"To Him be glory forever": Going Home

Showing posts with label Going Home. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Back at Home: Going Home, part 9

The saga involving my mother and our family has taken another unexpected turn. To review, briefly, in late November she was acutely and critically ill, with a diagnosis that was expected to quickly result in her death. She decided to come home from the hospital and spend her remaining days there, with support from her family and hospice. I began a series of posts about what was going on as my mom moved through what we anticipated as being the final stage of her life, with the first post here.

Mom didn’t die, but in fact she gradually got better, surviving the acute phase of her illness. Seven weeks ago, when it was no longer possible for my siblings and I to care for her in her home, we made a plan for her to move into our home, a plan that changed at the last minute when my mom opted to move into a care facility within her own community. I wrote about that here, the most recent post of this series.

And now she has moved back to her home, something none of us would have ever anticipated. At the care facility she continued to improve in virtually every way, so much so that she didn’t think she needed to live their anymore and that she could return to her home. So she made a plan, got some support services in place and went home for a trial stay over the weekend, a trial that seemed to go well enough that she is back at her own home to stay “for good.”

I haven’t asked her any probing questions about her motivation to return home. I think that all of us have an innate longing to “be home,” to live in the place where we feel the most at ease. The place that always feels comfortable. The place that contains those people and things in which we find the most meaning. As Dorothy says in The Wizard of Oz, “There’s no place like home.”

I agree with Dorothy’s sentiments, and what, without asking, I presume to be my mom’s desire too, that there is no place like home. And yet I also know that even at its very best, a home here on earth only dimly points to that best of homes, our eternal home with God.

In John 17:2-3 Jesus tells his disciples this about home:

“In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”

I’m glad that my mom has made it back to her home and I hope that she time she spends there is enjoyable and peaceful. And in that joy and peace I hope that she tastes something that gives her a longing for the eternal home that Jesus promises his disciples, the place that is perfect in every way.

Even now, Jesus is preparing a place for my mom. And one day he will be returning to gather her, and every person who calls on him by faith, so that where he is, they, or more properly we, may be also. Forever.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Staying Home: Going Home, part 8

This journey with my mom while she has been on hospice has been a bit of a microcosm of life. We have taken off on a journey, having some sort of vision of the destination as we depart, but the route there has not been anything like we had imagined it would be. And in its unpredictable nature there have been a number of pleasant surprises. All of which is to introduce the latest surprise…my mom is staying home.

We had been planning to travel to Milwaukee tonight and to move her back into our home tomorrow. I wrote about the move in the most recent post of this series. Yesterday, my wife, Robin, and I figured that we had most of the details worked out.

Then I had a call from my brother, who was with our mother, who had some news for us. And the news, in a nutshell, was that she was going to be staying in the Milwaukee area for the foreseeable future. A care option that had not been on our radar earlier was now a viable choice for her, and she was choosing to use it.

And that is okay with us. We were looking forward to spending this portion of her life with her and there is a bit of disappointment that it won’t be happening. On the other hand there were a few issues that we hadn't fully sorted out and we can now just set those aside. Most of all we are glad that her day-to-day health has improved and that there is a viable option for care that keeps her close to her friends and in the geographic area that, for her, has always been home.

As Robin and I came to a place of offering our home as a place for my mom to live we did so primarily as an act of faith in Christ. But if we believe that God is calling us to something and as we follow along things don’t turn out as we expected, does that mean that God wasn’t calling us in the first place? I don’t think so, and neither does Robin. You can read her thoughts here.

Maybe the idea of opening up our home to my mom was intended by God for some other purpose. It could be that my mom will come to live with us, but at a different point in time. Or maybe God led us in this way for some other purpose. Not to test us, but to prepare us for something else in His plans for us. Something to be revealed further down the road.

I don’t know His intent to this point, and I’m not going to worry about it. I’m just going to keep praying. To praise Him for who He is. To thank Him for what He has done. To lift to Him the concerns of my heart. And to continue to seek to discern and follow His will in my life.

“I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope.” Psalm 130:5

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Coming Home: Going Home, part 7

It has been nearly three weeks since I wrote the previous installment of this series of posts concerning my mom, her children, and our journey in hospice care. When we started on this journey six weeks ago our mom was very ill and we, my siblings and I, were committed to doing what we could to keep her in her home, expecting that the time we would do so wouldn’t be more than a few weeks. While our mom has improved physically she continues to need care and what has worked for six weeks is reaching an end. Anticipating the possibility that a change would be needed I asked the question, “Now what?” in my last post.

Today the answer to that question is that she is “Coming home.” Not “home” in the eternal sense that this series title, “Going Home,” points to, but the home where my wife, our daughter and I live. At the end of this week we will be bringing my mom home to live with us.

I could list a bunch of reasons why we are doing this. Reasons that make us out to be great and wonderful people. But those would really just be false reasons; illusions that make us appear to be people that we are not. The real reason we are bringing my mom into our home is not that we are great and wonderful, but because God is great and wonderful. He has created the circumstances that make this option of care possible and He has opened our eyes and hearts to serving Him in this way.

Two pieces of scripture come to mind as I think about this, Psalm 139:16 and Ephesians 2:10. The psalmist writes,

“Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”

And Paul writes,

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

Usually when I think of this verse from Psalm 139 it is in terms of life’s great struggles or its great joys. I marvel to think that all of the moments of every life are held in God’s knowledge before they happen. That their very happening, and the results yet to come from them, have been known by God eternally. But God’s eternal knowledge also applies to the things I consider to be quite ordinary. Such as being able to provide a safe and caring place for my mom within our home.

