If I was a screenwriter, I could not have written a script of a love story as dramatic and emotional, clearly capturing the circle of life, as my life is right now.
The story of John’s miraculous journey is now becoming a part of the past. Of course, it will always continue as we share his story, and he continues on with his new heart, but the day-to-day climatic events are becoming more scarce and life is becoming what is once was and what we had hope in it becoming again.
At the same time we have been rejoicing God’s gift of life to John, my mom’s story has been brewing into a heartbreaking struggle that leaves us mourning the future. It is a strange dichotomy that is difficult to wrap my brain around fully.
It began the night John got sick with the staph infection in the hospital – the dreadful memory of the Sunday night. As I rushed to John’s side in the middle of the night, my dad rushed my mom to the emergency room. She stayed there eleven days with the conclusion of stage four terminal cancer in her lungs and bones. Two months ago she was at our house cleaning out the brush in our backyard.
This past weekend was the first opportunity, since John and I have been home from the hospital, that I have had to go and see my mom. I have been heartbroken ever since.
She is frail and weak. She has aged decades in just a month. She requires constant care. And she knows that the end of her life is near. I stayed up with her both nights I was there because she was in so much pain. Our roles were reversed for the first time in my life. She has always taken care of me. Now I am taking care of her.
My mom and I talked about the future. I told her some things that I needed to tell her. Of course they are things that should not have waited until now. I have learned the lesson of life’s fragility. You would think that I would have learned that with John. I think I have been better at showing John my love. My mom deserved that too.
Last week the doctor told us that he expects my mom to live for about three more weeks. Of course, God is in control of that, and we have no way of knowing His timing or will. Today my dad had to move her into a hospice because she requires 24 hour care that only professionals can give. Her pain is unbearable.
I cry constantly. I am completely heartbroken.
God is faithful, though, and as I went to bed on Friday night, after seeing her for the first time, he reminded me of His truth – His promise. He told me, “This is only temporary. You will miss her for a while, but you will spend eternity with her in Heaven. And she will be perfect.” For a moment I felt joy.
So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.
I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:42-57
