Life Without Mother

There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance…

Ecclesiastes 3:1-4

Dear Friend,

I know I shared this enclosed passage from Ecclesiastes last week, but I’m still struck by it. Time is a fascinating concept. It implies a beginning and an end. In and of itself, it presumes the bittersweet reality of boundaries in this life. To all good things, there is a beginning and (sadly) there is an end. To all things that bring sorrow and pain, there is a beginning and (praise God!) there is an end.

Of course, for the believer, the former statement about good things isn’t wholly true. Because even the end of “good” things here on earth is truly the beginning of the greatest good of Heaven — without any end! Yet, while on earth, we must often persevere through the difficulty to reach our final end: the ultimate Beginning!

As I described last week in the testimony of my parents’ journey through difficulty, they set a beautiful example. Now, I’m learning to walk (and wrestle) as they have in faithful perseverance. Not perfection, but perseverance. And, as the years have passed, what is pressed upon my heart are those memories of joy through the difficulty. The “times” of laughing and dancing between times of weeping and mourning.

By God’s grace, I’m in that time myself!

Truly, on the day of that ninth anniversary, I took the above picture while listening to “Whole Heart” by Jervis Campbell. In that moment, behind the lens of the camera, I had a compulsion to dance through my father’s field. To spin in circles under the sun that shone its beams through passing clouds and painted the green trees and grass golden. To stretch my arms wide in surrendered joy to my God — the One who delights in me! To feel the warmth in my face and over my heart as the oppression of darkness melted into the freedom of light. To laugh and sing of His presence — my comfort — that:

I don’t want to go if You don’t go
I don’t want to stay if You don’t stay
I just want to be with You

Without Him, I’m nothing. With Him, I have everything! And, by God’s grace through the blood of Jesus, I know He is with me!¹

It is the past nine years — the time of weeping and mourning — that have made me cling ever closer to the LORD. First as one desperate to cling to life itself, and now in confidence that He holds me firm in His hands. That His heart breaks for mine and that He delights in me as His own child and that He is faithful to His promises — promises of my here-not-yet healing and joy. The promise of His presence forever.

That is, the promise that even now my faithful mother sees face-to-face!

Friend, I pray that you would know this confidence through the storms. I pray that you would stand firm in the One who is sovereign over them. I pray that you would see the beautiful boundary He has given to our weeping and mourning: a time. Not all of time. Just a time. There is a beginning and end. Whether this side of Heaven or when we finally have our own Home-goings.

Dancing through the fields,
Hannah

1. Ephesians 1:13-14, 4:30; 2 Corinthians 1:19-22; John 14:15-16:33 ↩︎