Friday, September 10, 2010

Infinite Compassion


My mom went home to be with the Lord on August 26th, 2010. She was 92 and the sweetest Jewish lady you’d ever want to meet. OK, true, the photo was taken a few years earlier, but she was still beautiful, and yes, that's her own brown hair with hardly any grey hair. I can’t imagine anyone having anything but good things to say about her. She’s known the Lord since 1977, having come to the Lord in her sixties. A Jewish woman of that age with an orthodox Jewish upbringing coming to the Lord was not a usual occurrence at that time. (Still isn't.)

I share this with you about my Mom to let you know of the Lord's faithfulness in the last moments of our lives when we’re His. She went through three difficult days (death is still an enemy!) during which we watched her detach from this life, including saying goodbye to us, to a life that no longer had any meaning to her – only the people did, and even to Lizzie, our doggie, whispering to her, “You’ve been a very good puppy dog.”

Nothing was left to be said. We had said all the I love you’s, and thank you for being you’s. We had asked for forgiveness of each other years ago for any way we had hurt each other. After all, I was an unsaved teenager at one time – that’s cause to ask for forgiveness in itself. There was only love. It had been a privilege to be her caretaker, to honor my mother this way. I know that not every mother is as delightful and as easy to be with as mine, so she made caring for her easy. She was a role model of goodness, graciousness and generosity of heart to the end, even in the way she died.

That Saturday my daughters and their families, consisting of two sons-in-law, six grandchildren and three dogs went to the beach. Mom was always called "Gra," short for Grammom. The kids wrote her full name and "Gra" underneath in the sand. Libi whose name means "My heart" in Hebrew, wrote "We love you" under her name and drew a heart around the names in the sand upside down. "So she can read it from heaven either way if she's looking down," she said. We took a few moments to thank God for Gra and to remember things we loved about her. We were comforted in the Lord that she was in a much better place, but still, we deeply missed her as we left the beach, all of us together for the first time without her.

Two days later, to soothe our souls, my daughter Jenny and I went into the quaint little town she and her family live close to on the ocean here in Florida. We had lunch at a French restaurant, and dessert in a Belgian one. In the town is a synagogue which is over 100 years old, with beautiful stained glass windows and charming architecture. Jenny wanted to show it to me so we found an open door and went in. Three people were speaking together and turned to greet us with questioning looks on their faces as to who and why we were there as the service (It was Shabbat) was already over. Jenny had been there once before for a service and when she reminded them, they recognized her.

The older man, who turned out to be the 90 year old rabbi, greeted us warmly with an accent that sounded like my Grandmother's, a combination of English and a Russian Yiddish accent. Standing with them was a lady, also elderly, who was obviously in emotional pain. She had a handkerchief to her face and was crying, or trying not to.

Jenny asked the woman in a most tender voice why she was crying and she began to tell us, also in an accent, that a member of her family had died in Poland and she was unable to get to the funeral or be with her family. She was grieving terribly, not just for the family member she obviously loved, but also because she couldn’t be with her family so they could share their grief together. (Obviously, there was no Yeshua in her life or her deceased family member to take the sting out.) I asked her if she was the Rebbitzin (rabbi’s wife). Yes she was.

We then told her how we had just lost my Mom, so we now were sisters in grief. Jenny and I put our arms around her and cried with her. She had her head on Jenny’s shoulder while I put my arms around her too and just let the comfort of the Holy Spirit ooze into her as we silently prayed for His comfort to come to her. We just held her and let her hurt and cry and grieve while we loved on her.

That we too had just lost a loved one changed Mrs. Rabbi's sorrow from what was happening to her to sharing what three women were experiencing together. My thoughts went to something Paul once said which we were now experiencing: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Yeshua our Messiah, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God" (2 Cor. 1:3,4). It is often in comforting others that we are comforted.