11 years ago today--about losing my mom, discovering hope

It was a Sunday that we first sang "Blessed Be Your Name" at church. I recall, being serious about praise that comes out of my mouth, that I wasn't sure I could identify with the words, "Blessed be Your Name, on the road marked with suffering, though there's pain in the offering, Blessed be Your Name." How do you actually sing that and mean it? In the midst of praise, I wondered.

I last saw her on a Monday.

My final memory of her is her dropping me off at our apartment and helping me carry our son in his baby carrier into the doorway. I hugged her and can remember what she was wearing as I watched her walk away and get into the car.

It was a Wednesday, at 6 am. My dad called me to tell me that my mom had died. That was eleven years ago today.

In the days and weeks afterwards, my dad began sorting through everything that was my mom's. He came across journals of hers and gave them to me and my sisters. "What a treasure!" And I opened the gift of my mother's spiritual journey, in her own handwriting. 

The year in the date of the first entry I dared peer into pierced my heart. I knew it. Awesome, God. I got all the journals from the season where I was wandering down the path of heart led astray. I could barely read her prayers. She cried out to God for me in the midst of her own hurt, helplessness, and utter fear for me. She poured out her heart like water before the Lord on behalf of a rebellious, wayward child. And it broke me. I couldn't handle reading firsthand how much she hurt, how bewildered she was, how she clung to the Only One Who could do something--anything.

Honestly, I have a box with her name on it today, with many pictures, things she made me, things I made her, and those journals--which I have not fully read. I can't.

But I am certain of this, the prayers of my mom were part of the power in places both she and I could not see that drew me to Jesus. Her cries became my freedom. What she pleaded for me was help and healing. And God helped, He saved, He healed, and He made me whole.

On the anniversary of her Glory Day, I want to shout hope!
If you are journeying to live beyond your past, someone prayed for you and is praying for you. And if you think you have no one, Scripture tells us you have Someone Who lives to stand in that in-between place--between heaven and earth, now and later, this step and the next--who is always talking to God about you and for you, to bring His beautiful will from heaven where it's done, to your life, where it will be done. His Name is Jesus and He is Hope.

If you are praying for a friend or a child who is rebellious, wayward, living for their desires and moving farther and farther from God, don't give up. Don't stop. When you don't see results, when nothing changes, when help hasn't come, when the hurt still flows, use the word YET. When the sun rises again tomorrow morning, it means the story is not finished yet. God is not done, and today, even today may be the day of her deliverance. So hang on to Hope.

In deep honor of my mother today...
Bless His Name. There are roads marked with suffering, there is pain in the offering--for the one who prays. Yet in His Name we have Hope.
Bless His Name, you who finally sees the roads trod on your behalf, the selfless offerings poured out before the Lord, for your redemption, your story, your life beyond the mess. For it is there you were given Hope, and the grace to actually bless His Name.

Blessing His Name today for her, her life, her prayers, the life I was given, and the hope of His glorious will still to come,

Ginny