Restored Bodies

My mother is having the the lower portion of her right leg amputated tomorrow. I sat with her in the hospital yesterday and we talked (she has also lost her hearing in the past couple of weeks, so this makes for challenging conversaton), and I thought about the leg. I know she is nervous, anxious...and grieving. She's had that leg and foot since birth. Mom isn't a pedicure kind of gal, but she's had a few compliments of a gift certificate from my Dad. She has stubbed the toes on that foot, and has worn countless shoes on it over the 71 years of her life. She used that leg and foot to walk me around the house when I was a colicky baby, and used it to drive herself to Gibson's Grocery store, Hancock Fabrics, lunch with friends, work; she used it to drive me to school, extracurricular activities, church, and friend's homes. The last bit of driving she did, which was months ago, was to McDonald's on Saturday mornings so that Alison could get her fill of pancakes and hash browns and the icky playground. And I'm sure my mother used that foot to nudge my Dad out of snoring a few times. Yesterday, I sat and thought about how grieving this foot and leg is normal, and in some way we are all doing it. We are also grieving a way of living that will never return for my mother - and least not on this earth.

If I didn't love God for a thousand other reasons, I would love Him simply because he is going to take my mother's little broken-down body and restore it to something absolutely magificent. As I looked at her foot yesterday, I realized that I could let it go, and I said goodbye to these body parts that were doing her no good. My mother will have a foot again, and a leg. And they will be better than the ones she started out this life with, because on the other side of this life my mother will have a body that won't wear out. I remember hearing words like these from the "old-timers." My parents came from large extended families, and so I've been to a few funerals in my life and listened to the old folks speak longingly for the day when there is no "sorrow, or sickness." They spoke because they knew suffering, and pain, and bodies that betrayed them. Now I sound like one of them as I speak longingly of a day when my mother will dance on two legs, walk long distances without getting dizzy, breathe deeply without the aid of an oxygen tank and have arms that are not black and blue from the dialysis and insulin needles. Yes, God will restore all things back their original glory -the way that He intended things to be. But in the meantime, the doctors will keep trying to patch up my mother, and take away the parts of her body that are causing her harm. They will work hard at their own restoration as long as they can, and for this I am thankful. But I have peace in knowing that beyond what I can see, there is a place where true, eternal restoration will take place. And for this, I am forever thankful.
"Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you." (Ps. 116:7)