A Mama’s Cry

The hospital room was sterile and cold, a shivering place for a young teenager. My Mom had undergone a simple biopsy, but the time for Outpatient Procedures had not yet arrived in our 1970’s small town. So my Mom was awakening from the anesthesia and due to arrive back to her room at any time. I waited for what seemed an eternity, and as I huddled in the corner, I heard the nurses hurriedly wheeling the cart in, but shouting instructions to several helpers. “Wake her up! Get assistance! She’s not breathing!” My heart started pounding as the tears rolled down my cheeks.

As scary as the situation proved to be, I was not unfamiliar with these kinds of settings. My Mom had had more than her share of sickness, and I grew up expecting her to suffer and need help. That day at the hospital turned out to be an allergic reaction to the anesthesia, and the nurses revived her within mere seconds of arriving in the room. But there were so many other times that she scared us, and scared herself. She lived with too much anxiety for one person to carry. And it didn’t stop when my siblings grew up and moved on to our own homes.

We all knew that if we were going through hard times, so would our Mom. We came to resent her illnesses, and felt that she was unwilling for us to have lives of our own. But as I matured in my own faith, and the Lord took me down a path of intercession for my own children, I realized that my Mom had actually shared in a kind of identification and intercession as she prayed for her children. She had lived for so long carrying her anxieties along with her prayers that she could never find a full release from those weights.

But today as I prayed, and heard the words of this poem, I knew that her burdened heart has finally found freedom as she is dancing with her Savior in Heaven. She is watching from within that great cloud of witnesses, and seeing her prayers being lived out in the lives of her children.

And I am watching those same kinds of answers come to my prayers for my own children now.

Hebrews 12:1 “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us”

(This post was originally shared with “The Beloved Prodigal Community.”)