The hymn, “Now Thank We All Our God” has a line that always brings up images and memories in my mind. “Who from our mothers’ arms / Has blest us on our way / With countless gifts of love / And still is ours today.”
My mother passed away yesterday. The days of our lives, “if by reason of strength they be fourscore years”? Mom blew by that long ago. Norma Meyer Nelson was 96 years old, only a few months from 97. Her main complaint these last years was not having energy to do all she wanted to do. Up until the last weeks, she was fully engaged in life. When the diagnosis came, she responded with resolute faith and focus on the future. “Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17).
This isn’t really about Mom. It’s about the abundant goodness of her confessed Creator and Savior, ours too. She had a pillow on her favorite chair that said, “Beyond Blessed.”
“When we on that final journey go / That Christ is for us preparing,
We’ll gather in song, our hearts aglow, / All joy of the heavens sharing,
And walk in the light of God’s own place, / With angels His name adoring.”