Today’s Word from Pastor Jim…
“For you yourself created my inmost parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Psalm 139:12
I had never met her before that traumatic day in the hospital. I had never met her as the winter of 1959 grew old and the decade of the 1950’s marched toward the history books. I had never met her, though her voice was familiar. I had never met her; her facial expressions were unrecognizable to me. She held me close, it felt good, I was comforted by the touch of her skin, there was an unexplained security to be found in her arms, in the arms of a stranger. Helpless, unable to care for myself, I had no choice but to rely on this stranger, my very life in her hands.
52 years later her mind and body racked by Parkinson’s I sat with her at the Oak Crest nursing home in the town where she was born. We exchanged tender words, she was mostly helpless, unable to care for herself, my hand gave her comfort. As the visit neared an end, I kissed her cheek and said, “We are going to leave now Mom.” She said, “Do you want me to come with you?” “No Mom you are fine here.” She smiled and said, “I will be coming home later.” Three weeks later she came home, she returned to the one who had knit her together in her mother’s womb in the Springtime of 1930.
“For you yourself created my inmost parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”
What does it mean that your first experience in this world finds you utterly helpless and totally reliant on another person? What does it mean that someone who does not know you, puts her life on the line for you? What does it mean that someone who does not know you, someone who cannot recognize your face, loves you upon arrival? We do nothing to earn or deserve the love that we receive as we emerge from the darkness of the womb.
I suspect that we carry too much fear and anxiety about our ultimate demise. Did we experience dread as our time in the womb was approaching the birthing hour? Death looms as an ominous, unescapable enemy, it stalks and haunts us. Even when life in this world has lost its luster, even when our world has become small and burdensome, still the unknown journey to the other side troubles us. Could it be that we give death too much power, and in the granting of that power we unknowingly diminish the quality of our lives?
I had never met her before that traumatic day in the hospital. I had never met her, I had never met my father, the doctor who ushered me into this world was unknown to me, the nurse who bathed me I would never see again. I was helpless, unable to live on my own, I had no choice but to trust in something outside of myself. I had no choice but to trust in the one who knit me together in my mother’s womb. It is OK my friends; it will all be OK. Like every generation before us and yet to come, we will cross over safe into the hands of our mother God. Do not be afraid, for you are loved, you are forgiven, and you will never be alone.
Before I had taken a breath, she had put her life on the line for me. Thanks Mom! I will see you on the other side.
One beggar telling another where to find bread, I am your
Pastor Jim
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