Mother’s Day is a tender day for many, and yes it’s a tender day
for this girl. It has been almost 3 years since my mom went home to heaven. I haven’t stopped missing her and can’t imagine wanting to stop missing her, because it’s in the missing that her memory, her voice, her laugh, her smile is kept so brilliantly alive. As the days have turned to months and now years I think the ache just goes a bit deeper, and it remains hidden away until a song or a movie or a perfect pink rose brings back all the beautiful joy, and precious moments I had with her.

I have experienced deep sadness, sorrow and pain with the loss of my mother. But the grief is hard to define really. It isn’t empty grief and sadness I have experienced with the loss of my mother. It’s not an ache that has no where to go.  It doesn’t just fall into the abyss of an unknown place that has no landing-no home.  All of those tender places in my missing, where her memory springs to life and invokes feelings of sadness have a place to go-a resting place.  The pain ever so slowly and tenderly  gets absorbed by the nail scarred hands of Jesus.

Intwined in the tender places of missing her I can hear the soft, sweet notes of hope being played as I embrace my own divine appointment with my two beautiful daughters. And though I miss my mom, and would love to just hear her voice on the phone, or feel her tender embrace one more time, the Hope Song I hear just gets louder, and by louder I do mean the chatter of two sisters, their tears and squabbles, pillow fights, tickle fights, ugly fights, and loudest of all their laughter.  It’s all met with a serenade of joy through early mornings that begin with hugs and late, late evenings that end with prayers and kisses.  

As the Hope Song continues to play, all I know of Jesus and where my mom now lives begins to dance in my mind’s eye.   I see my mama dancing uninhibited with a healed body instead of one wrecked by cancer, and  I see the joy, peace and healing in her crystal blue eyes exchanged for deep wounds she experienced in childhood.  Having experienced the presence of Jesus here on earth, I can only imagine what my mom has experienced as she’s met Him face to face.  And then I begin to see my Savior sweetly and slowly painting the most beautiful, complete, portrait of her promise fulfilled.

I know many who have tender, wounded, hurting places in their hearts.  Some that go much deeper, and are more difficult to endure.  Some of those places are fresh, and the promise of healing is hard to believe or see or experience or even hope for.  I’ve been in that clouded messy place of questioning and doubt.  Can God really whisper new songs of Hope, or show me the complete portrait of my pain made absolutely beautiful with the brushstrokes of His Hand?  Can God mend my broken and hurting heart?  And through all my doubting and questioning and wondering I have actively turned my ear to His truth, and I will tell you He absolutely can.

In His own suffering through the power of His resurrection and what He accomplished on the cross, He stooped down and lowered every portion of His Kingship to step into humanity to experience the deepest pain of all. It’s almost unfathomable to think that I serve a Jesus who understands the depths of my own suffering and pain.  What hurts my heart hurts His, and in the suffering He is ever so close.  His very blood purchased our healing, and not just our physical healing. His healing is for every tender place we carry inside buried deep and protected that we want no one else to ever see. Even those places our own sin has carved out can receive His healing.  He really does catch our places of pain, grief and sorrow with His scarred hands, and in doing so He whispers His life and hope and truth back in to the tender aching places that need His healing. It’s such a profound and marvelous mystery.

I pray today that you will begin to turn your ear to the song He is singing to you, may you hear His song of delight and love and healing. It’s a serenade of hope.  May you also see the portrait of His promise painted and completed just for you.

“For the LORD your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.” Zephaniah 3:17

“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”      Isaiah 53:5