When A Loved One Is Dying | Comfort

One of the most difficult situations we can face in life is when a loved one is in failing health and dying. Sarah and her husband cared for his mother during her last days. The articles in this collection tell of Sarah’s grief, struggles, faith, and love while caring for her mother-in-law, and being a support to her beloved father-in-law.

I shared several of the articles in this collection with a friend who’s wife was dying of cancer and also with another friend, who himself has terminal cancer. They both told me how much they were comforted, encouraged, and blessed by these writings. May God bless you as you read them.

It was two in the morning when he came to wake me. My husband and I are caring for his mother during her last days on earth. She was uncomfortable. We worked together until she was resting. I got back in bed and my mind was flooded with anxiety. I would like to say, because the Bible says “Be anxious for nothing,” that I am never anxious; but then I would be lying, and the Bible also says “Do not lie.” What I can say is that when I am anxious I am drawn irresistibly before the throne of grace.

Have you ever had your heart so full that you felt you just had to talk to someone? But then you notice as you were talking they really weren’t listening? Or have you been at a counselor’s office and you were just beginning to be able to put words to your pain, and they looked at their watch and said, “Times up.” That would be the opposite of what I experience when I go to God in prayer. “Let is then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace in time of need.” (Heb. 4:16 ESV)

Sometimes I sit in silence with the things that weigh my heart down. Who could help anyway? But when I go to God in prayer, I picture Him on His throne. “He wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent.” (Psa. 104:2 NIV) He dwells in unapproachable light.” (I Tim. 6:16 ESV) His throne is in appearance like sapphire, his voice like the sound of mighty rushing waters. According to Ezekiel there is brightness all around Him and there is a rainbow that encircles His throne. To this throne of grace I have been invited; to this throne of grace I come. Bathed in his Light and Love I find the welcome that a father gives his child. Surrounded by his glory, He invites me to lay my burden down and know his rest. As the light of his glory penetrates my tears, I see the colors of a rainbow, and I find comfort in His promises.

How can someone like me have access to such glory? I am a mere mortal, and stained by sin; and yet I come because I have been invited. I don’t have to come; I could sit in the darkness, overwhelmed by grief and sorrow. But because of the sacrificial death of Jesus I come with confidence to this holy place.

I come by the new and living way that he opened up for me through the curtain, which is through his flesh. I know, according to the book of Hebrews, that because Jesus is my high priest I can draw near to God with full assurance. I have been invited through grace to come, and by faith I have accepted the invitation.

Lord Jesus, in the middle of my night my heart was full of darkness and anxiety about things I could not control. Thank You for inviting me before the throne of grace to lay my burden down. Thank You for lavishing Your love on my so when I look at the one who is seated on the throne I can cry, “Abba Father!”

My mother came to the cafe where I am a waitress. It was a very busy day, and I was rushing from table to table serving. when I got to my Mother’s table she told me she had a gift for me. I leaned over as she fastened a necklace around my neck. I couldn’t see it, but my fingers felt it’s beauty. Because we were so busy it was quite some time before I could slip away and see this gift my mother had given me. When I looked in the mirror, my breath was taken by the beauty of the sapphire and diamonds on a gold collar. So I spent the rest of the day with my hair pulled back in a ponytail, cap on, apron on, waiting on tables, clearing tables, washing dishes, and all the while wearing the most beautiful sapphire and diamond necklace I have ever seen.

This scene in my mind of wearing this beautiful necklace while being a servant is like a parable of my Christian experience. When I looked up the meaning of sapphires in the Bible I found this passage: God comforts His people with the promise that, while they are suffering now, He will eventually restore them beyond anything they could ever expect or imagine. (Isa. 54:1-10) He concludes with, “O thou afflicted with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colors, and lay thy foundations with sapphires.” (Isa. 54:11)

When I am not at the cafe being a waitress I am at the home of my dear mother-in-law who is in the final days of her life. We sit around her bed surrounding her with love. She is barely able to speak now. She still bless us with her smile, and every word she utters reminds us that she loves us and knows that we love her. My heart is often squeezed with sorrow. I don’t want to say good bye, but I know the curtain is closing on her life here with us. But I also know, because of Jesus, things are not always what they seem. We grieve, but not without hope, not without the promise that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

“Where, O death is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (I Cor. 15:55-56 NIV) I am the waitress wearing a sapphire and diamond necklace that reminds me the promises that God has given me are more than anything I could ever expect or imagine. I am one who sits with tear-washed eyes watching at the bedside while on whom my heart loves draws her final breath. But with eyes of faith I see beyond the veil, I see the Lord of love standing to greet her with outstretched arms.

