A young woman wrote to me about the death of her mother the day before her 67th birthday. Her faith community believed strongly in physical healing, and as she got closer to her time of dying, she simply held on tighter and tighter, not realizing that the ultimate healing is of the soul and the spirit and not always our bodies. God sometimes has other plans for us.
She was not happy when her family called hospice care, because it felt to her that she was not trusting God enough. She was frustrated and angry at times that she was not physically healed. One day out of the blue she asked her daughter to put the books about “physical healing” away, and so she did.
“The Lord graciously gave her a beautiful glimpse of heaven before she died,” this young woman wrote. “Another sister stopped by for a visit with Mom on Thanksgiving night, and this is what she told her: ‘I was swinging with all of my dolls in my arms. My joy was back and it will never be taken away from me again. I saw all of your faces and they were sparkling; I wonder if it is like that for everyone?’ ”
She told her daughter that the colors were all so beautiful, like fresh vegetables on a plate on a warm summer’s day. Everything was beautiful and sparkling there. Her mother was happiest and most content about the fact that she had four children whom she loved fiercely. Now she was beginning to see and understand that the beauty and love she experienced with her children on Earth would continue forever. Her daughter sat with her mother and told her of her own belief about how similar life and death really are, and after that, her mother simply closed her eyes and died.
