Heart Soul Mind Strength

Jesus is worth all my afflictions

As I seek comfort after losing my father two years ago and my mother nine months ago, the Holy Spirit has repeatedly brought to my mind Scriptures, testimonies, and memories to help me find comfort in obeying His command to give thanks no matter what.

While taking long walks over these last several months, I pondered how my Dad may have felt in those last two weeks. He was intubated and sedated in the Intensive Care Unit for many, many days.

Anytime he came to some level of consciousness, he would be fighting off the tubes and wires that bound him. Any prolonged hospital situation was, for him, stuff of nightmares. He literally used to have nightmares of being tied up and fighting to free himself. On more than one occasion, his dreams turned into physical motion, and he would wake up from tossing himself onto the floor in a desperate fight to get free.

We felt badly about his situation, but we needed time to travel so we could come together to make decisions as a group, not leaving the full weight of life and death decisions on one of us.

My personal opinion is that Dad had some sort of infection, which prevented him from completing all his required daily routines, including sleeping with the device that made sure he breathed all night. On another occasion several years ago, he had experienced a medical situation that had almost cut off oxygen supply to his brain, but doctors were able to implement interventions in time to prevent lasting damage. I think this last time, an infection of some kind was putting far too much of a burden on his organs, preventing adequate oxygen delivery to his brain for long enough that it was not going to come back. Dad’s attitude towards death was one of surrender, like the psalmist in the first part of Psalm 31:15, Dad would have prayed: “My times are in Your hand.”

Here is where I pause to analyze what I believe. People, my dad, are body, soul and spirit. The soul includes the mind, will and emotions and it is housed in the body. The spirit is present, overseeing the soul and body in life, and living on once the body ceases to function and the soul cannot interface with the world any longer. All this to say that although Dad’s mind could no longer communicate with us because of the frailty of the body, his spirit was still in the room. His soul, tied up and cut off from communication with us, was still present and intermittently aware. Dad’s spirit and soul were who we spent several days visiting. My oldest brother lead us in songs of Worship and Praise to God, knowing that Dad’s spirit belongs to Jesus and soul had been saved by the will of God by grace through faith in the finished salvation work of Jesus Christ. Those parts of Dad could agree in worship and could receive comfort, whether or not his brain ever registered the specific experience.

I spent time hoping that Dad wasn’t suffering awful anguish, loneliness or confusion during his time in the ICU. I hoped that he didn’t feel abandoned by his family or betrayed by a ride to the hospital where he least wanted to die. As I pondered, trying to imagine whether or not he had suffered greatly, the Lord comforted me with 2 Corinthians 4:16-18: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. 17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, 18 while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. ” Now that Dad is absent from the body, I believe he is present with the LORD and the glory he is experiencing is worth all the suffering, all the trials, all the anxious times, all the pain.

For Momma, she had been getting weaker over the course of several months. Her last message to me says: “Not only am I having trouble with my breathing, but lately I’m nauseous a lot. I don’t eat very well.” Medications and medical interventions, diet, and many therapies, which she engaged in with great enthusiasm all the way to the end, could not solve the problem that humans are mortal. Since Adam and Eve sinned, the life in the flesh ends for every one of us. I am comforted in the fact that Mom knew, less than a day before her departure, that my sister and I were on our way to visit. The day before she passed away, the Lord impressed upon me a song to sing and record and send to Momma.

I had been reading again Melody Green’s book NO COMPROMISE, about the wonderful way God worked in and through her husband Keith. Below are the lyrics of the song There is a Redeemer by Keith and Melody Green, which I recorded myself singing and sent to Momma:

There is a redeemer
Jesus, God's own Son
Precious Lamb of God, Messiah
Holy one
Jesus my redeemer
Name above all names
Precious lamb of God, Messiah
Oh, for sinners slain.
Thank you oh my father
For giving us your Son
And leaving your Spirit 
'til the work on earth is done.
When I stand in glory
I will see his face
And there I'll serve my king forever
In that holy place.
Thank you oh my Father
For giving us your Son
And leaving your Spirit 
'til the work on earth is done.
There is a redeemer 
Jesus, God's own Son
Precious Lamb of God, Messiah
Holy one
Thank you oh my Father
For giving us your Son
And leaving your Spirit 
'til the work on earth is done.
And leaving your Spirit 
'til the work on earth is done.

I am thrilled at the thought that Momma and Dad can now serve God forever, as they always desired to do. With full use of arms and legs, heart and lungs, with understanding beyond anything we can know before we pass from death into eternal life in our rescue vessel, Jesus Christ.

I can’t ask them how they felt or how the Lord comforted them at that moment of transition, but I am certain that God did comfort them both in ways beyond our understanding or ability. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).”