I miss her

It has been almost 3 weeks since my mom joined Jesus in heaven, yet it still feels like yesterday. I am now home and doing my daily duties of being a mom, wife, and minister of the Gospel, yet there is the ache in my heart every day. People will ask how I am doing and I hesitate to tell them. Do they really want to know that I feel like my whole world has been turned upside down and I can hardly get through the next hour without tears of sorrow? Maybe they do, but most of the time my answer is "I am maintaining". What does maintaining look like? It means getting up each morning and going about the duties of my day. It means loving my kids amid the hurt in my heart. It means being a wife to Jerrel when all I really want to do is curl up in my bed and cry.
The Lord has been so good to give me the strength to get up each day. When I was in Bakersfield with my dad we would pray each morning that God would give us strength for today. I continue that prayer now that I am here in Buena Park. So often I have said to others that "God never gives us more than we can't handle". I really believed those words when I said them, until 3 weeks ago. I questioned whether I was going to be able to handle this. I questioned why God would allow the hurt of losing my mom in my life and in the life of so many others. I just plain questioned God! "Why" was an ever present word in my prayer life. I have begun to realize that "why" is not a bad word in our prayer life, but that it is an important step into understanding who God is. If I never questioned God and just accepted Him because of what others had told me, I would never have a clear understanding of his character and how that affects my life. I have used this time to help better understand the character of God and how He is using this hurt to pull me closer to Him rather than push me away from him. My mom has been my rock for so long, that I forgot what Rock I really needed to stand on. Am I saying that God brought my mom home so that I would learn that lesson...NO, but I am learning that the one consistent thing in all of this is God's grace and strength. He gives me strength for today and I am grateful for that. The pain remains and probably will for a very long time, but praise God that he is my ever present help. Praise God that I have the Hope of heaven. Praise God that my dad and sisters know the Rock and can stand on it during this.
I miss her every single minute of my day, yet I stand firm on the truth of who God is in my life. I know the hurt will be here for a very long time, and I trust that God is going to take care of that hurt in his timing.
I leave you with the verse that I am clinging to in all this.
Psalm 18:2
"The Lord is my rock and my fortress, and my deliverer,
my God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield,
and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold."

Lisa

The Empty Chair

This chair remains empty now. Oh, people come and sit in it for awhile and reminisce about its former occupant. And if you’re really special Lupe might sit with you for awhile. But Lupe knows that the chair is empty now no matter who sits in it. For thirty years Janice ruled her world from this chair or one of its predecessors. If you were a high school kid in Williston, North Dakota, during the 70’s and 80’s you knew she would be sitting in her big blue chair in front of the big bay window surveying her world and probably knew all about yours as well. You knew that if you really wanted to talk you could stop in and sit at the foot of that big chair and pour your heart out. If you were worried about breaking a confidence, you would find she probably already knew. But if you told her in confidence you also knew she would never break it. She raised three beautiful daughters, one foster daughter and several suto-daughters from that big blue chair; even a couple of wayward sons, John and Rich. Then one day that chair moved to a most unlikely place, California.

What would a small town North Dakota girl do in Bakersfield, California? Debra said, “Let’s go to school.” The big chair became a study hall and in three years Janice was a teacher. Along the way there was an African-American welfare mother with three kids that came to share that chair and she also got a degree. When I said, “What are you thinking?”; she said, "but they don’t have a home". There were others; most notably Jennifer and Joshua. She graded papers for twelve years in that chair. I was always so proud of her for having no desire to teach anywhere except her beloved Fremont Elementary, a school in a very rough barrio. No one was more of an advocate for the struggling kid than the lady in the chair. When she retired after two years of watching me wave good-bye to her from the driveway with a cup of coffee in my hand, she began a deeper study of scripture sitting in that chair. But when it came time, she got out of that chair to apply what she was learning. She responded to an invitation to be involved with a Christian twelve step program, Celebrate Recovery. What did she know about hurts, habits and hang ups? She knew more than most of you will ever know. She loved her CR girls; and she cut them no slack; and they loved her. She rose up from that chair to go to China three times to love and teach kids who had been uprooted from comfortable homes into a strange foreign culture. It was difficult for her to leave the comforts of the big chair to travel across the world the first time. But she did it and loved it because she loved the people. Finally, the big chair was a refuge from the chemo that so cruelly racked her body. It was a place to rest and a place to heal.

