It was just now on the radio.  The song that always reminds me of my mom.  When we sing it at church, sometimes I can’t even sing the last verse because I see Mom as she lay in the hospital bed we had exchanged for her double bed, dying, practically comatose, unable to eat or talk or give orders — I mean instructions.

This is always how I remember Mom.  Here she is ready for church.

She had “instructed” us for many, many years, and, well, it was just a hard habit to give up.  As hard to give up as everything else she had to give up:  bathing herself, feeding herself, cooking for her family (the thing she loved best), cleaning her house (that may be a toss-up with the cooking for her family), mowing her yard, driving her car.  The list got bigger every year, every month, every week, and then every day.

She was being birthed into heaven.  Anyone who has given birth or witnessed a birth (humans or animals) knows what a difficult labor that usually is.  Being birthed into heaven is a labor as well.  Mom had struggled to eat with the coughing spells that accompany the death process.  She had struggled with the pain of her arthritis that came from not being able to get up and move around, lying in bed due to her weakened state.  Failure to thrive is what the medical field calls it.  I think she was tired and ready to go home.  All her life she had been afraid of death, and I always thought that odd because she so loved her Lord.  But at the end, when the journey home had truly begun, her peace and joy was abundant each day.

This particular day, as my sisters stood at the foot of Mom’s bed and sang hymn after hymn, no music, just their beautiful voices blending together, Mom’s little toes started  tapping to the music.  She couldn’t eat.  She couldn’t walk.  She couldn’t talk.  She couldn’t move her arms.

But she could praise the One who was bringing her home.  One little toe tap at a time.

And my heart is full of praise for the God Mom taught me about, dragged me to Sunday School to learn about, and forced me to play piano during the worship service to praise a name I didn’t fully understand yet.

Now… I have 10,000 Reasons and more to praise Jesus the Christ.