September 17th...

Today is September 17th. Two years ago, September 17th was on a Sunday. How do I remember that? That was the day I received the phone call telling me my mom died. I remember many details of that day as though they were frozen in time and engraved on the front of my memory bank. It was an unexpected death with an unexpected aftermath. My plans that day had not included grieving the sudden loss of my mother. My plans were to pack for our second mission trip to Nicaragua, scheduled to leave the following morning.

I thought about writing about that day. I don’t want to do that…I’ve done that before in other venues. I thought about expressing the pain I felt that day and the emptiness I feel today. I miss my mom more than I can tell you but there’s not much point in writing about that either. Pain is so personal, isn’t it? No matter how much we try to describe it, our words are never adequate and no matter how much someone wants to understand, they can’t. Their pain isn’t ours and ours isn’t theirs.

My heartache today? I miss my mom’s physical presence. I miss her voice and I miss her laugh. She had a great sense of humor and we both seemed to love the silliness of the absurd. I miss her words of encouragement and I miss her counsel, although I didn’t always choose to follow it. I miss her boldness in standing up for the underdog in life. I miss her generosity with others and I miss her intellect. I miss her belief in me that I could do anything…don’t all moms believe that for their children? But what I miss most of all is the assurance I will see her again someday.

I don’t know if Mom ever accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior, as the living Master of her life. I’m not talking about church attendance or membership. Those are not the same thing as following the Lord Jesus. I witnessed to my mom many times. So did Jim. We shared what Jesus had done in us and in our lives. She saw the difference and acknowledged that there were changes in us she couldn’t explain or understand. She even verbalized she wished she had the same peace within which we have. She was always polite and would hear us out. But she was a strong, willful woman. And sadly, tragically, I think she was strong and willful against God. And the reality of what that means is as painful to me today as was the initial loss of her two years ago.

So, what do I do with this pain? This overwhelming sadness? I do the only thing I know to do. I tell the truth about Jesus and I beg. I beg those of you who may not know Jesus to meet Him. I don’t mean a brief, impersonal, surface exploration of the veracity of His existence. I don’t mean joining a church or toting a Bible around. I don’t mean donning the cloak of religion in hopes of that being good enough to satisfy the Almighty. I mean a gut-honest, personal and intimate encounter with the One True Living God. I promise if you allow that to happen, you will be changed and you will have no doubts about Jesus and Who He is and what His plan is for your life. That encounter will turn in to an eternal relationship. Those people you care about, those friends and family, the ones who already have a personal relationship with the Lord, won’t have to wonder about where you will spend eternity after you’ve drawn your last breath on this earth. And although they will miss your presence here on earth, they will have an assurance I don’t have today in regards to my mother and that is that you will see one another again someday.

I miss my mom.