Scriptures for Walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death

I sat in the intensive care unit by the side of my mother-in-law a few days ago as a ventilator breathed for her. I was grateful for a precious last few moments with her before we had to say goodbye on this earth a few hours later. In the relative calm of early morning I read some Bible passages to her, and to myself. I would like to share three of them.
 
The spirit of the words I believe Jesus was whispering in Marlene's ear as he took her hand and led her into his presence:

Isaiah 43:1-5,10-11
Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior...
Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored and I love you...Fear not, for I am with you;
I will bring your offspring from the east and from the west I will gather you...'
You are my witnesses' declared the Lord, ' and my servant whom I have chosen,
that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he...I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior.


These words reflect the way I believe Marlene's spirit responded back to him as he carried her into Life:

Psalm 73:23-26,28
Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart forever...
But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord God my refuge that I may tell of all your works.


Words for those of us who grieve:

Psalm 69:3,13-14,16-18, 29, 32-33
I am weary with my crying out;
my throat is parched.
My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God...

O, Lord, At an acceptable time, O God,
In the abundance of your steadfast love answer me in you saving faithfulness.
Deliver me sinking in the mire; let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters...
Answer me, O Lord, for your steadfast love is good;
according to your abundant mercy, turn to me.
Hide not your face from your servant; for I am in distress;
make haste to answer me.
Draw near to my soul...

But I am afflicted and in pain..
I will praise the name of God with a song;
I will magnify him with thanksgiving...
you who seek God, let your hearts revive.
For the Lord hears the needy.

If you too are in a season of grief, I pray that these words from the God who loves you will comfort your heart as they have mine.
Beth

Ramblings from the ICU

I write this as I sit in a recliner, not sleeping at 1 am, by the bedside of my mother-in-law in the ICU at Skyridge Medical Center. 

A few days ago she was present at my youngest daughter's high school graduation and the next day at our graduation party, smiling, enjoying. Less than 24 hours ago my father-in-law found her unresponsive and not breathing when he tried to wake her. She had not been well. She had a cold. She was diagnosed with an Alzheimer's like dementia a couple of years ago. Still, none of us expected to be sitting by her side in the hospital so soon. She lays in a coma, a machine breathing for her. Her body twitching constantly, almost violently.

It seems ironic that she spent 40 years tenderly caring as a nurse, and now she is helpless to do anything for herself.

I grieve for my dear father-in-law who has walked tenderly by her side for 55 years. His heart is so visibly breaking as he grapples with the reality that he must soon kiss her goodbye for the last time.  He has spent his days this past couple of years doing more and more of the most mundane tasks for her. Still, he aches for more time with the wife he loves. He chokes up and his eyes fill with tears when he explains that he had planned to help her wash her hair first thing yesterday morning.

I grieve for my husband who loves his mother so deeply and so well. I grieve for her grandchildren.

Tonight I have the privilege of being alone with her as the rest of the family hopefully gets some sleep. She is the third person I have sat beside through one of their last nights on earth. All three have loved the Lord, all three had bodies that didn't quite want to let go of this world, all three had children and grandchildren who were not quite ready to say goodbye.

I am not quite ready to say goodbye. I only really knew her for a few months before insidious disease imprisoned her in her own body. I feel cheated out of the friendship I sense we would have shared.

I don't quite know what to do with this close up view of death. I can see that death itself is an enemy, not the original plan, even though it ushers us into the presence of the lord. I can see that the truth in Paul's words "to live is Christ, and to die is gain" becomes easier to embrace when we have walked the long desert roads of life on this planet for many years. I can see that someday, some day soon in the accounting of eternity, I will be the one saying goodbye to my earthly life and loved ones. With that realization a desire to walk the days I have been given holding tightly to my lord wells up in me.

Thanks for taking time for my middle of the night ramblings.

Beth

P.S. She departed to be with the Lord  about 12 hours after I wrote this post. Now we grieve our loss and celebrate her entrance into heaven.

Life Slipping By

Mont. St. Michel, France

I know when I am going to die.

All I have to do is go to deathclock.com and enter my day of birth and BMI and a few other things and it gives me the day of my death and starts ticking down the seconds. It says I am going to die on October 23, 2042. That date seems a bit too close to today's date, so I go back and choose the "optimistic" setting. That setting gives me an extra 24 years. My new day of death is November 14, 2066. I am sticking with "optimistic".

Either way, the truth is I am going to die someday. It could be soon, or it could be many years before my deathclock.com seconds run out. No matter what, my journey on this earth will be very brief. I don't mean to be flippant about something that should be taken seriously. I would take it seriously if I had been diagnosed with a terminal illness.

Its just that since I am in good health, I sometimes forget that my days are numbered. I get caught up in the trials and to do lists and forget that I have a finite number of seconds to spend here. Seconds to live, like pennies in my pocket, how am I going to spend them? Unlike pennies, putting seconds in the bank is not an option. I can spend my seconds deliberately, or I can let them disappear into the air unheeded, but either way, they are lost to me forever. So, how can I spend my seconds wisely?

If I thought that I was born by chance and would die on a day randomly determined by my blood pressure readings and driving habits, I would live differently. I would work my way through a list of eat-drink-and-be-merry-nesses. However, if I believe that Someone put me on this earth and He will take me back out of it, that changes everything. "Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind and with all of your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself."

Those are my instructions.

Love.

Simple instructions, yet not so simple. It seems like "all" should be easy to measure and loving should be easy to do, but sometimes it isn't, and constantly I fail. So, the question presses, how do I spend this second, and the next one, and the next one so that when I am down to the last handful of them I can say with the apostle Paul, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith"?