Lord Jesus, thank you for the gifts of grace I could never earn.

There are two chairs facing west at the top of the hill. As the evening begins to cool and the sun begins to set, he and I make our way out once more to take our place. We sit in companionable silence, each lost in our own thoughts. At first I’m almost worried that my vision might be hurt. The brilliant orb seems shining directly in my eyes. But as we continue watching, the sun slips behind the mountains. The air is cooled, but the beautiful display of colors warms our heart. Darkness begins to blanket the earth, but still we sit, the beauty feeding our souls. I lift my eyes to the heavens. Coming through the darkness now there is the glow of the evening star. Reluctantly we stand to go.

In the stillness and the quiet of those moments our hearts find the strength to continue our vigil at the bedside of his dying wife. We have Whispered the words night after night as we watched the sun set, “Be still and know that I am God….” (Psa. 46:10) We have found the beginning words of the psalm to be true as well: “God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble.” The chairs are set side by side; we sit together at the bed and remember. The grief and pain are real, but so is the strength we find in the stillness of the night and the knowledge that we are not alone. Surely our God is a very present help.

This is not a place any of us would ever choose to be, but it’s not a place we can escape; death comes to us all. My daughter has dubbed this peculiar time we are in “Heaven’s Waiting Room.” Many things are happening as we sit in the stillness and wait. Quietly we are sitting together bound by love, by faith, by hope. Tonight I asked the question, “What is the chief end of man?” Without a pause, my 91-year-old father-in-law responded, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.” So we sit together, even now praying that God will be glorified, and finding our hearts comforted at the prospects of enjoying Him forever.

Tomorrow morning I will look toward the east and watch the sun rise. I will remind myself of the promise of the resurrection.

I have heard this prayer many times over the last 38 years, but I had never heard it prayed in this way before. Like many people, Papa had a prayer he would say before meals. “May Thy blessings rest upon this table and all who are gathered around it. Fill our hearts with grateful love. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.” Sometimes I have to admit that I was so familiar with the prayer that I participated more out of habit. That changed the week following Ma Belle’s death.

All the family gathered together. They came to grieve together, to support Papa in his loss. Many friends brought meals, and as we gathered around the table holding hands, Papa would begin to pray: “May Thy blessings rest upon this table and all who are gathered around it.” Then he would pause, everyone there could feel his love and gratitude for their presence. Yet we were also aware that someone was missing. Some lessons are taught in a classroom and some are taught holding hands around a table and joining in a prayer of gratitude. While grieving his loss, he chose to recognize the gift that surrounded him.

Sometimes during this week Papa’s voice broke and he would ask someone else to pray. The words would be different but the Presence of the one who heard the prayer could be sensed. When Papa was able to pray, he said each word tenderly and with great emotion. I not only heard the words, I felt them, ” Fill our hearts with grateful love.” When your heart is full of sorrow it can be hard to find room for grateful love. Papa brought not only his heart (to be filled with grateful love) but ours as well, and we experiences the miracle of answered prayer together.

We didn’t know then that that was to be the last week of Papa’s life. It was a beautiful week full of love, memories and tenderness. Each of us were not only blessed by the fellowship we had around the table, we were blessed because Papa had requested it. “May Thy blessings rest upon this table and all who are gathered around it. Fill our hearts with grateful love. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.”

Lord Jesus, thank You for Your many blessings. Thank You that there is a table that extend into the Heavens. Thank you for the sweet communion we have experienced as a family and for the communion that we look forward to. Surely Your blessings will rest upon that table and on all who will be reunited around it. My heart is filled with grateful love as I wait in anticipation.

“How can I help you?” This was the question she always asked. Ma Belle’s vision was gone, and she had difficulty hearing even with her hearing aids. Mom had suffered the effects of several mini strokes, leaving her weak and often unable to remember things that had just taken place. Still, she would ask, “How can I help you?”

Several years ago when Ma Belle was struggling with the loss of her sight, and as a result the loss of her freedom, she told me what she had prayed. “I prayed and told the Lord I was willing to be weak if He could use my weakness to make my family the people He wanted them to be.” This was such a prayer of love; this was such a gift of grace. She humbled believed that, if God allowed suffering into her life, He would also be able to redeem that suffering. The gift she asked for as a result of that redeeming love was for her family, not for herself.

