Scripture Reading:
ECCLESIASTES 3:1–8
When the time drew near for David to die…
1 KINGS 2:1
MIRANDA THOMPSON SAT in the chair beside her mother’s bed at the Clark County Nursing Home and watched a dozen birds fluttering outside the window.
“You know what they say about birds, don’t you?” the sixty-seven-year-old Miranda asked softly, turning toward her own daughter, Katy.
“No, Mom, what do they say?”
“When birds gather outside the window of a sick person, it means the Lord is ready to call them home.”
Miranda held her mother’s hand and stroked the wrinkled skin gently. Her mother, Esther, was eighty-six and in a coma. No one expected her to live out the week.
“I love you, Mother,” Miranda said through tears. Then she gazed up, closing her eyes. Lord, help me accept this. Help me to let my mother go home to you.
They waited until dinnertime, then Miranda and Katy slowly left, agreeing to meet again the next day.
Miranda drove home in silence, thinking about her mother’s decline. Two years earlier the woman had been in good health, living independently in Seattle. Then she began struggling to manage on her own, and finally she had come to live with Miranda and her husband, Bill.
Esther was careful to never impose on the life Miranda and Bill led. She had a sweet disposition and a happy outlook contagious to those around her. Two years passed quickly, and it seemed Esther might live to be a hundred. But while Miranda and Bill were on vacation in Boston, the older woman suffered a series of ministrokes and was placed in intensive care.
Two days into Esther’s hospital stay, a nurse accidentally gave her the wrong medication, which slowed Esther’s heart and brain activity and sent her into a coma. The doctor explained to Miranda that the nurse would be disciplined for the mistake.
“What does it mean for my mother?” Miranda asked anxiously. “When will she come out of the coma?”
“Mrs. Thompson, because of her condition and age, she might not come out of it. She might go downhill.”
Miranda nodded, trying not to cry. “But if she comes out of it soon, she still might make a recovery. Right?”
“Honestly, I don’t think it’s likely.”
When Esther remained in the coma for four days, the hospital staff decided there was nothing more they could do for her, so she was moved to the nursing home.
Two weeks passed and now, as Miranda drove home, she felt terribly cheated. Her mother had been healthy and witty and might have had years left. Miranda was doing her best to avoid blaming the nurse.
“Lord, help me to understand why this happened,” she prayed softly. “It doesn’t seem fair that Mother should be cheated of her last years of life.”
When Miranda got home it was nearly dusk, and the house felt cold and lonely. Just three weeks earlier her mother would have been there. “I need to get outside before I work myself into a full-blown depression,” Miranda said to herself.
Finding her gardening gloves, she went out to her beautiful garden in the front yard. Working steadily among the flowers, she heard a man’s voice nearby.
“My, your flowers are so lovely.”
Miranda looked up and saw, standing on the sidewalk, a tall man holding the leash of a beautiful little dog. Miranda smiled sadly. Her mother loved dogs.
“Thank you,” Miranda said, leaning back on her heels and looking into the man’s face. She had lived here for thirty-five years but had never seen him before.
“They aren’t as pretty as they could be if I had more time to take care of them,” she said. “My mother’s sick.”
The man gazed at Miranda kindly. There was something unearthly about him, a glow almost.
“She was given the wrong medication and now she’s dying. I want to be with her as much as possible.”
She felt the tears welling up in her eyes again.
“Don’t worry about your mother,” the man said, his voice strong and gentle. “God is in control.”
The man continued to watch her. How strange that someone she didn’t know would offer words of wisdom.
“Sir, where do you live?” she finally asked.
The man said nothing, but pointed upward. Miranda looked toward the sky instinctively. When she glanced back, the man and his dog were nowhere to be seen.
Miranda was shocked. There was no way they could have vanished so quickly. Then she realized that she hadn’t seen him arrive. He had just appeared with words of encouragement and then disappeared.
“God is in control.” Miranda pondered the truth in the man’s words and found that as the evening passed she felt less burdened.
The next morning, Miranda received a phone call from the nursing home. “Mrs. Thompson, your mother has died very peacefully in her sleep.”
Miranda shut her eyes as one hand flew to her mouth, and she felt a sob catch in her throat. Then, she remembered the man in the garden. A sense of peace came over her, and suddenly she knew her prayers had been answered. She bowed her head.
“Dear God, I understand now. There are no accidents where you’re concerned. Mother didn’t die because of the nurse or the medication; she died because you were ready to bring her home. You are in control. I understand that better now, Lord. And I thank you.”
The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.
JOB 1:21