Those things are needful and helpful, but she taught me more in what she didn't say. She taught me to love God more than anything or anyone else. She taught me that helping people should be second nature. I learned going on visitation with her...not necessarily because I wanted to, but she made me....that people will never know about Jesus if someone doesn't tell them. She lived out the fact that family is valuable and needful. I learned from first-hand experience that discipline really does work.
The last things I learned from my mom came in the time of great struggle and sickness in her life.
"The journey" she called it. She would often sing "My Lord knows the way through the wilderness, all I have to do is follow." She was in her own wilderness suffering the last few years of her life. Pain and anguish gripped her most of the time. But never did I hear her cry out against God. She clung to Him like a swimmer in the middle of the ocean with nothing else around. She cried out TO Him for guidance and comfort. She praised Him to other people for His goodness to her. I saw her comfort other people when they came to visit her. People were drawn to her....mostly they were drawn to the Spirit of God in her. She lived her life in such a way that others would know Him. She wasn't perfect. But she knew where her hope was.
Mom had this written in her Bible.
1. Look at the trial
2. Look at what the Word says
3. Faith it
Under that she had these words written---"Accept God's control. Accept God's care."
She looked at the trial she was enduring. She looked at it in light of what the Word said. And she lived her life to the final moment "faithing it".
May I be so faithful.
