Originally Posted by JoanieP

Hello, Mark,

I know that this thread is almost a year old, but I am new here, and started reading some different threads...this one...is so very "special" and I needed to read it...I know you Believe...He takes us where we need to go...

I also experienced much of the same in my life concerning the loss and grief of many loved ones. The first was my mother who died from suicide when I was 9 years old. I did not experience the first coffin or even the grave yard, just a family meeting after her burial at my great Aunt's house. Which was full of "nasty" speaking of my mother's being in "Hell" because she had killed herself. That is the reason my father did not have us, my brothers and I attend the services...he was trying to protect us from this unspeakable pain.

Actually, I thought that for some reason, people had somehow lied to me and I looked for my mother many years, thinking I would find her. Every store, every street, everywhere...my heart was searching. But of course, she was never to be seen again....

My father remarried and it took a long time to accept my new step-mother...now endearingly I call her... Mom. Several grandparents like yours slipped away, some were step grandparents, some not. I did start to do what you described so well...as I was growing up, I realized this was part of life...this was where God would open my soul, spirit, and mind.

And then, like your grand-daughter...my own daughter, Gerri Ann, died in my 36th week of pregnancy. Carrying her in my womb knowingly dead was the most difficult time of my life. The Dr. wanted nature to take its course, allowing my body to go into labor on its own to deliver her. After a week...my own brother could not stand it anymore, I was calling him day and night looking for support...my husband at the time locked himself away...unreachable...my brother called the Dr. and my induced labor was scheduled....I briefly saw her because my own body required surgery immediately due to hemorage...and then a couple of days later after her autopsy which revealed nothing...I went to the mortuary while my babies milk was still dripping...and dripping...and then a few months later, my last living grandmother died...

About 6 years later, my father was killed in a car accident on his birthday. Everything stopped...I could not move...I dropped the phone when my brother told me...and I cried and prayed. Were he and my mother now together again? I prayed to know this for many years...I envisioned my mother in a rocking chair in Heaven and holding my little girl with my father beside them.

And then...my sister...died at age 53 from a terrible reaction to her third attempt of tissue being applied after her third degree burns from a house fire. This one was very different to me...different because I had been going through the possibility of having a brain tumor called an acoustic neuroma..and she and I shared our faith and love together...little did I know it would be her time to go...not mine.

A year later...my brother, died of a sudden cardiac arrest at age 50 on Thanksgiving Day. He and I were like twins, only 11 months apart, so this one burned a "hole in my heart". By faith, and continuing hope to see him again, I endured and am still working through this...allowing the hole in my heart to heal but still knowing that the scar would remain.

And now...and now...the Lord has given me a gift!! I recently had a brain tumor for real this time...and a craniotomy to surgically remove it...and in that process I had a Near Death Experience....and saw them...and spoke with them...and then the Lord told me I had to return..."It was not my time." I shared this with everyone at the hospital...everyone..to include the surgeon who prayed with me before my surgery, the nurses, my husband, my children...and now you. Heaven is for real...and YES, my mother is there as well...she had suffered from a medical condition that caused her suicide...God forgave her as He is willing to forgive and love us all...Jesus made sure I knew this...to share!

I know this is a long sharing...but hoping it Blesses those who need it.
Joanie