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Passing Over

I don't know what to write. I really don't. I wait on God to tell me what I should write and I hear nothing. I can only reflect.

The last 12 days have been long and a blur. I have seen God move in so many ways that I can only sit in awe of the beauty of His glory. I have had ordained appointments, seen into the spirit realm and cried till my eyes became raw.

I waited for the spirit of death and he arrived last night at 10 till 7. My mother is gone. Gone from us, but now with the Father. She cried at that moment of death and I rose up from my sit, bent over her and spoke truth to her. She heard me, my brother kissed her and she left. Oh, how we wept.

Throughout the day people had come and gone in her room. So, many prayed and so many songs were sang over her. The song, still resonate in my heart. My friends came and loved on my mother as if she were their own. They are, my friends, beautiful people of God. Giving of themselves in that hour and showing the love of God. To them I say "Thank you".

I prayed, all day, that God would let me see her go. I expected, if I saw, it to be like it was in the post "Spirit of Man". But, as the day went on, I just began to ask for God's will and left my need behind. Turns out, a friend had been praying that God would give me a supernatural experience with my mother and he did.

At some point in the day, I had the thought that my mother's spirit was going to go right through me. After the thought, I pondered and told myself that was weird.
Feeling it was my own strange thinking, I let it go. But, in that last moment, I knew before she took her last breath that it was done. I sat back and I saw a blur quickly rise up out of her and fly right through me. I felt a weight come off of me. It gave me the feeling that I had lost a hundred pounds and was, for a second weightless. She did as I had thought and flew right through me.

It has only been eleven hours now, but there has been much speculation on why this happen by a handful of people. One, was that she took with her the burden that I have been carry for the last five years of taking care of her. I don't know. Maybe, it was just God's way of answering my prayer of seeing her go. No matter what the reason, it was a beautiful moment and I thank the Most High for giving it to me.

They told us that we could take as much time with her as we wanted after she was gone. But, we began to pack up and leave. She was no longer there and we saw no point. Her body is now in the hands of the embalmer, which is a notion that I can not stand. I detest embalming and think that we should, like the Jews, go to the ground quickly and not mutilate the body. But, she wanted to allow time for her out of state family to come to see her. So, I cringe and just take it.

There are certain things that we need and want in this life and one that strikes us to the very core is the need for our mothers. Good or bad we are connected to her in so many ways. That earthly connection, for myself, has been broken. I will, however, see her again. I have that great hope in my life. I have assurance of where she is now and her future. My mother has not stopped she has become more. More lovely, more vigorous, more joyful, more enlightened, more gracious, more elegant, more beautiful. She is now set free and I know, with out a doubt, that she is happy.

My Will

Can we interfere with the plans of God? Can we, with the power that the Lord has left us, delay, destroy, or corrupt the plans of the Almighty? This is a question that I have been asking myself and searching God for the answer to.

Smith Wigglesworth wrote that his wife had been killed and dayand he prayed her back to life. This was a mistake (not in God's plan) and after a talk with his wife, he let her go to her God. I heard of another man who was ill and the doctors said that there was nothing that they could do for him. His wife, who was an incredible prayer warrior, prayed healing over him and he recovered. But,he became ill again, and again she prayed him to health. This went on and on till finally, the man asked that his wife be kept away from him so he could go to God.

These appear to be examples of interference with the plans of God.

I have been at the hospital for 12 days now. My mother is in the hospice unit and is just laying in the bed. Nothing more. Just lying there.

Last week, as I sat in front of her, I saw the spirit of death come to her. I gasped at the prospect. The spirit left, but then returned a moment later. I watch it and could feel the fear rise up within me. Then, again it left.

I was confused by this, why would it leave? I have prayed and look to God over the issue. A moment of clarity came to me at 3:30 in the morning. I had gotten up from m hospital bed to ask the nurses to move my mother and give her morphine. After I sat down, a man walked into the room. What is this at 3:30 in the morning? He told me he was a Chaplin.

He mentioned my mother and I welled up with tears. He said, that's alright, even Christ wept. I shared with him, that I believe that Christ wept because He could feel the pain of His people and was overcome by His love for them. The Chaplin began to weep and said "You have moved me." He then pulled up a chair. We had the most intimate and deep conversation,, about our God that I have ever had. We shared our love for God and what He had done for us. We truly ministered to each other. But, He seemed to know things about me that I had not told him and in those things he gave me incredibly encouraging words.

At one point, while he was speaking, I looked over at my mother and knew that God was talking to me. He said, "It is your fault". I knew that He was talking about why she lingers. "It is your fault". What a frightening thought that was to me.

I have prayed about this for a few days. I now realize that in my will, my subconscious will, I have interfered with the plans of God. I have not prayed to keep my mother from death, but have willed it in my deep longings for her to stay.

I always, try to only do what I see my Father doing and to never pray against His will. But, knowing this is wrong, I never thought about the outcome of doing such a thing. How devastating.

My will not God's. Not the way I try to walk, but this is what I have been doing. So, now, I have to learn how to completely surrender this one, knowing that when I do my mother will leave. I have tried and not found the road to completeness with this issue. I continue to strive to unload my will and lay it at the foot of the cross.

