Saying Goodbye

No, this is not my last post. Rather it's about what I said to Mom the last time I saw her.

On the evening of January 5, I received a phone call from Dad. He informed me that Mom was in the ER with a fever of 103. The doctor said that she was transitioning into death. It was decided to just put Mom in Hospice and let her go.

I went to work the next day, and to say it was a rough day for me would be an understatement. That afternoon I received a phone call from my cousin, and my heart stopped. She told me Mom had bounced back and was probably going home later in the week. Needless to say, I was overjoyed and praised God for it. When my wife and I got home that night, we were sitting in the driveway talking about Mom. She said, "Honey, God's given you another chance to see your mom." That hit me.

I was watching Gaither videos the next morning waiting for my wife to finish getting ready for work when a voice in my head said, "David, thank you for praising Me for bringing your mom back, but I must tell you it's only temporary. You still need to go up there." As I was working that afternoon, God spoke to me and said, "When you go up there this weekend, I want you to tell your mom goodbye." On the way home that night, I told my wife what God said to me, and she was fully supportive.

My wife took that Friday off, and we went up there. Mom looked really good. She looked at me and smiled, which is her way of saying, "I know who you are, and I'm glad to see you." She did very well on Saturday and stayed awake most of the day.

I decided, at God's direction, to talk to Mom that night because I figured she most likely wouldn't be awake Sunday morning to see my wife and I before we left to go back home. Around 9:00pm, Dad was going to put her to bed when I told him I wanted to say something to Mom. He turned the wheelchair around so she was facing me. I said, "Mom, thank you for everything you've done for me. There were times I didn't understand, but now I do. I love you, and always will. No matter what happens, I'll be ok." Dad took her to bed.

I felt a weight had been lifted off my shoulders, which was a sign that I had done what God wanted me to do. The next day, Mom slept till 4:30pm. In my mind, that was the reason God told me to talk to her the night before.

If there's a moral to this testimony, it's this: In order to hear God, you have to be paying attention to Him. I don't know when Mom's time will come. There's one thing I do know, though. When that time does come, I'll be able to go through it with no regrets. When God tells you to do something, there's always a purpose behind it.