For God So Loved the World

Hello all. It's just Mackenzie writing this time. My mom and I usually collaborate on these blog posts, but I wanted to let you all know what's going on now.

On Tuesday, October 13th, Bob took my mom to the emergency room after a difficult weekend because her usual medications had become ineffective in managing her pain. Her lower spine and legs have been aching lately, restricting her to a wheelchair, but the pain steadily grew in intensity until she was having fits of tears even though her dosage of pain alleviators was increased. In the hospital, she was given strong intravenous medications and a Fentanyl patch to relieve her agony. The pain is a result of the cancer's growth in her spinal cord which now means it is attacking her nerves. As devoted and thoughtful as always, Dr. Segota called me at work in North Carolina last week to explain the situation to me. Because of the blood-brain barrier, conventional chemotherapy cannot treat the cancer in my mother's brain and spinal cord. To address this cancer, she would have to undergo neurosurgery to have a hole cut in her skull where chemo could be administered directly to her brain and spine. However, my mother has become very weak and fragile over the past few months, and it is unlikely she could withstand such an aggressive treatment plan. She has said numerous times in the past that radical treatment of the metastases in her brain and spine was not a path she wanted to go down.

So Bob, Steve, Erin, Shannon, and I made the decision to bring her home and put her in hospice care. Steve, Dawn, and Emma picked up my husband Aaron and I on their way down from Washington, DC, last Friday morning so we could be in Florida with my mother. A hospital bed has been set up in the living room here where she can rest. She spends more time sleeping than awake, and she's not always lucid, but she was very happy to have all of her kids around her last weekend. Erin said when she told my mom Steve was coming to see her on Friday, her only question every twenty minutes that day was when Steve would be there. Of course Erin replied, "What am I? Chopped liver?" :)

The rest of my caravan (Steve, Dawn, Emma, and Aaron) had to return home on Monday, but my work has been wonderfully understanding, and I am able to be here with my mom until Saturday. I'm so thankful to have this week with her. We've been watching home videos, playing her favorite Christmas CDs, and looking through old pictures. As I said, she spends most of her time sleeping, and she is not very responsive, but when she does give you a reaction, it's usually a smile or a laugh, which is characteristic of who she's always been. But she has said more than once that she's ready to go Home. And thankfully, we've had almost two years to prepare to let her go.

A friend that my mom has always held dear to her heart, Patsy Harlow, stopped by the other day to visit. She told us my mom probably doesn't realize the impact she had on her life, but she will always remember her, because my mom was the first person to invite Patsy's family over to dinner when they were new at our church. It's not a big thing, but I have heard this same sort of story about my mom over and over because that is exactly who my mom is. She is a welcomer and an acceptor. My mom probably holds some sort of record for the number of dinner parties she's hosted in her lifetime. She wanted everyone she met to know they had met a friend and they had a place they were welcomed and wanted. And if you've known her long enough, you know this is a characteristic that was magnified when she became a Christian almost thirty years ago. The realization that she was loved and accepted by a perfect God despite all her imperfections filled her with a gratitude that spilled out to everyone around her. She wanted to share her discovery of joy, and she did. We were often joined on Christmas or Easter by friends my mom had invited because she knew they might have otherwise spent those days alone. She even spent days and nights visiting acquaintances in their homes telling them about this loving God who could fill their lives with meaning and true happiness. She volunteered at Hope Pregnancy Center counseling girls who thought they had made unforgivable mistakes so that she could share with them the truth that there was nothing they could do to make God not want them.

That's another thing that's so special about my mom. She volunteered with those girls at the pregnancy center because she had been in their position, and she always uses her experiences of suffering to help and comfort others. Most people are floored when they hear of all the hardships my mom has overcome in her short life, especially if they've known her for a while before they learn about all she's been through. There is no challenge great enough to break my mother's spirit because God has blessed her with an eternal perspective - the attitude of Paul in Romans 8:18 when he wrote, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the Glory that will be revealed in us." She knows the first chapter of James which says, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance," and she lives by it. Every struggle she faces is another opportunity to grow in the perseverance of her faith and reach out to more people in similar situations that she may help with the good news of Jesus's love. When I was in middle school, my mom, sisters and I lived in a small apartment where I had to share a room with my mother. (Hardly an ideal situation for a teenager!) But I remember women calling our house in the middle of the night in tears because they had found out their husbands were being unfaithful or they were having marital problems they felt almost no one would understand. Most of the time, they had never even met my mother, but were given her number by someone who knew she could relate. Even though my mom was working from 8-5 every day and raising her kids alone, she would sit on the phone with these distressed women as long as it took for them to feel that they were not alone and that there was hope even in their terrible situation.

The powerful love of Jesus Christ is so real in my mother's life, it has become her own reason for loving. She loves because Christ loves her. And because the Lord's compassions are new every morning, so are my mother's. This blog is another facet of this unstoppable desire God has put in her. She will never stop finding ways to reach out and show the love and compassion and mercy that has been shown to her. Almost as soon as she learned of her diagnosis, my mom was thinking of ways she could help people know Christ and find hope through her latest struggle. Her reasons for starting this blog were twofold. The primary reason was so that everyone following it would read the good news of Jesus Christ, which is this: "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." We humans are sinful beings, incapable of being good enough to spend eternity with a perfect God. In fact, we deserve nothing short of eternal death. But God loves us so much that He laid our sins upon His perfect son Jesus so that when Jesus died, He paid that death penalty for our sins. Jesus received what we deserved in our place, and after three days, He rose again from the dead, and is now with His Father in heaven waiting to greet all who believe in Him when they leave this earth. It's as simple as that. My mom's second purpose for the blog was to let her readers know that with Christ, there is always hope and joy even in times of struggle. When you know that God is good and He works for the good of those who love Him, you can appreciate the lows as much as the highs because they are all evidences of His love. Though we all face obstacles, God is faithful to send joy in the midst of every affliction, but you have to know Him to recognize these gifts. One of the most basic blessings God gives us is each other. My mom wanted people to read her entries and know that they're not alone. Sometimes that's all it takes to feel comforted.

Reverend Kalehoff came by today to visit with my mom and he read a passage of Scripture to her from 2 Corinthians that sums up what my mom's relationship with the Lord is all about. "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God." Even as my mom lays on her hospital bed in our living room, hooked up to an oxygen tank, with around-the-clock hospice care watching over her, she wants to be the one comforting others. She perks up with every guest that comes to see her and gives them a smile to let them know they're welcome and she's happy they've come. I know she wants them to feel better leaving than they did coming in, and I think she's been successful.

The question everyone is asking me is, "How long does she have left?" And the answer is that I haven't the faintest idea. Each day is different and she seems to do better or worse depending on the hour. The time she will enter eternal paradise was determined by God long ago and He will be faithful to carry out His perfect plan for her. I am just thankful I have this week to spend with my mother, my hero, while she is still here with us.

If you have the urge to come see her, please don't feel uncomfortable doing so. My mom loves to have company! Just call Bob before you come so he can be sure she gets a good amount of rest between visitors. Please continue your prayers for her peace and comfort, as well as prayers for the rest of us who are preparing to temporarily say goodbye until we meet her again in heaven. I'll try to keep you updated on my mom's condition as is necessary. I know she and my whole family join me in thanking you for your commitment to prayer and support for us.

God bless you all!