Mom, Home Forever

As many of you likely know, my Mom passed away peacefully this past Friday surrounded by her three children. http://rauschandsteelfuneralhome.com/fh/obituaries/obituary.cfm?o_id=2101088&fh_id=12239

 It has been a long road from two heart surgeries the summer of '03, either of which by all rights ought to have killed her, through nearly 10 years in a nursing home, now to her home in Heaven.

I love to read, think, comment, and sometimes have the lack of humility to think that my insights have merit. Death and eternity always remind me of the foolishness of man, Every, man, ME!!!

Especially me.

My original title for this was "No Wisdom, Just Humility", but it had to have Mom in it.

Pastor Darrel Robinson, the minister at the First Baptist in Barron was wonderful. Wonderful at the hospital the day of her passing. Wonderful during the arrangements and AMAZING in doing the service. He sang the two songs that she had requested beautifully, and gave a message that I know Mom would have loved.

Very simple, very honest, very caring. God has given us Grace in the person of Jesus and lovingly pleads with us to leave our pride behind and walk to eternity with him. It sounds so easy, but for man, it is IMPOSSIBLE without the assistance of God.

Many people say, "if there is a God, where is he"?? We live in a world where we expect "in your face" everything, so we miss a lot of great opportunities to feel blessed by the hand of God.

In this case:

• All of us expected her to be gone TWICE in the summer of '03. While the way we got her back was not the way any of us would have hoped, it was an important reminder that "our ways are not God's ways". Who knows how many lives were touched in eternally important ways by her sojourn though the nursing home.
• The Barron Hospital was full ... but that meant she went to Bloomer where my sister lives, and the rooms and care were much better than we have experienced in Barron. It was a much better place for her to be for her last days and passing.
• Since she passed away Friday the weather has been unbelievably gloomy as it is now and was as we drove to Barron yesterday am. 15 min before her service, the sun came out and it remained glorious through the burial.
• I saved the slideshow that I had done from my iMac to an MP4, but when I put it up on a laptop screen it looked so bad that I ended up redoing it and showing it on my Air at the visitation. When I put it up on the computer at church, it looked just as bad as it did on the Air -- and then I projected it and it looked great. It is the first time I've seen something that looked better blown up to the big screen than it did on the small!

Oh, I'm very well aware that there are "reasonable explanations" for all of the above. I no doubt could do tests and "figure out" what happened with my MP4, but you know, that really isn't the point. "**I** by my own reason or strength" have no answer. Naturally, as is the way of modern man, I could honor random chance. It would be more "scientific".

We have ALL seen "unexplainable things" that felt miraculous to us. Maybe we eventually "figured it out", but that is a bit like guessing the lottery number after the lottery. We don't even understand if we are made of waves, particles, strings, "branes", or something completely different. Oh, and while we are at it, we absolutely don't understand our "brains" wetware, and have even less concept of what our consciousness is.

But most of us believe that we do in fact exist and are even conscious. Often with a good deal of false pride.

So, the fact is that of our own reason and strength we know nothing, which everyone knows in their heart when they stand next to their mother's grave.

The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.

The past few days has been a time for me to remember that, and to follow "Be still and know that I am God".