I have been both a recipient and an observer of how God answered her prayer. I have read in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “For my strength is made perfect in weakness,” but now I have observed it. Ma Belle became weaker and weaker until she could do nothing for herself. As I cared for her, I became more and more aware of the honor and privilege of caring for someone who was willing to sacrifice strength and dignity for the ones she loved. Spurgeon said, “A primary qualification for serving God with any amount of success, and for doing God’s work well and triumphantly, is a sense of our own weakness.”

It is one thing to give your strength in service to the Lord, but is another to give your weakness. What a beautiful picture of humility and faith to surrender your weakness, believing that God will use it to bless the people you love. She humbled herself and laid aside her dignity. She considered others more significant than herself. She didn’t look to her own interests but instead she looked to the interests of others. I watched as the brilliant woman followed her Lord and allowed herself to be made nothing. She, in her total weakness, became a servant of the most high God.

Mom died on Sunday. Mom died quietly. It seemed as if she just slipped away from us, leaving us one of the most precious gifts that can be given. She showed us by example what self-sacrificing love looks like. Now I have to close my eyes to see her; but when I do I think of Psalm 45:13, “The king’s daughter is all glorious within; Her clothing is interwoven with gold.” Thank you, mom, for showing me what strength made perfect through weakness looks like.

Ma Belle died last Sunday. All week we have been gathering around Papa, her beloved husband of 64 years. There has been an unspoken theme in our shared grief. Boxes were contained love letters, love letters written from generation past. We spoke not only about the covenant of love that they had shared, but we also spoke about the unfailing love God has shown to this family as they have sought to serve Him throughout the generations.

Our conversation has often begun with Papa wondering how they could possibly be in their 90s. Last year we had a big celebration for their 90th birthdays. Lots of pictures were taken, pictures that we now cherish. However, Papa never saw himself as an old man; instead he found a picture of his wedding day and put it with the picture of the 90th birthday and said, “This is how I see myself and Isabelle.”

Both Ma Belle and Papa had one request for their funeral services – they wanted a clear presentation of the gospel. Why? It was because they understood what Jesus had done for them. They understood that, “This is real love – not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.” (I John 4:10)

For a week after Ma Belle died we surrounded Papa with our songs of love and listened as he sang his love to us. We wept, we laughed, we cried, we remembered God’s faithfulness to us throughout the generations. Then Papa and I shared a quiet moment and he said, “Come Monday, I’m going to need to start learning to live my life without her … but I don’t want to.” He knew that by Monday we would all need to return to our busy lives, and he would still be here grieving. But Monday never came. Papa died on Sunday. His was a heart full of love, a heart full of wisdom, and when it stopped beating he was ushered into the presence of God.

“We’ve been mighty blessed!” This was a statement that Papa often made as he thought back through the years. Both Papa and Ma Belle had been from Christian families. They had been taught from their earliest memories what the chief end of man was. In his 90s, with a tear-choked voice, he would say, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” Then he would add, “Why, why have we been so blessed?” My answer was always the same, “Papa, you have been blessed to be a blessing. God has chosen you to be a living parable of what it looks like to know God and have His splendor show throughout the generations.”

Ma Belle and Papa died one week apart. A week that was filled stories of love and the faithfulness of a covenant-keeping God. During this week we heard story after story after story about how the ancestors had committed their loves and plans to the Lord and how He had been faithful to establish the plans they had committed to Him. The day before Papa died, I read Psalm 90 to him, the same Psalm presented here.

Psalm 90 – Selected verses (NIV):

Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.

Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world,

from everlasting to everlasting you are God!

You turn men back to dust, saying, ‘Return to dust, O sons of men.’

For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by

or like a watch in the night. You sweep men away in the sleep of death….

The length of our days is seventy years or eighty, if we have the strength;

yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass and we fly away.

Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,

for as many years as we have seen trouble.

May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children.

Papa wept and spoke through his tears, “It is so; yes, it is so.”

It was the day before he died, I walked into the house and found him bent down with sorrow. “Papa, would you like to walk with me and then share another sunset?” He lifted his head and offered me his gentle smile and said, “Yes.”

We walked stopping often and then took our seats facing West, facing the setting of the sun. “Sarah, what do you think Isabelle is doing now?” A few years ago I had taught a study on what the Bible tells us about heaven, earlier that week his beloved wife of 64 years had died. I looked into his dear face and my heart was touched by his great grief. Our hearts were heavy, but we comforted ourselves with the promises of God.

