• About Pat Luffman Rowland

Prayerful Pondering

~ by Pat Luffman Rowland

Prayerful Pondering

Category Archives: death

Saying Goodbye to Grandma

09 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by Pat Luffman Rowland in death

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

communication, faith, family, heaven, strength, wisdom

From 1984 to 1998, I worked closely with patients, family members and their health care providers at Methodist Healthcare in Memphis. For most of those years, I wrote the stories of some of the people I met in those patient rooms and critical care waiting rooms. The following is taken from a story published in 1989 and the name of the husband has been changed. 

Mr. Markle, the husband of a patient who died in our hospital two months ago, came to see me last week. He stopped by to let me know how he and his family were doing after the death of his wife. A very close family, they stayed near wife, mother and grandmother for those weeks before her death.

Mr. Markle said his wife told him the morning he brought her to the hospital that she would die there and she was ready to go. She had battled illness for 15 years.

Those weeks in the hospital the family would gather daily to share a devotional reading. The morning she died, the devotional was on death and the willingness to peacefully give to God sick and hurting loved ones.  One of the daughters remarked how significant the devotional was for that day.

Mr. Markle said the very hardest thing for him during his wife’s illness was a conversation he had with his five-year old granddaughter. With tears in his eyes, he told me this story:

“Papa, I love you and I love Grandma. And I love God most of all. Isn’t that right, Papa, to love God most of all?” “Yes, honey, it is.” “I know God doesn’t want Grandma to be sick and He will do what’s best for her.”

That little girl’s words paved the way for another tough conversation just days later when Mr. Markle decided to tell his two young granddaughters (the other was eight) about their grandmother’s imminent death.  He took the girls into one of our chapels and placed them on either side of him, then asked the youngest if she remembered what she had said about God doing what was best for their grandmother. She did. He told them that he thought God was going to take Grandma to be with Him so she wouldn’t have to be sick anymore. They nodded their heads and bravely accepted his words.

What Mr. Markle did for those little girls was a courageous gift. By telling them what the rest of the family knew, he showed respect for their need to know. That kept the little girls from feeling isolated and afraid, as often happens with children when loved ones die.

I was with the family the morning Mrs. Markle died—they called for me to come. What a privilege it was to be with them as they said their goodbyes. Though they were sad, there was a very strong sense of peace about each one. I saw, and the nursing staff saw, their powerful witness of faith. But most of all, two little girls witnessed their parents and grandfather’s way of dealing with death, and they understood that Grandma going home to God wasn’t the end, just a temporary separation.

praying3

God’s Interventions

01 Tuesday Mar 2011

Posted by Pat Luffman Rowland in death

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

faith, intervention, salvation, suicide, wisdom

When a Christian mother told of her son’s suicide, someone asked what that did to her faith.  Did she question God’s love for her or for her son?  Did she turn away from God?  The mother said it did not turn her away from God, nor question His love.  What it did cause her to question was her understanding of what she had thought God spoke to her.  She had believed the Lord had told her He would intervene for her son.  The fact that her son took his life instead left her thinking she had badly misunderstood God – and that undermined her faith in hearing God.  How was she to know when she was hearing from God?  How could she be sure if she understood what He was saying?  Then she had an insight that made all the difference:  God had intervened for her child when He saved him on the cross.  During those troubled times, her son came to salvation; that was the intervention God had made for him.  The child was not saved from his life of battles, but he was saved for all eternity.  The intervention God made in her son’s life was not of this world, but one of God’s kingdom.  And that brought her peace.   

As she explained her sudden leap of understanding, I had one, too.  When we don’t see His intervention in what we pray for, it does not mean God has failed us.  It does not mean He has turned a deaf ear on our prayers.   Though we long for His interventions in the troubles and complexity of this world, this is but our temporary abode.   When we can think of eternity as we pray, our prayers become those that will make the true and forever difference – for us, for our children, for all those we love.   Our prayers become stronger and His answers more clear.  We will make more time to pray about what matters for all eternity, those things that are everlasting, that which prepares us and others for a lifetime with God. 

