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"when she fell ill I prayed day in and day out for Jesus to help her to no avail," We are soooo sorry to hear of your mother’s death. We are so sad for you. We can sense that you miss her terribly. We are so glad that you wrote to us. We shall try to give you some thoughts that can help you through this very tough time. Thank you again for writing to us!!! We have been and are praying for you, too! Please read our notes within your message. We have sprinkled many many hyperlinks within the message, some of which you cannot find without your cursor being over the words. We hope you find them all and read them. They are meant to help, encourage, and comfort you in your suffering and situation. "My mother was a very religious person being that we are greek orthodox" It seems, by reading this, that your mother had a relationship with the living God, Jesus Christ. Your mom knew Him, and did good things for Him and with Him in mind. She related with Jesus as if He heard her and as if He knew her, too. It sounds as if your mom did and said many things with Jesus in the forefront of her heart. "but when she fell ill i prayed day in and day out for jesus to help her" When your mother fell ill, you prayed all the time for Jesus to help her get better. You talked to Jesus so that the mother that you loved would not die or suffer in dying. You talked to Jesus all the time crying out to Him to help your mother. You must love your mother very much. (Not “must have loved”, since your mother is still alive. She is just in a different location right now: heaven.) Maybe from your mother’s faith, from her relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, and her life’s example, you thought Jesus would listen to you as He listened to your mother. It is good that you talked to Jesus and expected Him to do something. You expected Jesus to stop the awful suffering that your mother had in her dying process. You wanted Jesus to “make her all better” and bring back the joy that she was to you in your life and heart. You loved your mom soooo much that you didn’t want her to go away. What a passionate and true love you had/have for your mother! It is good that you knew to talk to Jesus day in and day out. That you knew to ask for God’s help. That you knew that the Source of all real and good things can only come from the living Sovereign God. You knew that only God could do what no person can do, which is to heal someone. You trusted Jesus to take care of her. You trusted Jesus to “never leave her or forsake her” (Hebrews 13:5) It seems as if you knew that only God could help her in her physical suffering, as He helped her in her daily life and with her children. "to no avail," When you say, “to no avail”, you mean that your mother died. You mean that your precious mother suffered in the dying process and then died. She was no longer around to be with you. The prayers that you asked of Jesus, for Jesus to heal her, make her well, to not have her suffer, and to give her real joy again, and to keep her here with you, all of those prayers were not given a “YES” answer by God. You may feel very disappointed and let down by the Holy God, but we are happy and honored to tell you that God did not abandon you. God did answer all of your prayers except one: to keep her here with you. God knows how much you love her and depended upon her. Now God wants you to love Him more than you love her (Matthew 10:37), and to depend upon Him more than you ever depended upon your mother (Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding… Proverbs 3:5-6). And in this process, your mother’s prayers for her son, you, are being answered!! You can be/will be cared for and loved in a deeply intimate way and in a real life relationship with the Almighty and Living God Lord Jesus Christ as you trust in Who He is, His Character, and His Word. "why couldnt he help her in her time of need," Jesus did help her in her time of need! Jesus’ presence touches hearts, yet not always bodies. God does not always remove physical pain, but He does give us the strength and grace to bear it (Nehemiah 8:10, Psalm 46:1, 1 Timothy 1:12, 1 Corinthians 8:6, Philippians 4:13, 2 Corinthians 12:9). Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, Who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 2 Corinthians 1:3,4 Jesus Himself knows suffering in death and dying best of all. And just because He was also God does not mean He suffered less, but that He was actually was more acutely aware of the pain, so Jesus suffered more! Jesus was murdered on a tortuous cross (Acts 2:23), humiliated naked in front of everyone, and suffocated to death with His body hanging on two pieces of wood. Additionally, His own Father forsake being with Him, since Jesus was carrying all of the sins that you have ever committed in your life (and mine too) and His Father cannot stand in the presence of sin. (John 19) Jesus could help your mother in her time of need. And Jesus did help her, but in ways that you may not have noticed. 