The chair is empty now and will forever be. It hurts; it hurts a lot. It will for a long time. Not only for me, but all of our family and many close friends, But the chair is empty because she doesn’t need it. “We are confident , yes well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.” (2 Cor 5:8) So, don’t look for Janice in the big recliner anymore. Look to our Lord and God, Jesus the Christ. You’ll find her in His presence. Someday we will be as well. That’s why this is bearable. “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Cor 6:9)

Kent

Good-byes 08/11/2010

The journey is finished, or perhaps it has just begun. There are struggles that we are dealing with that we know are not uncommon. I have questions. If God heals, and I know He does, why didn’t He heal Janice? As we began to realize that the end was here I asked that He take her Himself so that we would not have to make the decision to stop the life support. Was it too much to ask that He just stop her heart and take her home? I have heard of people who have opened their eyes at the last moment and talked about the angels in the room and how they peacefully stepped away with those angels. What a great sign that would have been and what assurance that it’s really real. But God didn’t do any of that. Rather, we had to make the decision to stop the life support. She never regained any kind of consciousness, and I was almost out of my mind by the time she took the last breath. I thought there had been some hard things in my life before, but nothing came close to this. The enemy often tries to drag that scene back into my mind and use it to destroy me. But here’s the good part; he’s not been successful, and he will never be. “Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.” (1 Jn 4:4b) And here’s another good thing. My whole family and a few good friends were in that ICU room. Before we turned the machines off we prayed over her, and the nurse who was responsible for the procedure joined hands and prayed with us. We prayed not only for Janice and ourselves, we prayed for Jason, our great nurse. Then, as the process started, we sang several of her favorite hymns and praise songs. Later, one of the nurses told us we could be heard all over ICU, and that people thought we had brought in professionals. Good thing my daughter and son-in-law carried us with their good voices or they may have kicked us out. As we were singing, I looked over and Jason, our nurse, was singing with us as he was turning off machines. So Janice left this earth with some very questionable voices doing the best we could, into the sound of heavenly voices beyond anything heard on earth. What a step that must have been.

So, why didn’t God answer those prayers the way I would have preferred? Why wasn’t she healed, or why wasn’t I given a sign, or why didn't He just take her before we had to turn off the machines? I don’t know. He doesn’t explain Himself. He doesn’t have to. He is God the Creator and we are the created (Isaiah 45:9). He is sovereign and He will do what He wants to bring benefit to Himself. Is that just? He is the definition of justice. Would a loving God do that? “God is love.” (1 Jn 4:8) Then why does He do it?
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways…
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are my ways higher than your ways,
And my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)
My finite mind cannot understand His infinite ways. And what about just a sign that there really is a life after death? What about all those stories about angels in the room? When the Pharisees asked Jesus for a sign He told them they were wicked and they had the only sign they would get; His resurrection after three days. (Matt 12) And that “…we walk by faith, not by sight.” (2 Cor 5:7) So there you have it. I have a choice to make. I can either believe that God is God and Janice is in His presence, or I can chose to not believe. Sometimes He gives overwhelming evidence; sometimes He doesn’t. Sometimes He physically heals; sometimes He doesn’t. But I have to believe that what He does to bring honor to Himself will always be best for us; whether we think so or not.

Remember the verse in Isaiah 43:1-2, that started this whole journey? As we have walked through some very deep waters, He has been with us. The rivers have risen beyond flood stages, but they haven’t covered us. We have been though the fires near hell, but they haven’t consumed us. Life will never be the same. I will remember her every day of my life. It has changed the way we see the world. I used to be Janice Scott’s husband; now I’m just Kent Scott. But we will find a new normal and we will chose life. And someday, we will walk into His presence and there she will be. To us that may be a while; or maybe not. To Janice, it will only be the blink of an eye and we’ll be there. That is the hope that is in us. Happy Birthday Babe ….. you would have been 65 today. Instead you are in a place where birthdays are meaningless. Right now, so am I.
Kent

She Wins!

Yesterday I lost my mom here on this earth and Jesus received her in heaven. It was definitely the hardest day of my life, yet mingled in the sorrow, was a great hope and peace. As the people that loved her gathered around her bed to say goodbye, we sang hymns. I am sure there were moments in that ICU when others were thinking, "What in the world are they doing?" We were doing the one thing we knew to do, allow my mom pleasure of entering into the streets of Heaven. It seemed fitting to sing songs of praise and worship here on this earth as she was ushered into the presence of the Lord. Can you imagine the singing that she must have heard when she entered Heaven? Oh, how glorious that would be!
Today we have fought back tears and had moments of calm. It struck me today that life goes on for the rest of the world, as we feel ours has stopped for awhile. It's hard to look over at her chair and not see her sitting there, or look through numbers on my phone and see her name there. But we don't want to be struck down with sorrow, we want to be reminded that "She Won". She is now in the presence of the Lord and the battle that was so difficult for her is over. She will no longer have pain or sorrow. Yet, as Debra and Dad have said so many times today, "It sucks for us". We will miss her everyday for the rest of our lives, yet we are so grateful that she knew Christ and now sits at His feet.
The verse that kept running through my head yesterday and again today is II Timothy 5:6-8, "For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day - and not only to me, but to all who have longed for his appearing"
What a great comfort this verse has been to me. My mom fought the good fight, she finished the race and she kept the faith. She has received her crown of righteousness and will one day be with me again when I receive mine. There is no greater joy than that. My mom would tell me not to sit in my sorrow, but rejoice that I will one day join her and our Lord.
For now I am sad, and that is OK. I will miss her terribly. She was an amazing testimony of God's faithfulness and grace. I am privileged to be called her daughter.
Lisa