My mother and “Things unseen and eternal”

My sweet little mother died a few days ago and my family and I are grieving her loss. (See pictures of her at A pause.)

Professionally, Mom was extraordinarily accomplished, but everyone knew the most important things were her family, God, and her church.

I am deeply thankful to her for teaching us how to know, serve, and love God and others.

Mom showed us how to live well, how to grow old with dignity and grace and, in the end, how to die well—to die in peace.

King David, too, lived well and died well, in peace. In the Bible he is commended for carrying out his duties with integrity of heart and with skillful hands, and then, when David had accomplished God’s purpose in his own generation, he died (Psalm 78:70-72, Acts 13:36). 

When David breathed his last breath, what a sense of peace he must have held, knowing he had accomplished God’s unique purposes for him. What a sense of satisfaction (the right kind)!

I am confident my little mother, too, lived with integrity of heart and with skillful hands—that she accomplished God’s purposes for her generation, and died in peace. Hers was a life well-lived.

Dying. Death. What are they?

Here’s what Henry Van Dyke wrote:

A Parable of Immortality

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side

spreads her white sails to the morning breeze

and starts for the blue ocean.

She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch

until at last she hangs like a speck of white cloud

just where the sun and sky come down to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says,

‘There she goes!’

Gone where? Gone from my sight—that is all.

She is just as large in mast and hull and spar

as she was when she left my side

and just as able to bear her load of living freight

to the places of destination.

Her diminished size is in me, not her.

And just at the moment when someone at my side says,

‘There she goes!’

there are other eyes watching her coming

and other voices ready to take up the glad shout,

‘Here she comes!’ 

(Henry Van Dyke)

I know Mom heard, loud and clear, “Welcome! Well done, good and faithful servant!” (Matthew 25:21).

I can only begin to imagine what she’s experiencing now.

She is seeing God face to face.

Eternal life is no longer something she only partially grasps.

Mysteries suddenly make sense.

Heavenly, unseen things are perfectly clear.

All the pieces have fallen into place.

Everything that puzzled her now makes sense.

She’s now involved in a “…contemplation of things unseen and eternal” (A Diary of Private Prayer, John Baillie).

How about you?

What are your thoughts about dying?

What do you think heaven will be like?

At the end of your time on earth,

what will it be like to stand before God

face to face, one on one?

What stories can you write for your kids, grandkids, and great-grands?

Dying and death and God and heaven seem elusive and mystifying and scary, especially for young people, so writing about them can benefit both you and your readers. Your stories can quiet fears. They can help others live with courage as they face the unknown.

Your stories can make readers think. Examine. Refine their stances. Take a fresh look. Maybe change the way they live, especially when their time on earth draws to an end.

“There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die…”

(Ecclesiastes 3:1-2).

In writing your memoir, teach your readers how to live,

but do more than that: Teach them about that “time to die.”

God can use your stories to bless your readers. Really!

Stories are among God’s most powerful tools.

They can fortify timid hearts,

help people make important decisions

and find their way,

and inspire readers to find God’s purposes for their lives.

Your stories can change lives forever.

Related posts:

A time to be born and a tie to die

A pause

Story idea: Your "lions and bears"

David was only a boy.

Goliath was a champion among Philistine forces, standing over six feet tall.

He was muscular enough to strut around wearing a bronze helmet, a coat of armor weighing 125 pounds, bronze greaves on his legs, and a javelin strapped across his back. His spear shaft’s iron point alone weighed 15 pounds.

Goliath was an arrogant, defiant, loud, taunting bully.

He terrified King Saul and the Israelite armies. Their fear had incapacitated them for forty days by the time little David entered the scene.

When David said he’d fight Goliath, King Saul scoffed, “You can’t win against that giant! You’re only a boy!” (See 1 Samuel 17:33.)

But David didn’t give up easily. He explained that while herding his father’s sheep,

“When a lion or a bear comes to steal a lamb from the flock, I go after it with a club and take the lamb from its mouth. If the animal turns on me, I catch it by the jaw and club it to death. I have done this to both lions and bears, and I’ll do it to this pagan Philistine, too.… The Lord who saved me from the claws of the lion and the bear will save me from this Philistine!” (verses 34-37)

King Saul finally agreed to let David face Goliath, and you know the rest of the story.

But let’s back up a bit. Imagine what went through David’s head before and during his fights with the bears and lions.

“I’M SCARED!”

“This is too hard!”

“Am I going to die? Save me, Lord! Make them go away!”

God could have made the bears and lions slink away, but He didn’t. Instead, He left them there and helped David fight—and win.

Later, when David faced Goliath, what did he think of the lions and bears then?

I suspect it was something like “Those lions and bears were easy compared to this!”

If God had not allowed David to fight the bears and lions, would he have been prepared to face Goliath? I don’t think so.


Those battles were opportunities for David to grow: phyically, mentally, and spiritually.


God used the bears and lions to prepare David for the future.


David remembered how God helped him in the past, and that gave him confident faith to face even bigger challenges.


Fighting lions and bears helped equip David to fulfill God's purposes for his generation (see Acts 13:36, one of my favorite verses).

Through the very process of fighting lions and bears, God strengthened David for even bigger challenges in the future.

What “lions and bears” has God allowed into your life? 

What did you learn about God in the midst of fighting your lions and bears? What did you learn about yourself?

Looking back now, in what specific ways did God use your lions and bears to deepen your faith and toughen you for an even bigger challenge—a “Goliath”?


What Goliaths have you faced since then?

Story idea: Write a vignette about God preparing, equipping, and strengthening you—through the process of fighting your lions and bears—to stand up to a Goliath, and win. 

Related post, My lions and bears:  http://grandmaslettersfromafrica.blogspot.com/2010/06/my-lions-and-bears.html