Jan.
9, 2005

This morning watching my mother sleeping, I remembered
her rage being unleashed on us. I could see her fists landing
wherever she could make them. Yet, there she was sleeping so peacefully.

All
she ever wanted to do was be loved. When someone did show love
or kindness towards her, she felt unsafe. She felt unworthy or
that their love was going to cost her dearly.

Now, years later,
she is not alone outside but inside, the lonliness is there. If
she would have connected with God's unconditional love, He would
have brought about healing from her childhood abuse.

All her
life she had rages and fits of anger. She lashed out at the people
who would still be standing there when her fits of rage were over.
Her children had every reason in the world to turn their backs
on her, but they never did. Instead, her children struggled to
get what they so desperatly needed from her, nurturing. When she
did try to nurture her children it was like so foriegn, they couldn't
recognize it. Maybe they figured it would cost them in the long
run.

I have found myself rejecting her nurturing. I didn't want
her to try and comfort me. I wanted her to stay a safe distance.
Out of fear she would disappoint me, I built a wall. I didn't want
her to hold me so tight.

The way her life has worked out used
to bring me such sorrow. Now, I look at her and I still feel a
ping of sorrow, but more I have a spring of hope. I feel that I
have been freed from the fantasy that some day she will give me
what I needed when I was an infant and a child. I know she can't
give it to me. Now my wish is that she will accept the Lord and
slip on into the only peace that she will ever now. No more fighting
life mother. The battle is over and your body has paid the price.

To remember a woman so impulsive, so active, so busy stirring
up strife, and now to see her just struggling to get out of bed,
that hurts. When I remember her saying, "let's go fishing" just
out of the blue, then to reflect on her laying in the bed, I feel
sorrow. I never thought that there would come a day when she would
have very little life in her body.

When she said she can't
drive anymore, I could feel color fade in my skin. She never gave
up on anything she wanted except for love. She gave up on her
idea of love. The problem is she didn't come up with any new ideas.

I do admire and respect her for living out her life. I admire
her for her struggles to be accepted. I do admire her for her strength.
I feel sadness that her strength leaned in dysfunction. Lies,
yelling, and violence absorbed her energy. I see her laying in
the bed waving a white flag. All defenses have ceased. She has
suffered so much physically. Her grief bore a price on all it came
in contact with.

I couldn't take that sorrow away. I thought
I could fix her pain. I thought I could make all her sadness and
losses go away. I couldn't. I didn't know how to live my life
unless I could make her pain go away. My goal in life was to make
her happy. I spent days feeling guilty and so ashamed because
I had been unable to help my mother heal from her childhood wounds.

Now, I see that maybe she didn't need me to make her well
emotionally. Maybe she never really expected me to make her well.
I didn't expect her to undo everything she had done to me. I
wanted someone to help me. I didn't want her to fix the pain she
caused me. Her pain seemed far greater than mine. Her self-esteem
seemed to be in worse shape than mine.

I see now that we each
get one life. We can let someone else suck the life right out
of us. We can also choose to suck the life out of others. A better
choice is to live our lives to the fullest. The only way to have
a full and prosperous life is to turn it over to God. I started
understanding this when I imagined holding my mother in my arms
and then placing her at the alter. I realized I couldn't fix what
was broke in her. I just couldn't do it. If I kept trying, I
would be abusing myself. I could love my mother. I was no longer
responsible for the quality of her life. She was responsible for
the quality of her life.

I wanted to make her happy. I would
be happy if she was happy. My son is not responsible for making
me happy. I am so glad that I learned before I became a mother,
that my child would only be responsible for his life. He would
not be responsible for healing mine. What a glorious thing to have
such wisdom inside of me. I would say that that was a God-given
wisdom because all good things come from God.

In the final days
and hours of my mother's life, I wish her peace from God. I wish
her comfort. I wish her inner healing. I pray for her to feel
forgiven by God and her children. I know it will be a touch from
God that will bring all these good things to her. I am not looking
to humans to fix her or comfort her. That kind of love wasn't
enough for her. I am looking for super-natural power from God to
come down and to minister to her and then gently pick her up and
take her to His home. There I will know that she will never suffer
again. I thank you so much God that you never once stopped loving
my mother and my brothers and my sister. I pray the same for each
of us and please do it before we are on our own death beds. Please
stop us from spreading the illness to our children and our grandchildren.

God,
you take really good care of my mother. She is very precious to
me. I can remember her sufferrings and not all of them. I can
remember her being beaten. I can remember her pain when her mother
died. I can remember so much heartache in her life. I know it
was you Lord that kept getting her up off the ground. Her children
can not call her a virtuous woman. However, we will be able to
say that she is in the greatest care ever available. So God, I
place my mother wholly in your hands. I pray you do the work in
her you so longed to do from the moment she was given life. I pray
you take her orphaned children into your bossom and give them love,
healing, deliverance, knowledge, and wisdom to pass it on to their
own children. I pray you take her children that really weren't
wanted and show them how really wanted they are. Her children
were beautiful and smart. Her children were loved by someone very
special, their Creator. Thank you Jesus for loving her f
amily
the way you have and will. I pray we all be claimed for Christ.

Thank
you Jesus that you know what we need even before we ask. Just help
us start asking you.
God be with Ross---May you bless him for the
love, care, and tenderness he unselfishly gave to our mother.
You said if you do it unto them you have done it unto me. We
love you Ross and we respect you. We thank you for loving and caring
for our mother. Your love for her will not go unrewarded.
Thanks
be to the family of Helen Crawford for allowing her to have a true
friend. Thanks be to all who loved our precious mother. Thanks
be to those who have loved her children and tried to help them and
to teach them.

We love you Gracie Mae Walton Mallard Johnson
Burton Andres. We are glad you have found comfort for your spirit
and your soul.