so its 4:54 in the morning and i have been laying in bed for an hour...but my eyes are wide and my mind races. for some reason tonight (or this morning) i am haunted by memories of early childhood. i'm suddenly flooded with memories of singing to songs like "Song of the South" in the car with my mom and brother when i was like 5, and memories of when there was a bad ice storm when i was 7 and we had so much fun actually dog sledding down the street into the ditch cause it was so icy. then with memories of childhood always come memories of my mom. fall 2002 when i was sick with mono and she had just retired because she was too tired to work anymore from chemo. we would play scrabble till midnight (she always won) or go to walmart and buy a bunch of stupid stuff.
then all of a sudden i had a vison of memory that had a lesson in it. when i was really sick in fall of '02, i had to have surgery..i remember waking up in the recovery room, feeling so foggy headed, and then being wheeled to my room, and my mom was standing at the nurses station, and i cried when i saw her, because i wanted my mommy so bad. i wonder if somehow at that point i knew i would lose her soon. then a bitter memory of a few weeks before my mom died...i was babysitting and all of a sudden God told me that it was almost over. i knew my mom was going to die soon...it was so heart-wrenching but at the same time i'm glad God told me early, because i prepared a few weeks early. it was such a bizarre feeling, a feeling that could have only come from God. the God that loved me enough to get me ready for it, that loved me enough to get me through the funeral and few weeks following without faltering, loved me enough to bear with me when i lost my mind a few months later and my faith a few months after that, and still loves me enough to let me deal with it almost 3 years later, in the middle of the night, knowing He is there holding me and listening as i tell Him how much i miss her all the time. this is the God that can't wait until i wake up on the other side, in a fog, wanting to see Him so bad that i cry when i do...and cry harder when i see my mom standing right there next to Him waiting for me....