Twelve years

In the morning, when I wake, it will mark 12 years since my mom died. That is a very long time. I have changed a lot over those years. I have grown a lot. God has been very tender in His mercies to me. I feel like I am getting God in ways over the last two years that I have just not before. That is a beautiful thing. This year has been a hard one for me. It has been marked with lots of losses. My kids are struggling in new ways with health and school. As a mom, I am in the business of suffering prevention and at the same time God is blowing up my view of suffering. Suffering, I would argue, is one of the chief ways that God reveals Himself to us. It is certainly the chief way that He has worked in my life. So, as a mom I have to watch my kids suffer with the hope that they will get the gospel a little deeper. That is so much easier said than done. I don't want them to suffer even when I know it is for their greater good. I am 7 plus years into the mommy journey and I am just starting to tap into that. My mom was 22 years into the journey when she knew she would leave us. She had to know, at least a little, of the suffering it would cause. She couldn't stop it, but I believe she died in total faith that God would do great work in our lives with the suffering. I am just starting to realize that gift from her.

You know I have been anticipating this day for a while this year. It didn't surprise me. I talked to my friend, Andrea, tonight and she asked what I was doing tomorrow. She remembered the day. God bless her for that. I said I didn't know. I said to Peter earlier this week that I felt guilty for not feeling so sad this week. I think this year has been another long goodbye. The house my parents built when I was 5 burned last summer and was bulldozed last week. It was in many ways the place I could feel and remember her most. I have been worried that I wouldn't be able to pull her up in my memory when it was gone. That I would forget. That doesn't make sense, I know. I live 10 hours away and I pull her up in my mind all that time. It was a loss and a goodbye. It was a place I could feel her and touch her. It was the last place she was before she met Jesus.

Ahh, she is such a part of me. She is one of the voices in my head cheering me on. She is the voice with the Spirit's calling me Home. The loss of the house is just a reminder that we are not Home. She is Home. She is singing and worshiping and waiting to great us. And this week, when I felt guilty about not being as sad, I thought of her. I had a little conversation with her about the kids and my life and the things that are competing for my emotional energy. I think if I could call her now, she would say, "I want you to focus on the living. The people in front of you that you should love." Her love tank is all filled up with Jesus. She doesn't need me to fill it up. If you take all the aches I have felt for her this year, well, you would know I have not forgotten her at all. She was my mom. She got me in ways that only those that know me the most intimately do. I don't need to prove my love by weeping all day on April 9th. I prove it all day everyday by doing the things she taught me and by carrying her around in my heart.

If I could talk to her right now, I would say, "God has been so good to me this year. He has revealed more of Himself to me and mine. I am trying to keep Him at the center." For so long, my mom was my center. I have struggled with the thought that my mom and dad's view of me has been my idol. I am beginning to taste that the Lord's view of me is more important. She got that 12 years ago. She would be very happy to know I'm starting to get it. I go to bed very glad that tomorrow makes me one day closer to meeting my Savior and to spending eternity worshiping Him with my mom. Twelve years later, I am just starting to realize the gift she gave me by showing me her love of the Saviour.