Movin' On

Tuesday, 04 Mar 2003

I stand there at the door looking in...I cannot believe what I clearly see with my eyes. A room transformed, not overnight...not without tears...not without help...but completely transformed into another place, another time, another way of being in this world.

I talk of Phil's room, the one he spent so many hours in while sleeping, recovering, playing video games, doing homework...the room that held his Batman poster, the Spiderman picture I drew for him shortly before his last birthday on this earth; toys and games and mementos from places he had been. So many, many things that I could not recount them all here.

Now they are gone and I stand there and look in and I wonder...what would Phil think of this change? I voiced that question to a friend this morning and she said she thinks Phil would be happy. I think so too. I said that I know that he is happy where he is in heaven, and I know that he would want us to be happy here also.

On my drive home this morning I was listening to a song by Jason Ingram. I'd like to share some of the words with you:

I'm tired of these walls
that have held my captive heart
and I'm ready for a change
to come and reach me through these scars
and I long to hear you speak
sweet peace into my soul
reaching to the depths that no one knows
let your healing waters flow

Cuz I'm movin' on to better days
Let the healing begin
Up ahead, I can hear you call my name
Let the healing begin

Your love for me is deep
and your mercy is so wide
so now you reach beyond the boundaries
of all my foolish pride
so come wash away these things
that have held me to my past
Jesus you're the one and only One
that can set me free at last

Cuz I'm movin' on to better days
Let the healing begin
Up ahead I can hear you call my name
Let the healing begin

Let it rain down, let it rain down
don't you know
it's time for me to be movin' on
to better days
let the healing begin
Up ahead I can hear you call my name
let the healing begin

Movin' on to better days
let the healing begin
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I see the "movin' on" so clearly. I see the healing has begun, and is well on its way, but I still marvel at God's power in it all. I still marvel at how He can take me into my son's room and help me go through everything that meant anything to him and release it, saving only a few things from his life that I will keep in my possession.

How does a Mother and Father have a yard sale on a beautiful sunny Saturday morning with peace in their hearts, as they watch their son's possessions being bought for a quarter, being carried away by strangers who have no idea what they hold in their hands? How do you release remote control cars, clothes, shoes, airplanes, kites, you name it...into hands that you will never see again, and never be able to share with them about how precious the person was who those things belonged to? How it warms my heart when someone comes who knows the story, who knows what is behind those toys, who can take his rollerblades into their home, wear them and enjoy them and know that they belonged to someone very special. Through it all, God is so good in helping us release what must be let go of so we can move on to better days. So that the healing cannot only begin, but can continue as He calls our name up ahead, setting us free from the things that might hold us to our past in an unhealthy way.

The enemy would like to get ahold of this, he would like for us to stand and look into the room that no longer belongs to our son and to torture us with questions like:
"How could you?
How could you just wipe away his life like that?
Don't you love him?
Now you'll probably just forget about him.
What kind of parent are you?"

And if we did not recognize the enemy, Satan, the liar and deceiver of this world, we might fall for those lies. We are tempted to. We wonder if it is right, if it is disrespectful, if Phil would be upset...but we know that there are better days ahead that God is calling us to. We know that if we are to move forward, we must let go of the past, bringing out of it only the lessons we have learned and the memories that we cherish. Not letting the hurts, the mistakes, the regrets and the constraints of what was, keep us from what will be.

Is it difficult? With a capital "D!"
Is it possible? With a capital "G" because with God it is possible!!

This past month, our lives have been through a tremendous time of reflection. A time where so many things from our past are being cut away. The easier way in the short-term would be to just hold on, sit with it surrounding us, and not move an inch because when you start to move away from it, it is difficult. It stretches you and takes you to a new place of trust, of finding out what's important, of realizing that what we so tightly hold onto might be the very thing that keeps us from enjoying all that is up ahead.

The song says, "come wash away these things, that have held me to my past."
Why is that so very important? Isn't the past good? Aren't memories good?
Sure, they both can be very good.
What is not good is when we hold onto the past, and the memories, so much so that we are tied down by them. When they keep us from seeing up ahead because we are blinded by the pain that has been inflicted in our lives. When the darkness surrounds us and keeps us buried under the burden of it all.

