God and Me 23-Death Where is Thy Sting?

As I write this, my maternal grandma is dying. Her 86 year old body is ready to be done. She's been in and out of the hospital for a month now with a variety of ailments including a cancer diagnosis. Really though, the cancer isn't what is the real issue right now. She hasn't eaten in weeks. She has fluid on her lungs. Her heart has been out of whack. And her kidneys are not functioning right. She has struggled with dementia for the last few years as well. Her body is just failing her.

We went to Omaha to see her last night because my dad said we should come. She has a breathing tube so she is unable to talk. I just stood by her last night and told her about my day, about the kids I taught and the weather. And I prayed for God's peace to fill her mind, for her to be able to rest in His promise of heaven in these last few days.

This is the second time in less than a year I've been with someone who is dying. My 52 year old mother in law passed away last January after a 4 month battle with lung cancer. Along with my brother in law, we spent the last week of her life with her. She was not really conscious due to the pain medicines but I prayed those same prayers for her as that week went on.

Both my grandma and my mother in law believed that God loved them enough to send Jesus to earth as a sacrifice for their sins. And I believe that both of them wanted Jesus to be a part of their lives. For my grandmother, she has known this most of her life and, to be honest, I think has struggled to put a relationship with Jesus as her top priority. I think living out her faith, while important to her, was hard for her due to her childhood and marriage. My mother in law only became a Christian a few years ago. For her, I saw many things change in those years including her priorities. My mother in law knew she was really sick, and she said she wondered if this illness and the way she would respond to it, were part of how God might use her now that her boys were grown up, that if she responded with grace and dignity and hope, that God might be glorified.

But the bottom line is this, for my mother in law and for my grandma, there are many things worse than dying. I know my mother in law hated the thought of leaving D and his brother behind and not meeting Kenson face to face. But she also believed that heaven would be good, that God's presence and the freedom from earthly struggles like pain were worth looking forward to.

A month or so after D's mom passed away, I was doing some talking with God. About her death. And God's reply to me was "Do you think you love her more than me? She's now in a place where she knows unconditional love, a love she won't ever wonder about. She doesn't have to wonder if she's good enough, if she measures up, if she's done the right things to make people love her. My love for her in heaven is the same as it was on earth, unconditional, but her humanness kept her from seeing it. And now she's free."

So death oh death, where is thy sting? For my grandma, hang on, He's coming. And for my mother in law, you're home at last, home at last, surrounded by the ever present, ever real love of Your Heavenly Father.