom’s job was done. Her time had come. She is happier now than she ever had been on this earth.

One day, each of us will die. At that point, what you have done with Jesus will determine your ETERNAL destiny. I know I will see my mom again.

While I have had to live most of my life without a mother, I have not had to live it without a Savior. Jesus is my faithful friend who will never leave me or forsake me.

“Whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 10:32