2 Corinthians 1:3,4 The prayers that you asked of Jesus, for your mother’s suffering to cease, for her to be fully well and to be joyous again, were all accepted and done by the Lord Jesus Who heard your cries to Him. Jesus ceased your mother’s suffering by taking her out of this world of decay and bringing her into His Presence and to Heaven. In that place, there is no decay, and your mother’s joy never ends. “You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” Psalm 16:11, Isaiah 35:10, "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." Revelation 21:4 God promises to make her body better than new (1 Corinthians 15:42-44, Isaiah 26:19, Psalm 90:14). Jesus heard your prayers, and did not keep your mother suffering any longer than He had designed. (Hebrews 9:27) Your mother’s suffering was cut short when the Lord Jesus took her home with Him. He gave her real joy again. If she had gone to hell, she would keep on suffering forever (Rich man). God kept His Word, and the appointed time for her to die, but brought her out of her suffering (Hebrews 9:27). The only part that God said “No” to you about was “to not let her die and to keep my mother here with me”. God’s will is firm. God sets the seasons of earth, (There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.) God sets the stars in their courses, (I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place, Psalm 8:1-4, Psalm 19). God sets the time for every person to die (it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, Hebrews 9:27). Jesus took her out of her misery, out of her suffering body, and was with her in her room. Jesus was and is still with her! “Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 5:6-10 These things are firm, but what is changeable is our choice and our personal response to the Lord God Almighty. Our attitude toward God and what He says, (His Word), is the choice of our own personal free will. Depending upon what you and I choose for our daily life, whether to live for God totally, or to live our own life our own way, is specifically how God will respond to each of us. God reacts to our own choices, just like anyone else would react to us. God is a personal God, a God of relationship. The proof that He is relational is the historic fact that Jesus walked on the earth to relate with us, being born, eating, drinking, talking, healing, feeding, crying, etc, and then He died taking the punishment that each of us deserve for all of our lying, cheating, stealing, lusting, gluttony, drunkenness, cursing, etc. If that is not relationship, then I don’t know what is. God tells us specifically and clearly. There are two sets of promises, both of which are true. God keeps promises for those who are His children, and for those who are not His children. Children of the devil (John 8:42-44), and children of God (John 1:12-13; John 3:3-21). (Deuteronomy 28 , 1 Corinthians 15:42-44, 2 Corinthians 4:14, 2 Thessalonians 1:8-10, Friendship with God, Promises of God, Worship of God , Right Life, Sinful Life) "where is she now, all those years of praying and believing didn't help her," Maybe you don’t know what Jesus says. Maybe you haven’t read for yourself His Words directed to those who trust in Him alone for everlasting life. God says He is preparing a place for us in heaven and will come for us personally to take us there, and to trust and love (John 14:23, 1 John 5:3, John 15:10) Him in the meantime. Before He was to be killed, Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in Me. In My Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going." John 14:1-4 However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him" — 1 Corinthians 2:9 Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides You, Who acts on behalf of those who wait for Him. Isaiah 64:4 All of those years of praying and believing would not keep her from physical death (Hebrews 9:27). God never said we would live forever in this temporal world. All of those years of praying and believing would not keep her from troubles and suffering. Jesus openly says, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33 It is better, if it is God's will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. 1 Peter 3:17 So then, those who suffer according to God's will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good. 1 Peter 4:19 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the One Who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 1 John 4:4 All of those years of praying and believing would not make people see into your mother’s heart that was truly alive with God inside. No one could see all of the Love that the Living God was pouring into it and through it. For Only God can see into a person’s heart. But the LORD said "The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." 1 Samuel 16:7 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:26 (Genesis 6:5,6; Deuteronomy 6:5; Psalm 26:2; Ezekiel 11:19; Ezekiel 36:26; Joel 2:12-13, 28-32; Jn 1:1-3, 12-14,18,29) Psalm 51, New Creature, My Room. But all of those years of praying and believing, trusting and obeying the living Lord God Almighty DID bring her into His Presence permanently and helped her to deal with the things in life that were truly important! “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of My hand. My Father, Who has given them to Me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of My Father's hand.” John 10:28-9 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, Who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. James 1:5 "Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." John 7:38 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." John 14:6 "i really miss her," That is very understandable. And that is where your excruciating pain is coming from. It is natural to be angry with God for “taking” your mother away. It is natural to be in such pain that you want to blame someone, or everyone. You want to blame your mom for trusting God and thinking that he “let her down”. You want to blame God for not keeping her with you. You may want to be angry with everyone who tells you not to have revenge on God, but to learn from Him and your situation. The sorrowful truth is that you love your mother tremendously and miss her incredibly. What she was to you here on earth was what God, the One of Everlasting Love, wants to be for you here an earth and after your body dies. (Come to Me, Cast your Cares, Broken Hearted, Abiding in Christ, Salvation, Bible) "but i've lost my faith in god," > Continues to Answers13A Bring me to Questions |
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