Live - Don't Lose Heart
On Tuesday, 20 November, I sat in waiting room at Stokes Regional Eye Center reading an article by Joni Erickson. As I read the article, memories of my mother flooded my mind and soul. As I read 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, I could see my mother serving others and using her final days searching for ways to help her grandchildren. She always told us, "Everyday God gives me has a purpose, so I search for that purpose." She had a reason to live, because God gave her new mornings, and she filled those days with purpose.
You see, it was my mother's birthday. It would have been her 86th birthday, but she died young. At 59, her body gave up the fight against scleroderma and heart problems in January 1991, but she never, never complained. She lived! She lived with purpose. In February 1971, she went to Houston, Texas for open heart surgery. Leaving us home, six children, Mama and Daddy boarded a plane in Columbia, SC for the trip to Houston. As we watched the plane vanish in the sky, I wondered if she would come home alive. She did seven weeks later. Dr. Denton Cooley performed the valve replacement surgery and within months Mama was cooking and sewing again, but not as much as before. A year later, we almost lost her due to a growth on an ovary. We were told the growth was the size of a football and it ruptured before it was removed. Four weeks later, she was home again. Then, in 1977, she was diagnosed with scleroderma and Raynaud's syndrome. Scleroderma is Latin for 'skin of stone.' My mother went from a beautiful 5'7" woman to an aged looking little old woman in five to six years. It not only hardened her skin but her internal organs. Over the years, she spent many days in the hospital. The staff at the hospital in Columbia was like family to us. They not only took care of our mother, they took care of us. Mama had a huge sense of humor and loved to joke around with the nurses. She preferred male nurses, because they did not have to grasp her as tightly to move her. Sometimes, just a touch was painful. On her last arrival and prognosis, the staff cried with us. Actually, when I heard the doctor giving the nurses orders, I heard a few break down in tears. So, I knew she would never go home again. This would not be like all the other times, because there was only one heart muscle working (Yes, they told us she shouldn't be alive.) and she was losing blood from the artificial valve. She heard the tears on the other side of the curtain, and she knew her time was near. She slipped away a few days later. Yes, slipped away. Her diseased and lifeless body was left, but her beautiful spirit slipped away to be with her savior, Jesus Christ.
It was her faith that gave her purpose each day she lived. Her purpose was to live and she lived. She entertained her grandchildren. Oh, later I was shocked at some of the ways she entertained. She loved us all so very much and gave us many wonderful memories. She did her best for all of us. The autumn before she passed, the yard was covered with pecans. She made sure those pecans were gathered and shelled. She did a lot of shelling sitting at the kitchen table. The kitchen table was the center of our lives. Many conversations, instructions, laughter, prayers and devotions were shared at that table. We shared a lot at that old kitchen table, but most of all we learned to live life and never lose heart.
Sue Virginia Hill Evans woke up every morning knowing that God had given her another day to live and find purpose in each day she had. So, as I read those verses, I smiled knowing that my mother never lost heart and lived fully. May we never lose heart and live faithfully as she did.
"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but to what is unseen. For the things that are seen are transient but things that are unseen are eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
You see, it was my mother's birthday. It would have been her 86th birthday, but she died young. At 59, her body gave up the fight against scleroderma and heart problems in January 1991, but she never, never complained. She lived! She lived with purpose. In February 1971, she went to Houston, Texas for open heart surgery. Leaving us home, six children, Mama and Daddy boarded a plane in Columbia, SC for the trip to Houston. As we watched the plane vanish in the sky, I wondered if she would come home alive. She did seven weeks later. Dr. Denton Cooley performed the valve replacement surgery and within months Mama was cooking and sewing again, but not as much as before. A year later, we almost lost her due to a growth on an ovary. We were told the growth was the size of a football and it ruptured before it was removed. Four weeks later, she was home again. Then, in 1977, she was diagnosed with scleroderma and Raynaud's syndrome. Scleroderma is Latin for 'skin of stone.' My mother went from a beautiful 5'7" woman to an aged looking little old woman in five to six years. It not only hardened her skin but her internal organs. Over the years, she spent many days in the hospital. The staff at the hospital in Columbia was like family to us. They not only took care of our mother, they took care of us. Mama had a huge sense of humor and loved to joke around with the nurses. She preferred male nurses, because they did not have to grasp her as tightly to move her. Sometimes, just a touch was painful. On her last arrival and prognosis, the staff cried with us. Actually, when I heard the doctor giving the nurses orders, I heard a few break down in tears. So, I knew she would never go home again. This would not be like all the other times, because there was only one heart muscle working (Yes, they told us she shouldn't be alive.) and she was losing blood from the artificial valve. She heard the tears on the other side of the curtain, and she knew her time was near. She slipped away a few days later. Yes, slipped away. Her diseased and lifeless body was left, but her beautiful spirit slipped away to be with her savior, Jesus Christ.
It was her faith that gave her purpose each day she lived. Her purpose was to live and she lived. She entertained her grandchildren. Oh, later I was shocked at some of the ways she entertained. She loved us all so very much and gave us many wonderful memories. She did her best for all of us. The autumn before she passed, the yard was covered with pecans. She made sure those pecans were gathered and shelled. She did a lot of shelling sitting at the kitchen table. The kitchen table was the center of our lives. Many conversations, instructions, laughter, prayers and devotions were shared at that table. We shared a lot at that old kitchen table, but most of all we learned to live life and never lose heart.
Sue Virginia Hill Evans woke up every morning knowing that God had given her another day to live and find purpose in each day she had. So, as I read those verses, I smiled knowing that my mother never lost heart and lived fully. May we never lose heart and live faithfully as she did.
"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but to what is unseen. For the things that are seen are transient but things that are unseen are eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
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