The Mother Hen

Faithfulness I Don't Deserve

My Mom was able to arrange for Gigi to stay in her little apartment! Praise Jesus. Hospice will just come there instead and the nursing staff will give her extra care than what is expected of them for an assisted living home.

They love Gigi there and were eager to keep her there and let her be in her home.

It was such a huge relief for my Gigi; Mom said she was so happy to get to go home. My Mom sounded like a different person than the one I talked to this morning...she sounded more like herself and I felt peace.

I read some articles tonight on grief, mourning and "anticipatory grief"--what we are going through right now. I was relieved to hear that all this weight and grief and anger and sadness is all normal. I guess it is also normal that one night I will write an angry tirade and then the next morning feel peace. Hmm...like the last 24 hours?

I'm not ashamed to say I am scared...I'm afraid of grief. I'm afraid of unbearable sadness and loss. I can't imagine not having Gigi in this world with me and I'm afraid I just won't be able to handle it. I know that sounds really melodramatic but that's just how I feel.

So back to the title: faithfulness I don't deserve. In my skewed sense of a holy God I thought, "Well He is being faithful to Gigi and to Mom..."

Isn't that what the enemy wants me to think? Doesn't he want me think that because I get mad I don't get God's faithfulness anymore. But that's not how it works...I can never, ever, ever earn the faithfulness and redemption of a blameless Savior which would mean I can't un-earn it either. I simply get His faithfulness, mercy, grace and redemption because I believe in Him. It seems almost too good to be true.

My Mom said tonight that she and Gigi had a talk about their faiths tonight and that they discussed that this is the time, more than ever, that the "rubber meets the road" per se. Will the profession of a Saving God and the belief in eternal life with Him all Gigi's life be what she clings to in the end or will she fail to trust in Whom she's believed at the most crucial time? Without question, she's holding tightly to Hope; she will meet Jesus with confidence.

Gigi's daddy died when she was a little girl and she has felt his loss her whole life. Tonight she told Mom she's been thinking about Heaven a lot; Mom said, "You'll get to see Bobby." and Gigi replied, "And my Dad."

Who, without Hope in a living Savior, can speak with such confidence?

While the journey ahead of me and my family seems fraught with grief and mourning intertwined with grace and peace, it appears to me that Gigi's path is straight and short and her reward is in clear sight.

May we all be able to die so well.