I still get taken back in my thoughts at times, like today. I was taken back to the last week or so of Phil's life. What was I doing? What was I thinking? What was I praying?
Did I do it right?
Did I pray enough?
Did I let him go too easily?
What kind of mother was I to him?

If I get stuck in those questions, I'm held to a past that cannot be changed no matter how much I dwell on it. I am human, and I have those times, but I am learning what to do with those times. I'm learning that those are only traps set by the enemy to keep me bound by any mistakes that I made so that I will miss out on all the blessings that God has waiting for me as I find my peace and joy in Him.

Sometimes I look for answers to those questions, certainly, but there are no certain answers. Only my ponderings. The problem with those ponderings is that the enemy only wants me to remember the mistakes. He doesn't want me to remember the things we did right, the comfort and guidance God gave during those times, or the ways that we might have helped the person who was dying instead of thinking of what was best for us. He only wants to blame and condemn, not build up and encourage.

What would have been best for me in Phil's final days...in my opinion...was if I could have just sat at his bedside and cried my eyes out and begged him not to go, not to leave me. What would have been best for me would have been to tell him that I just couldn't live without him, and that if he left I would blame God, I would be angry, and I would never recover from the loss! That would have suited my needs at the time...but God knew better. He knew what Phil needed and somehow in His glorious, magnificent power to carry us through times that are most difficult, He helped me to be the Mother that Phil needed me to be at that time.

Two weeks before Phil died I asked God to please help me let him go. I told God that I just couldn't do it without His help. He reminded me how when Phil was born, I cut the cord, and that I must once again cut him away from me and release him.

Because I asked God for help, I know that He helped me. I know that He was the One who kept me calm, who let me read to Phil all the scripture that everyone sent and also read to him out of his very own Bible. I know that he kept the tears at bay because Phil was so very sensitive, he just didn't need to see my pain then. He needed to see my confidence in the God we both believed in. He needed to see that I KNEW he was going to heaven, so that he could know it too. He needed to see the faith that I had that everything would be just fine, that God would take care of us should Phil leave us, and he needed me to be at peace so that he would not only feel God's peace, but witness it in those around him at that time.

Difficult task? With a capital "D!"
Capable God? With a capital "C!"

We learned this morning in our Bible study that everyone who believes will have their own Garden of Gethsemane. That simply means that we will all come to a place like Jesus did the night before He was crucified. A time where we will lay down our rights, pick up our cross in life, and follow God no matter what. A time when we will put aside what is good for us, and do what we are asked to do.
In Luke 22:41-42 it says:

He walked away, about a stone's throw, and knelt down and prayed,
"Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me.
Yet I want your will, not mine."
Then an angel from heaven appeared and strengthened him.
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I didn't want Phil to die. I prayed for him to be healed, to live a full life, to stay with me! But as it got closer to the end of his life it looked like that was not to be. Phil even said on the Saturday night before he died that it looked like that was not to be. We agreed that it was not over until God said so, but we also admitted to one another what God's plan might be for him.

I have not visibly seen an angel from heaven, but I can tell you that I have felt the love from heaven come into our home and strengthen us. I did not see angels in Phil's room on the night he died, but if you want my opinion, I believe they were there in force, strengthening all of us.

And now the enemy has the nerve to accuse me of not doing right by my son in his final days because I didn't weep at his bedside and beg him to stay?!! Anyone who knew Phil and his personality would have to know that that would have been the very worst thing possible for him at that moment. There were many times in Phil's life when he would simply see my brow furl and it would bring him great concern that I was upset about something. What would he have thought if we came down to the final week of his life on this earth and I lost it? After all I had told him and read to him about God's promises in our lives? I think that would have been devastating for him! So, God picked me up in His mighty hands and He said, I will carry you through this trial. I will transform you into the exact Mother that Phil needs at this moment in his life and you and I together will show him that he has nothing to fear. That he is protected and loved and that should he go home, all will be well with him and everyone that he leaves behind. That is the mighty power of God at work!

But the the enemy lurks, and taunts, and teases, and tries to bind us to what hurts most.
And the enemy says you can't change his room, get rid of his things, move on in your life!!
What are you thinking?
He was YOUR SON!!

