Hearing God’s Whisper

“With medication,” the cardiologist told me privately, “your mother should be able to live another two or three years.” In addition to blindness from age-related macular degeneration, at the age of 87, Mom now had congestive heart failure.

One afternoon, while sorting a month’s supply of her meds into four plastic containers, my elbow bumped the top box and sent dozens of pills spilling onto the kitchen floor. Overwhelmed with exhaustion and sorrow, I got down on my hands and knees to retrieve them. God, I prayed, why does it have to end this way?

Then, in my heart, I heard a familiar whisper, stern but tender: I’m giving you this time with her. There was something reassuring and encouraging about the message, and I repeated it over and over in my mind. Is it possible, I wondered, that difficult as these days may be, locked within them might be some hidden greater purpose? But even if this was true, it didn’t ease the pain and sorrow. It didn’t make today one bit easier. I gathered up the pills and set about the tedious task of re-sorting them and putting them back in the containers.

I’m giving you this time with her…. One day I would understand. But not yet.