One last word….

    I prayed about it before I prayed about it.  Have you ever done that?  Maybe not, I suppose – maybe it’s just me that gets it all twisted in effort – but that’s what I did.  I said, "Lord, how is it I should pray?  What would come from my lips that would honor You, all that I know about You, and give You every bit of every glory for You are worthy?  Do I curse the cancer that You used to save my mom’s soul five years ago?  Do I ask for a miracle that she doesn’t ask for herself?  Do I wish that You would direct her to keep taking the chemo that just robbed her of any life?  Lord, she is Yours and I am Yours, O please guide me in how to pray."

    I went to see her when she started the chemo again.  I asked, "Mom, can I come?"  She said, "Please, Lizzy, please."  For those who have read me for the years we have all been here you know what that has meant.  It was the first time I had seen my mom in over nine years.

    She looked good.  I think she had aged better than I had and you wouldn’t have known just by your eyes that she had a monster back eating at her from the inside out.  So, yes, she was the same in many ways but so wonderfully different in many more other ways.  This was a woman who now loved the Lord and had been serving Him these last five years.  In no time at all we picked up where we had left off nine years earlier and then to places where only grace could have carried us.  She didn’t get sick until the day before I came home.

    And then she was so sick.  Sicker than before, my dad said….just plum awful sick.  I had been home for four days when my heart went fooey – which really isn’t a heart word, but it’s the one I use – and while she was struggling up there I was struggling down here.  I don’t suppose I’ll really ever know how awful it got but she started asking that we let her stop….and then dad asked that we let her stop.  She was only hanging on for us.  "Oh, Lord, show me how to pray!"

    I had started keeping a new journal as I was laid up quite a bit more than I am used to and I hovered over her name day after day.  I didn’t want to lose her and I didn’t want her to suffer.  I just wanted to be somebody, anybody, somewhere else who might know the right words.  Finally, broken, this is what I prayed:

    "Lord, with everything I know inside and outside of me, I know that You are an Almighty, All Knowing, Transcendant God with infinte power to do as You will.  I also know, with everything inside and outside of me, that You are personal and that You hear me and love me and love my mom.  You can and You would.  So, Lord, in Your will is where I will rest.  I ask that You heal her because You are powerful, and You are personal.  I receive what You give for You are perfect."

    She quit chemo shortly thereafter and grew sicker each week.  We had expected some kind of rebound, however short lived, just for stopping but it never came.  Finally, they scheduled a final PET scan to get an idea on how far it had spread and how long they would give her.

    and     they     couldn’t     find     anything     at     all.  The incurable was gone. 

    That was almost a year ago and I never wrote it down.  So here goes….one last time to proclaim His praise here.  We serve an Almighty God who can, and who would…..and who’s will is perfect whether the healing is here or heaven.  See, my mom is much older than most of the people we are praying for.  I know she isn’t going to live forever or even for that much longer.  I don’t believe that God healed her to live forever or because I could pray harder or anyone was better on this side of these prayers.  I think He healed her because He wanted me to know.  And to tell you.  And so I am.   

    I am going to miss so many of you that won’t get the chance to hear about OD closing in time to get your diaries or check on your fav’s for info.  But I will be praying…oh yes, I will be praying.

Lama                                       https://www.facebook.com/Lamaland