Babies, Brownies and Blessings

I fancy myself a purveyor of Godly insight at times (oh, how I pray for that very thing!) but often life-altering events are only understood in the After. I now realize my prior post When the Final Chapter is Named was an earthly representation of Teresa's journey. What felt like an entire life chapter was merely the Prologue to her real story: Glory and the Return of All Things Lost.  Because in Jesus, that is what "death" is. To die is gain, to live is Christ, are the words of Paul (Phil. 1:21).  Never have those words been so profound as in this moment, hours after Teresa took the hand of Jesus and has returned to her original unscarred Glory. The only way to live, to take the next aching breath, is in Christ...our Sustainer, our Joy, or Living Hope. Teresa loved me from the first time she met me. I'd love to say that made me unique, but, in fact, she loved everyone she met. What I DID uniquely receive from her was quick and full acceptance as her son's wife....

What do we know about the beginning of the end of one’s time on earth? Do we always recognize it? Is there a pattern it follows, a predictability? Maybe at the very end… but in the middle pages, the book holds a unique set of stories for those fighting for more time before meeting their Savior just yet. My mother in law Teresa’s recent chapters have certainly been full of twists and turns and winding roads. Most of which have led back to Mayo in the last 50 + months. What started as a bizarre and benign form of sinus tumors is ending in an all-out cancerous assault on her body. Four years of surgeries, intermittent scans, an abundance of uncomfortable procedures, and countless (and I mean COUNTLESS) nose/sinus rinses has yielded time, but not a cure.   Now the title of the final chapter has been named: Hospice. As a nurse, I LOVE hospice. As a daughter-in-law… the word provokes an ache… could we wait a decade or two?   The hope of eternity brings so m...