So, much to battle right now. I can only surrender and watch God's hand at work. I know the glory and joy that will lay at the other end, but right now it is a battle. I am, however, very tired of the battle and want to surrender so I can rest in the arms of my God.

Venting

The weekend is here and I do not usually post. But, I am still sitting in this hospital room and wanting to let out my feelings. So, my blog gets the brunt of my emotional whirl wind.

My mother no longer speaks, eats nor drinks. She just is. It is very difficult for me to not be able to fix this. When your child has a cold, broken arm, stubbed toe, you fix it. Never knew how intense this urge was, to fix, was in me. I feel helpless, but praise God, nor hopeless.

I slept last night, for the first time in days. But, I would wake up in the hospital bed and listen to hear her breathe. She continues on but, without pain and for that I am so very grateful.

Every once in a while, I freak out. It is as if I suddenly explode with emotion. What I'd really like to do is to scream at the top of my lungs for about 5 minutes. That would relieve a lot, but instead I let in out a bit at a time. So, bits of explosion come out of me now and then and I weep.

There is no room for us in the hospice. Is that a weird thing. They are full and have a waiting list. So, the hospital that we are in has made her room into a temporary hospice. It has all been surreal.

I keep turning to God for my comfort. He stands by me and my family. I see Him in the faces of those who care for my mother and those who come to encourage and support the family through this time. I am, so very grateful to everyone. God is here and I am blessed because of it.

God's Power in the Live of A Former Homosexual (David Davis)

My early childhood was filled with scenes of my father coming home drunk and smashing furniture. Mother, my older brothers and sisters and I would stay with a neighbor until he was sober again. When I was eight, he nearly died from a brain aneurysm and spent the next six years in a VA hospital. That ended any hope of developing a relationship with him.

About this time I was the constant companion of two brothers my age in our Atlanta neighborhood, and we began to experiment sexually with one another. Even though my family didn't go to church, my conscience still bothered me. I was too young to understand what was happening, but our activity introduced me to homosexual behavior.

My mother worked to support the family and was out of the home a lot. She worried that I didn't have a father-figure, so she sent me to live with my older sister and her husband stationed in the Panama Canal Zone. I was excited about that, but my brother-in-law had a drinking problem, too. One night he even slapped my sister and choked her in front of me and their two-year-old son. I was really frightened. Then he suddenly threw her aside and left the house.

I had two emotional reactions. First, I decided never to trust adults. Second, I hated myself for being male, thinking that the same anger I saw in my father and my brother-in-law was also in me. I returned home shortly after that incident.

When puberty hit, I had strong homosexual desires, but I didn't act on them since I had started attending church. I prayed all through high school and my first year of college that God would take away the urges, and when He didn't I couldn't reconcile Christianity and homosexuality. So I left the church--and college--and took off for San Francisco's homosexual community. It was 1975; I was 19 years old.

When I joined the gay bar scene, I wanted to settle into one relationship. But that didn't fill the void in my heart, and I turned to drugs and alcohol. I stayed in California for six months, then traveled to other major cities. Eventually, I moved to rural Georgia and took a job in a convenience store, trying to put the past behind me. There, a local pastor invited me to church--where, on separate occasions, two men asked me out. These guys were both married, and supposedly, upstanding Christians. That made me feel justified in my lifestyle. At least, I thought, I've lived more honestly.

By 1978, my alcohol and drug abuse was getting worse, so I began looking for answers in the Bible. Even though I didn't understand most of the passages, reading it gave me peace, and a longing to find people who really believed its message.

A few months later, I left Georgia and eventually wound up in Boone, North Carolina. I arrived with a back-pack and $60. I rented a room for a week, not expecting to stay, but I found a job immediately. After several lonely months, I went to a concert put on by a local church. The man who greeted me at the door shook my hand, looked me in the eye and welcomed me. I thought, This man knows the love of God.

That night I was moved not only by the words of the songs, but by the spirit of the people. When I returned to my room I flushed away my marijuana, and said, "Okay, God, I want to be clean, and I want to know You. What next?"

The following Sunday, I set out for that little church and was heartily welcomed again. For the next two weeks, I went to every service Watauga Christian Center offered, and I listened--and watched--carefully. After a while, I even went to the pastor and apprehensively told him about my homosexuality. To my surprise, he didn't condemn me. Instead, he answered my questions about the Lord. He also helped me see that my homosexuality was learned behavior, and that I could choose to leave it.

Then he helped me make a commitment to the only One who could fill my heart's need. The months that followed were the beginning of a wonderful adventure in learning loving acceptance from the congregation. I also began understanding that men in the church need encouragement to befriend those who struggle with homosexuality. I know now that the emotional makeup of homosexual behavior is rooted in self-hatred and the overwhelming sense of being different from heterosexual men, and therefore, not being able to relate to them.

But while I was confident when helping others understand homosexuality, I worried about dating women, since I didn't have a clue of how to go about it. I prayed, "Lord, I can't do this. So would You please bring the one You want to be my wife to me. And make it really clear who she is."

Freida, a second-year teacher, and I worked in a nursing-home ministry and became acquainted. After much prayer, I asked her to date me. Four months later, we were married.

We have five wonderful children ranging in age from 4 to 11 who daily remind me of the joy I would have missed if I had continued believing the lie that homosexual men cannot change. Praise God, we can! I'm proof of that.