Lois Flowers

The week before my mom died, my sister and I met with the medical staff at her nursing home for what they call an “Advance Care Plan Meeting.”

I don’t know all the jargon associated with long-term care, but based on my limited experience, this is a nice way of saying “things don’t look good; we need to plan ahead.”

Over the last few months, swallowing had become increasingly more difficult for my mom. She had stopped eating, was barely drinking anything and was sleeping much of the time. The end was near, they told us, and it was time to seriously consider hospice care.

I knew countless people have been down this road with their loved ones. I understood that the purpose was to make my mom’s last days as comfortable as possible. But I personally had never signed hospice paperwork before, nor had I ever imagined that I would be in a position to do so.

As I lay awake one night, not knowing what to do and struggling to wrap my head around the fact that my mother was dying, a verse came to mind that I first heard long ago while listening to a children’s radio program in the kitchen of my childhood home.

“Thou wilt show me the path of life; in Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” (Psalm 16:11)

At that moment, peace flooded my heart. I realized that for my mom, the path of life led straight into God’s presence. As odd as it may sound, the path of life—for her—was death. On God’s timetable, not mine.

By the time I actually signed the hospice paperwork, my mom was already unresponsive. She slipped into eternity a few days later.

That was almost five months ago. For some reason, I’ve been thinking about Psalm 16:11 a lot lately, along with another familiar scripture that talks about the paths God lays out for us:

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been one to think “straight paths” means “no problems.” God isn’t some kind of heavenly vending machine; we can’t expect to insert five months of trust and get back a year of blessing. John 16:33 makes it painfully clear—“In this world, you will have trouble.”

Beyond that, I won’t even begin to suggest that I know what it means to trust the Lord with all my heart. Most of us, if we’re honest, would probably agree we don’t even come close. And submitting to Him in all our ways? Not by a long shot.

We do try, though. We try and we fail and we ask for forgiveness and we try again.

And somehow, through it all, God sees our frail, finite, imperfect efforts and makes our paths straight anyway.

I experienced this many times during the last year. I’d come up against a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, and then an unexpected answer would unfold. I would have no idea what to do, and then the way would somehow become clear.

God is trustworthy. He was trustworthy before I had an opportunity to encounter it in such urgent ways, and He remains trustworthy now.

He will direct our paths, His Word says so.

And when His divine map for our loved ones leads US down paths we’d rather not explore, His sovereignty is our anchor. His joy is our strength. And His presence is our peace.

♥ Lois

This post is part of a collection called Help for Parent Loss. To read more, please click here.

Cloudburst photo by Randy Flowers. Railroad tracks photo by Ruth Keehner.