We think more about the present; God thinks more about our future.  I believe it will be a beautiful thing when we are heaven-side and see all the ways He intervened for our eternal good that we did not recognize – could not recognize.  I believe when we see the glory of His presence, we will also immediately see the truth of His love; that He never left us wanting without taking care of a greater need. 

He is our Abba Father and He is Love.  He is Faithful and Wise, Good beyond any means of measure.  He cares for our souls and all that shapes us for the time beyond – that time which is without end.   

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.   

Revelation 21:1

Recent Posts

  • She Taught Me to Pray
  • Calls to Serve
  • When We Have an Assignment to Serve
  • Caring for God’s Creatures
  • Perspective on Life from Hospital Days
  • Sorting Blueberries — and Life
  • Establishing the Faith of a Child
  • Gift-Giving
  • The Labor and Love of Quilting
  • A Song in Mama’s Heart
  • The Best Christmases of All
  • The Problem with Assuming

Archives

  • February 2023
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • May 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • July 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • January 2018
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • April 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • November 2014
  • September 2014
  • July 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Categories

  • adoption
  • adoration
  • aggressive behavior
  • Animal companionship
  • animal protection
  • anticipation
  • Assumptions
  • attitude
  • availability
  • Bible study
  • birds
  • blooming things
  • career decisions
  • Celebrate Christmas
  • Christian hope
  • Christian service
  • Christianity
  • Christmas story
  • claiming God's promises
  • comfort
  • communication
  • communication with God
  • communion with God
  • compromise
  • cotton fields
  • death
  • death and dying
  • dementia
  • depression
  • devotion
  • earth
  • Election 2016
  • end-of-life decisions
  • faith
  • family
  • fitness
  • focus
  • forgiveness
  • Gethsemane
  • gifts
  • giving
  • God's answers to prayer
  • God's faithfulness
  • God's love for us
  • Goodbyes
  • grandmother
  • gratitude
  • healing
  • healthcare stories
  • Hearing God's Voice
  • heavy heart
  • heroes
  • Holy Spirit
  • hope
  • hospital stories
  • how God sees us
  • humility
  • insight
  • Jesus in prayer
  • jobs
  • journaling
  • judging by outward appearance
  • kindness
  • Learning from Adversity
  • life purpose
  • love
  • Love for God
  • making decisions
  • Memories
  • music in healing
  • Nation under God
  • nature
  • negotiating
  • never alone
  • nighttime fear
  • observation
  • peace
  • pets needs
  • poetry
  • prayer
  • Preachers
  • Prodigal
  • quiet time
  • quilting
  • rain
  • raised from dead
  • relationship
  • remaining pure
  • responsibility
  • risks
  • Serving
  • Siamese cats
  • Sight
  • sleep
  • solving problems
  • Spiritual Maturity
  • spiritual training
  • study scripture
  • support
  • Teachers
  • thanksfulness
  • Thanksgiving
  • trust
  • understanding
  • unity
  • unknown future
  • war veterans
February 2023
S M T W T F S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728  
« Nov    

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23 ESV

If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:9

God has not given us a spirt of fear, but of power and love and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7

Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name. For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations. Psalm 100:4-5

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9

© Pat Rowland and Prayerful Pondering, 2010 - 2013.
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Pat Rowland and Prayerful Pondering with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Hope must be in the future tense. Faith, to be faith, must be in the present tense. Catherine Marshall
Everything over your head is under his feet. Dr. Tom Lindberg
What an excellent ground of hope and confidence we have when we reflect upon these three things in prayer--the Father's love, the son's merit and the Spirit's power! Thomas Manton
Our Christian hope is that we're going to live with Christ in a new earth, where is not only no more death, but where life is what it was always meant to be. Timothy Keller

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Prayerful Pondering
    • Join 129 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Prayerful Pondering
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...