Reaching eighty-nine is no great feat in itself. But, the doctor says she’s lived a good long life and it’s time to send her home from the hospital with some morphine for the pain and a relaxant for when she gets into respiratory distress.
So, dear God, what’s our job in this family crisis? We pray. We’ve argued with the medical community. We’ve urged her to start eating, even though her teeth are scraggly and the beautiful new ones are sitting in the dentist’s office waiting to be fitted while July’s been so rudely interrupted by the lack of circulation in the arteries to her foot, two surgeries, a third one cancelled and the general physician saying she can’t take any more trauma. He’s right. She had a heart attack while still in the hospital and developed a brief case of pneumonia. So, dear God, what’s our job in this family crisis? We do pray. And we ask our brothers and sisters in the church to pray.
Tiny little thing, now under ninety pounds…scrawny. I remember some experiments that were conducted on lab rabbits in the sixties at U.C.L.A. One group was put on a regimen of megavitamins. They grew big and beautiful and fluffy. Another set was left to forage for themselves from what was available without supplementation. They became what looked like scrawny little rodents. The result was that the big beautiful ones grew up, lived a while and died. The scrawny ones lived on and on. It reminds me of Mom’s generation - those who survived the Great Depression in the `30s. Just grit and hope took them through those years. Mom remembers eating only tomatoes from the fields on some days.
Now she’s old, scrawny, and sent home to die with dignity. But, she’s on the mend! She’s sporting an oxygen tank, is learning how to get around in a walker and wheel chair and asks (hoping it’s going to be Denny’s for pancakes), “Where are we going today?”
So, what’s our job? We pray. “Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves (Romans 15:1).” There’s a lot of shuttling to be done, a lot of love to be shown. Do we have anything better to do with our time? “The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me (Matt 25:40 NIV).”
Mom was the middle child of a broken family. The two older children of her mom’s first marriage of course were faster than she. The two babies of the new family were the cute little helpless ones. But, now, she’s the matriarch, the well loved mother, grandmother, great grandmother, even great-great grandmother of a family that she, with the blessing of God, produced.
Praise God! She’s not dying with dignity, but zipping around with zest. And so, dear God, what’s our job? We pray. It surely must also be to give words of love and affirmation to the middle child, bear the burdens of the weak, honor the elder.
She’ll die when it’s her time to die. She loves the Lord and lives in the assurance of His salvation. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. But, it’s not our job to direct Him in that sovereign work. It’s our job each day to minister to someone who is alive. Praise God, she is not suffering great pain and needs no mind numbing drugs. But, we are familiar with the verse that reads, “Give strong drink to him who is perishing…(Prov. 31:6a).” So, we don’t throw out the morphine.
Our son Ken had
opportunity to visit Mother Teresa’s hospice in
But, hey Mom! Happy August! Your new teeth look great and you got so healthy that they amputated the bad leg. And here you are, the morning after surgery, hopping around the room with a walker, trying to qualify to go into the hospital’s physical therapy program. You succeeded and won the prize of being allowed into the three hour a day rehab program in the hospital. Now, nice people will torture you until you’re strong enough to escape. How has this happened?! I never had any hope that you could do that. It is unbelievable! But, praise God, people are praying. That’s what they do for those who are alive on the day we call today.
And for another day, perhaps tomorrow, or ten years from tomorrow, the Lord has these words of truth and comfort. “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28 NASB).”