Yes, he was my son, he will always be my son, and he lives with God in heaven now! And by God's mighty power and might, we will move on with our lives, one step at a time, one day at a time, and we will follow His light into the future as He heals us from the past.

We will not let the lies of the enemy bind us to the past with the havoc he has caused. We will rejoice in the plans God has for us and rest in Him each and every day.

We will find His joy and we will feel the peace that only He can give when we release those things that once seemed so important.

We will persevere!!

You need to persevere so that when
you have done the will of God,
you will receive what he has promised.
Hebrews 10:35
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Jesus didn't fight all the way to the cross. The night before He was crucified, He was in anguish because life is hard and death is hard, but He was called by his Father to die for the salvation of anyone on this earth who would accept His gift on the cross. He was God in a human body who felt human emotions and human pain, but His focus was on one thing, doing the will of His Father in heaven.

I am not God in a human body, I am only a human with the Spirit of God living inside of me. I invited Him to come in, to transform my life, to help me to do His will. He is transforming my life and He is helping me to do His will. Sometimes I really don't want to. I didn't want to let Phil go.   God knew that. He helped me. I didn't even realize how wonderfully He was helping me until long after Phil was gone. Until I had played the scenario through my mind so many times I exhausted myself with the pain, the regrets, the mistakes...until God started bringing me out on the other side of that dark tunnel and showing me that He allowed me to do what needed to be done for my son on his last days here. Doing what was best for Phil, not for me. Not what I thought, but what Phil needed.

And now, God is doing the same as He is taking care of our needs and helping us into our future. He is allowing me to transform Phil's room into just a room that no one lives in anymore. A room that will look nice when we put this house on the market. A room that doesn't show the telltale signs of the miraculous things that went on in there, of our son's departure into heaven and the memories he left behind.

Just as Phil's body lies in a grave, empty of his spirit, so his room lies in this house, empty of the person it once held. Just as Phil's body in that grave is only the shell of who he was on this earth and not all that he will become in heaven, so his room is now only a shell with memories of the past, and not yet what it will become when a new family moves into this house and brings new life and new memories of their own into those four walls.

Movin' on to better days...let the healing begin.

I know it has, and I know it will continue, and I look forward to all that it will hold. I will hold onto the past only as a reminder of how far God can bring a person, of how He can transform any life and any room into something new and different and full of laughter and joy as a new family will do in this house. It is an amazing journey that is not without its potholes and rough patches, but one that leads to greater joy for having been travelled through.

Thanks be to God for His amazing grace through the suffering days, for His amazing love that pours through us when our children need us the most, for His amazing strength that surrounds us in our most difficult times; for His peace that can carry a heart that has been so broken back to pick up the pieces, sort through them and discard what needs to be discarded, holding onto just a few pieces as mementos of a cherished life.

Thanks be to God for doing things that are so far above what we can do on our own and for helping to transform our will to His when we want nothing more than to have it our own way.

Lord, if I had had my own way, my son would still be here. His room would still be intact. He would be graduating from High School this year. I would have chosen what was best for ME! Thank you for knowing what was best for me, for Phil, for all of us, even when it hurts beyond what we think we can stand. I have found that You truly know what is best, You truly do what is right for us, and that You never leave us to travel this road alone, but offer to carry us through it if we will only ask for Your help. Remind me to ask for Your help every day I live because when I remember to, I am amazed at all You can accomplish with very little effort on my part.

God has reached into "the depths that no one knows." He knows the heart of a Mother better than anyone. He knew what I needed to do, even when I didn't know. He knew what Phil needed during his last days even when I would have forgotten what was best for him, having gotten caught up in my own needs at the time. How can I not have a grateful heart after all God has done?

We are movin' on to better days, and the healing will continue as we continue to seek God's will in our lives. It is an exciting time, a happy time, and a transforming time not only in our hearts, but in our physical surroundings as well.
Difficult?
Yes!
But as I heard recently, "Wisdom is making a choice now that we'll be happy with later."
Give me Your wisdom Lord, so that I will always be able to say:

This is the Lord's doing,
and it is marvelous to see.
This is the day the Lord has made.
We will rejoice and be glad in it.
Psalm 118:23-24
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Living in His peace,
Diane