HOPE FOR ETERNITY
As we looked at a prayer card of the sleeping Saint Joseph, the priest at the Gift shop began to relate the story and deep meaning of the figure of the sleeping Saint Joseph.
God spoke through dreams to Joseph. Mary would become the Mother of the Messiah and name Him Jesus. Jesus would enter into our world, being born through the Virginal birth, to become the One prophesied and spoken of, throughout the Old Testament. He would take on the yoke of our sins to cancel our debt of disobedience and sin, to open the way for each one of us to live forever re-united to our Father in Eternity.
There is so much more!
I was able, at that moment, to share what I call a "dream vision", only because I don't truly understand God's ways! And there doesn't seem to be any words to describe the happening.
To set the story of the "dream vision", let me give a short story of where we were in our lives as a family at the time.
Don, my husband, was slowly dying. He had surgery nine years ago and was without oxygen to his brain and body for a time during surgery. I won't go into all the details.
He came out of surgery with his brain wiped clean of any past knowledge of his family or bodily functions.
Don and I went to rehab to be taught all that we could about recovering his ability to walk, talk and to restore as much as could be done.
He was home for a short time, needing to return to the hospital and then, not able to come home.
Don heroically lived in a wheelchair for many years with his family and friends around him at the nursing home. We were able to bring him home for visits and holidays and Don loved being at Church, also.
As the moments, days, months, years passed, Don went through many different stages of emotional sufferings, changes and phases of acceptance. We all did! Yet, there was joy, also, and many good memories made along the way. We all did the best we could to keep our family happy and close together.
When the time came, the family called upon Hospice for the support and encouragement they could give us all. Don needed special care and comfort for his passage from this life. The Hospice team members were there for each one of us.
Blessings had been given as our priests visited often, and prayers went up from our Church family members, constantly. Our faith brought us through many levels of acceptance. It was not an easy journey by any means. God has a way of preparing and strengthening us as we live through these extraordinary days.
A DREAM VISION
In the early morning of Dec.3rd,as I was sleeping, I seemed to enter a dream place, yet so real...
Don and myself were in a place bathed in Light, so brilliant beyond description. There seemed to be a hint of a blue around us, as a circle.
A young and healthy Don sat facing an opening of even brighter Light.I stood behind him with my right hand upon his shoulder. We were facing an opening of even brighter Light. Don wore a royal blue dress shirt.
My heart was so filled with a radiant joy, that I thought it would burst! There was a sense that we were transported here, unlike a dream, so real!
Then, there was heard rejoicing and voices calling...3 separate calls, "Donald Mahan, enter the THRONE ROOM!"
Donald Mahan, ENTER !", "Enter the Throne Room, Donald Mahan!"
Don had been refusing food, at times. He, now, had been accepting ice cream, or yogurt and fluids for a week. He passed peacefully,with his family all around him, on Sunday, December 6th,2015. The Feast day of St. Nicholas.
Grace carries us along, with tears of gratitude and waves of emptiness and loneliness.
Three of our grandchildren had recognized the "signs of their Grampa's presence" in their dreams, and shared their stories at Christmas dinner! Brianna, our first grandchild, and Emily Mae, shared a phone call and their dreams of Grampa, appearing with his Santa's hat sitting by the Christmas tree, handing out the gifts. Eliza heard a song that only Grampa had sung to her, coming from the radio. She had never heard that song on the radio before this happening and, somehow, she knew it was from him!
This part of the Journey with Don has taught me so much! Love changes and never ends. Love continues and we find it at so many different levels of life together. Don taught me how to love and be loved as well as how to die, as we lived our lives with Jesus, our third partner in our marriage.
God, the Father, knows us so lovingly well!
So much Truth in the Scriptures came to life, as we traveled this road! Everything is used for our good...others, according to our faith, may reap the benefits of our earthly gifts and sufferings.
The body diminishes,yet the Spirit grows stronger and rises! Such a mystery, this gift of Faith!
Yes! Don is resting in the Peace of the Holy Trinity and will be there for us!
" I have gone to prepare a place for you!"
" Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy
gave us a new birth to a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
undefiled, and unfading, kept in Heaven for you...!"
1 Peter1:1-5
