@ Just the Right Time
Answered Prayers (Eighty-Two Years in Process)
by: Liz Byer

Sunday, June 29, 2008  

     "Did you rest well last night Mom?"
     "No."
     "Were you in pain?"
     "Yes, and it was so noisy.  They just kept fighting."
     "Fighting?"  My mind immediately wondered who was fighting?  Her roommate?  Staff in the hallways?  Or maybe it was just something she heard on TV and incorporated it into her dreams.
     "Who was fighting, Mom?"
     "God and the Devil were fighting over me all night."

     I believe in spiritual warfare.   I can’t see how someone could believe in good and evil and not know a battle goes on between the two.  But I must tell you, all my blood went cold inside my body when I heard these words from my Mom, when I realized she was the prize to be won from this battle.

     I had many opportunities to visit with my Mom during the last 22 years that I have been saved, about the real Jesus. She was a life-time member of a church that say they have Jesus but they believe they have to do works to get into heaven. It is certainly not by grace, which is a gift from God, but by mans ways and rules.  Their Jesus is not strong enough to take on all the sins of the world. It was a point that we just disagreed on, but I tried by example, and with a couple questions here and there, throughout the time to plant some seeds.  My older brother, who is also a Christian, was trying the same things. We both prayed often for Mom’s salvation.  Here is how God worked out the details…as always, in a way that we could never have orchestrated or planned in our humanness and at just the right time.
     
     Mom left her home to live at Park Place, an assisted living center, in February of in 2007.  As God would have it, my brother’s pastor went to this center and held services every couple weeks.  My brother invited Mom and she went.  He remembers her singing ‘White as Snow’ with him.  He said he heard this voice just belting out the song and when he looked over it was Mom.   Her health started failing and she wasn’t able to go to her church too much during that time.  Then she fell and broke her pelvis in two places early in April of 2008.  Surgery to help it heal was not an option.  She went from the hospital to the nursing home then.   

She started getting better, then worse, then better and then worse again.  Again, as God would have it, her first roommate in the nursing home was a sweet little Christian lady who was practically deaf.  She played her TV so loud, it could be heard down the hall a couple doors.  She watched what we called the God channel.  Every day there were pastors, and TV evangelists singing and praying away in Mom’s room, calling for people to come to Christ.  The first couple times I heard this going on in her room before I got to her door, I just giggled.  Her roommate also had a friend who would come and read the Bible with her.  What an example these two little ladies were.  How awesome was God’s plan.  I know these ladies asked my mom questions from time to time too.  

A path was made for my Mom to come to know the real Jesus. 

      When I realized what Mom was saying that day, Sunday, June 29, 2008, I called my brother and asked him to call his Pastor.  Pastor Dale had a connection with her from Park Place, so I prayed she would listen to him.  My brother came and we both prayed with her.  Shortly after that, his Pastor came.  I was so thankful to see him.  I knew this was going to be an important moment in time.

      Pastor Dale knelt beside her bed and gently took her tiny, fragile hand and talked to her about Jesus.  He shared verses about peace and comfort.  He asked her if she believed in Jesus and she said yes.  He asked if she believed He died on the cross for her sins and she said yes.  Did she believe He was her Lord and Savior…she said yes.  Somewhere in those yeses, I burst into tears, the uncontrollable kind that spring directly from the heart. I kept thinking, “Lord, please let this be real.  Please don’t let me be dreaming.”  And then I said Thank you to the Lord a hundred times and cried  more tears of thankfulness.  Pastor Dale prayed with her and then quoted John 10:28 “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. 29My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand.”  He explained to her that now she belonged to Jesus and no one could ever take her away from Him.

      No more fighting disturbed her rest that night.  She went to be with the Lord ten days later.

        I struggled on whether or not to share this story online.  While it is wonderful happy news, I still feel sad and miss my mom.  But I felt it was important to share this story because it is such a witness on how God is so in control of all the tiniest details that build the pathways to Him.  Again, I could have never planned this out for my Mom.  Only He could and would.  It took 82 years for this pathway to be completed.
    
     When you have someone in your world that you feel may never come to know the Lord, I hope you will remember my Mom’s story.  Keep praying.  While you still have breath, keep praying. If it has been twenty years, keep praying.  If you have given up hope, keep praying. If you know it will never happen, keep praying. If you think there isn’t any possible situation that would bring them to Christ, keep praying….and then pray some more.