And Paul reminds us that the things we find before us to do are things that have been prepared for us by God. As we live with faith in Christ we are to look and listen for the places and purposes that God is calling us to.

A number of years ago a friend gave me a short list of questions to think about when you are trying to understand if God is calling you to a task. They are:

Is it something that God wants done?
Does it match and challenge your particular gifts?
Is it work that you find internally meaningful?
Do others affirm you in doing this?

As far as bringing my mom into our home to live with our family each of these questions has “Yes!” as an answer. We are particularly thankful for the encouragement, the support, and especially the prayers of our family and friends for this part of the journey. We can’t do this on our own, nor would we want to.

To my friend’s original list I would add one more question; “Is God glorified in the task?”

As I noted earlier we are bringing my mom into our home because God is great and because God is wonderful. We want to care for my mom in a way that points people to God, a way that points people toward His mercy and His grace. We want to care for her in a way that opens hearts to God’s unfailing love. And most of all, we want God to be glorified in each and every thing that we do, for my mom, and in every part of our lives.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Now what? Going Home, part 6

This journey concerning my mom, our family and our travel with her while she is on hospice is going places I never would have anticipated when it began. She went to the hospital late one day, was critically ill overnight the second day, and had a test that revealed something very seriously wrong on the third day. There was one treatment option, a large surgery that carried very significant risks. She declined the surgery and chose to come home with hospice care.

Earlier this week I learned from my brother that the surgeon expected that her body would fail in 2 to 8 days. Today is her 25^th day at home.

The day that she came home I slept in her room and her breathing was so labored that I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had died overnight. And there were two other nights in those first two weeks where I went to bed with the same sense of anticipation, thinking it to be as likely as not that she would die overnight.

I have been back with her now for six days and things are very stable. Her breathing is normal, in the sense that it is regular and quiet, so that I don’t have a constant awareness of it. Her pain is improved to the point that her use of pain medication, which at its highest was much less than what was permitted for her, is currently at zero. Her last pain medication was 18 hours ago.

She is still quite tired, napping frequently during the day. She isn’t eating much but she is eating what she wants, when she wants to, so that in regard to rest and nutrition she is getting what her needs met her way.

I spoke with the coordinator of her care through the hospice agency and they are of the opinion that her precipitating medical condition has, unexpectedly, stabilized. Her overall physical condition continues to qualify her for hospice care. The nurse will make daily phone calls but likely be checking on her personally less often than she has over the past three weeks.

When our mother came home from the hospital my siblings and I put together a plan for one, and often more, of us to be with her all of the time. That has worked well to this point but one of the “Now what?” questions for us is how do we continue to care for our mom, whose death does no longer seems imminent but who will still require 24 hour supervision and assistance?

These last 25 days have been at times arduous and wrenching on my siblings and our families. They have tested our relationships with each other, and speaking for myself, have strengthened them.

This has also been a rich time for me to be present with my mom. I think that I will always treasure the memories of being with her during this period of her life. The sheer number of days with her has been a gift.

And this has been a rich time for my mom to visit with friends and family. It has been a privilege to be present and to hear their stories.

I am not certain what is coming next in this journey with our mother, but I do know Who to ground myself in as we seek to find our way. I join with the Psalmist in saying:

“Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I left up my soul.” Psalm 143:8 NIV

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Welcome Home: Going Home, part 2

Last night I wrote a first installment about my mom and the journey we are on with her as she has gone on hospice. I think it will be an irregular topic, under the title of Going Home. Part 1 is here. I had no idea that the next chapter would come so soon.

My siblings and I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s. There are five of us and we range in age from 51 to 59. We know what the stereotypical family should look like because there were frequent images of it on display in the culture at the time. We also know that the stereotypical family is rare. In that case we are very normal, because there were many events in our growing up and subsequent lives that don’t fit into any stereotyped ideals.

At this particular time we are a mixed bunch relationally. Including our parents there are four living generations, with a very complex structure of who is close to who, who talks to who, who doesn't talk to who. And it goes on. The structure is endlessly complex, unique to our family but perhaps not very different from what is present in many families. And complex relationships are not unique to our place in time. The book of Genesis, read as a narrative story, is a broad survey of both healthy and dysfunctional relationships. (Disclaimer – Genesis is much more than a narrative of human relationships. Send me a note if want someone to read it with you to see the power, majesty and purpose of God in it.)

Long story short, in the past two days I have been able to reconnect with someone who has lived a very long time outside of direct contact with almost every one of us. And not just myself but several of us have connected with this person, and I have had the opportunity to share their story, as I know it, with several others, casting a few more strands onto the complex, perhaps web-like, structure of our family.

I have been able to hear this person’s story and to share some of my own. I don’t need to know all of their details. I am just glad to have had the conversation. And I hope there will be more conversations. And maybe one day a face-to-face reunion.

The story of someone coming back to our family brings to mind the story in Luke 15:11-32, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, particularly the part where the son is welcomed home unconditionally and with great enthusiasm by the father.

Dealing with my mom’s approaching death is something that we are all processing in differing ways. I never would have anticipated that as we anticipate a loss that we would also be celebrating a return. As Thanksgiving approaches among the things I am thankful for is the way God is at work. He is bringing people in our family home, in a relational sense, a movement towards home that points us to the unconditional and enthusiastic “Welcome home!” awaiting His children in heaven.