23 Years Ago

 It was the kind of phone call you never want to get. The call came from my grandmother informing me that Mama died. She suffered a massive heart attack three and a half months earlier on Valentine's Day. She suffered brain damage as a result of being unconscious. She never came home again after that. She had another heart attack that killed her. 

I saw Mama the day before. I treasure that last conversation we shared. The day she died I had to go to Houston to make a hospital visit for a church member who had been in a car wreck. I got the call about Mama when I returned. 

I hurried to the ER where her lifeless body lay. I knew she was not there. Just the physical body. Many thoughts flooded through my mind. One of them being that for the first time in my life I had no living parents. I had learned many years before that God is a Father to the fatherless. [Ps 68:5] I would learn that again. My four boys have no memories of my mother. That was 23 years ago. She never even met Tucker and Turner. Tanner was only three months old when she died. Taylor was just two. 

Mother's Day weekend always brings mixed emotions. Sometimes I am so busy with life and ministry that I do not always think about my mother. It has been 23 years. It never fails that come this weekend, I am taken back. To a difficult Mother's Day weekend. 

I preached my mother's funeral. I knew lost family members would be attendance. I wanted to make sure the gospel got preached. I am a no nonsense preacher and I did not pull punches that day. The message divided into two parts. All the good qualities about my mother and the truth that none of those good qualities saved her to qualify her entrance into heaven. That only came through a saving relationship with Jesus. I offered that same salvation to my family.

Church members and friends filed past the casket shaking my hand and expressing their love. It still stings to this day, only one person from my entire family shook my hand that day. They probably did not know what to say after the funeral message. I am thankful that I get to stay in contact with them and I keep presenting the truth of Jesus and His offer of salvation. 

I had a personal message etched on Mama's grave marker. "I will meet you at the Pearly Gates." 23 years later that is still my heart. It pains me that my sons never really got to know the fun, loving and giving grandmother she was to her other grandchildren. She spoiled them. She would have spoiled mine. They will get to know her one day. Until that day..... I will meet you Mama at the Pearly Gates.