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Topic: Rest (06/14/04)
TITLE: My Mother's Rest By Sandra Dyson 06/26/04 |
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My mother died on February 2nd of this year. She was eighty-seven years old. Her death was not unexpected because she had been in declining heath for several months. The cause of death was listed on her death certificate as “failure to thrive.”
At first I was astonished at such a reason for the cause of death, but then, as I pondered this I began to realize that she really did fail to thrive. She was tired of living.
She had told us kids that she would outlive us all, she wanted to live to be a hundred and fifty and there was never a doubt in my mind that she could do just that. She had tremendous strength and fortitude. She had however, in the months preceding her death stopped getting out of bed. There wasn’t any physical reason for her reluctance to get out of bed, other than the fact that she was very frail...most days she just did not want to get up.
I had gone to visit her on Saturday before she died on Monday and noticed that she was very uncomfortable, the mattress on her bed was just too firm for her frail little body to sink into. I went back to see her on Sunday and carried with me an egg crate mattress cover. My sister and I maneuvered her around on the bed so that we could get the cushioning under her. Once we had everything back in place we shifted her back onto the spot where she liked to lay and pulled the covers back up around her. She never woke up during the whole ordeal but once she was situated her eyes fluttered and she breathed a sigh of relief. I kissed her on the cheek and left.
The next morning I received a call from my sister Jane saying that our mother had died that morning around six o’clock. Later when we were talking again, I told her that I wished I had thought about bringing the mattress cover over sooner than I had because she had obviously been uncomfortable for some time.
Jane responded to me by saying, “I guess she had to get comfortable to die.”
Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned from this experience. We get so busy caught up in all the daily activities of life that we fail to see the obvious, but not only that, we fail to see that God can’t work in us until we slow down, stop and take our rest in Him. When we can completely clear our minds of everything going on around us, it is then He can speak to us in His quiet voice and give us the rest and restoration that we need.
For my mother, He didn’t take her on her trip home until she was comfortable in her bed. For those of us remaining He can’t take us where He wants us to go until we get comfortable with Him. In both cases, it means we have to stop resisting and rest in the Lord.