I did not know what I know now. That would be the last evening I would ever share with him this side of eternity. We talked about the promise that, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Rev.21:4 ESV) We shared our grief, we shared our hope, we shared the comfort of the Word of God. We sat and talked about the love of God. And while we watched the sun set behind the mountain we also watched as two butterflies flitted about, and our hearts were gladded by the beauty of God’s gift of nature.

The next morning he died, and that evening I sat alone and watched the sunset. Yet I wasn’t alone; the two butterflies that had blessed Papa and I the night before returned. I watched them again and my heart was gladdened. But this time it was not only their beauty that comforted me but the reality they were a picture of the resurrection. I heard once that the Christian view of death is like a group of mourning caterpillars carrying a cocoon like a casket. Above there is a beautiful butterfly staring down in disbelief. The butterfly reminded me that there is the promise of new life even in the midst of my grief.

Both Papa and Ma Belle had requested that their memorial service focus on the gift of salvation. They wanted the good news of eternal life to be told as we gathered to grieve their death. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) On the last night of Papa’s life he told me, “I love this month, I love this season of Spring because it reminds me of new birth.” How fitting that God should choose to take both Papa and Ma Belle into His eternal presence during this time of new birth.

There were two thing that woke me up last night. One was the grief of having lost two people I loved in a week, and the other was the pinched nerve in my neck. Both the physical and emotional pain made sleep seem impossible. I came into the living room to sit, think and pray. At the heart of my prayer was this verse, “I am a sojourner on the earth; hide not your commandments from me!” (Psa. 119:18 ESV)

I realized that in many ways I want and even expect life to be easy. But that is not what Jesus taught when He invited me to be part of His Kingdom. In fact, he never said that I would have peace in this world. He said, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33 ESV)

As I sat and prayed and meditated on the truths of Scripture I was reminded of something my friend told me about the painting by Rembrandt called “Christ in the Storm.” The painting depicted what I felt: A small fishing boat caught in a life-threatening storm. She told me to look at the picture and identify which figure represented me. I saw the disciples straining to keep the boat afloat. I saw some, with fear filled faces, trying to wake the sleeping Savior. Then there was the one who seemed to be sitting passively in the storm-tossed boat. With my pinched nerve and grief-stricken heart, it was the picture as a whole I identified with.

Another verse came to mind as I meditated on my truth that I am a sojourner on this earth and that I have been promised tribulation in this world and not peace. The word that came were the words of Jesus, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” (John 14:27 ESV)

Lord Jesus, I confess I seek comfort in this world and am surprised that instead I find tribulation, just as you said I would. Thank you for the storms that teach me the truth that I belong to Your Kingdom, and in You I will always find peace.

I was awakened by the chiming of the clock in the den. Could it be that it was only a week ago I had been awakened at that very same hour by Papa complaining of chest pains? When the paramedics came they did an EKG which did not show a problem; his blood pressure was good, his oxygen level was normal, and yet Papa died when he got to the hospital later that morning. Are all things left to chance, or is there a God who is in control?

I find the same comfort in thinking about the many days of Papa’s life that I found when pondering the few days of my baby Belle Marie’s life. Those days were not a random number chosen by chance, by an uncaring God. “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them.” (Psa. 139:16 ESV)

When I read this psalm I am reminded that the Lord I serve has an intimate concern for me. “O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You searched out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.” (Psa. 139:1-3 ESV)

The fabric of my life has been ripped by the loss of two people I love within the span of a week. There is a feeling not only of loss but also of vulnerability; yet I take the comfort that is offered to me in the psalm. Though I don’t know the path that lies before me, the Lord does.

“If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,’ even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.” (Psa. 139:11-12 ESV) One of the things I am discovering about grief is that it makes it hard to think clearly. How comforting to know that I serve a God who is not only intimate with all my ways but that there is no darkness with Him. It is not only that there in not darkness with Him but He shares His light with me. “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!” (Psa. 139:17 ESV)

Lord, I am comforted in knowing that You are not a God who is far off. You are not an indifferent God, but the one who has hemmed me in, behind and before. You have laid Your hand upon me. “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psa. 139:23-24 ESV)

These articles were compiled by Dr. John G. Frazier III, Ph.D. from Sarah’s book:

“A Ministry of Hope.” pp. 281-300.

You may read more of Sara’s wonderful articles by going to her blog at: http://sarahdecosimojones.blogspot.com