This is a message I wrote to honor my Mom’s life the week after her death on March, 28, 2020. She was an inspiration to all.
LAST SATURDAY – March 28, 2020
My cell phone rang at 9:21 last Saturday morning, it was my sister. I had arrived at the North Campus at 6:15 AM to an already busy parking lot, people were walking around and directing cars that came in, dozens of cars were there. I thought I might as well go way back to the back and be out of the way for the big Harvesters event. As I approached the back section, it was dark and there was a checkpoint on the north side of the parking lot. “Hey – do you know anything about these lights?” It was Heath Markley in his bright neon yellow jacket. “The guests are having a hard time navigating back here with the lights off…” I said that they may have been turned off since we hadn’t been meeting, but I’d check as soon as I got into the building. Already, there was a long line of cars queuing up from just beside the big storage container on the south side of the Venue, all the way into the back parking lot. It was going to be a busy drive-through Harvesters if almost two hours before it started, there were dozens of cars lining up to receive a trunk full of groceries. I parked and headed in. With the help of Trish Sinkhorn, who had been disinfecting and cleaning the facility Friday night and Saturday morning, we found the light controller and got the back parking lot lights fired up. Much better now as the parking lot lit up. The line was now at least ten cars longer, with still an hour and a half to go to the start of Harvesters.
I headed to the front of the building to see how things were progressing. There’s a team of people working on a semi-full of food items, unloading pallets and arranging them in the parking lot. This is a well-oiled operation. Another team of volunteer ministers unloads a trailer full of shopping carts. There were nurses checking people in, and screening. “Have you traveled any in the past two weeks? Have you been around anyone showing any symptoms of illness? Let’s take your temperature…” “Sign in here, and then use a wipe and clean off the pen please…” Already there were at least thirty to forty people, not milling around, but purposefully getting to work, preparing to serve the “guests” – the term that our Harvesters team uses for those receiving food. “I’m glad they call them guests…,” I think to myself.
The building was dark this weekend, the entire operation would be held outside. We wanted to keep people distanced as best as possible while they worked. I spoke to a few of the ministers – that’s what I think we should call the volunteers who were “ministering” the mercy, love, and grace of God to the “guests” that day. None of them were on staff at Vineyard, but in a way, they were. On one hand, employed by God in some other place where they got their paycheck, but employed by God really, to be ministers of His love, through their work and service. “Yep – they are ALL on staff, in some way…” I thought as I went back into the building to get some computer support work done while the office was empty, and I could work without being around anyone. We are disinfecting the building all the time now, and many rooms have been cleaned and taped off, staying clean until we are ready to use them when this craziness subsides. The facilities team is cycling through, wiping off surfaces, mopping and spraying, becoming human cleaning machines, keeping all who are in the building safe. They are ministers too… ministers of safety, and protection. On the front lines, not noticed, but just as important.
I came back outside to see how things were going around 8 AM. Stepping out to the east entrance patio, I heard Dennis Coomes beginning to pray. The ministers weren’t all bunched together like they usually are right before Harvesters officially “starts”. Instead, this time, they were spread out. Dennis was having to pray a little louder, so everyone could hear. The Lord didn’t mind that Dennis was praying a little louder. I didn’t either. The amazing thing was that as they finished praying and begin taking their positions, the line of cars full of “guests” started by the storage unit, and went up and around the back parking lot, then around the church, then to the entrance, and out of the driveway and up along the access road to the big curve. Hundreds of cars… Ministers started grabbing shopping carts and going through the long line of food items, filling boxes and taking them to the trunks or backs of the guest’s cars. The blessing had begun! The line of cars was so long, some of us prayed that the food would multiply like loaves and fishes… that the Lord would make sure that everyone got what they needed. In all, 280 families were fed in 90 minutes of non-stop trunk filling, praying, and round trips back through the line… ministers keeping their same cart, so they were only one who touched it. It was amazing to be in my office on the south side of the building, and for three hours see cars lined up, then slowly working their way east, like a drive-through, only with a two-hour wait.
Oh, yes, back to the 9:21 phone call from my sister…. As soon as I answered, I could tell what my sister was calling about by the way she spoke and the tension in her voice. “She’s gone, Normie” The name for me that only my sister uses. “She’s gone….they just called me and told me…she’s gone, Mommy is gone” Even though we had all grown up decades ago, for some reason, all of us referred to our mom as “Mommy”. I don’t know why, seemed kind of like a bunch of little kids, but my mom liked it, so we stayed with it. “When? Just now…? I asked. “They called just a few minutes ago. I called your two brothers, then I called you.” my sister replied.
I had known it wouldn’t be long for my mom, who at 91 had been in and out of the hospital over the past nine months with complications to Congestive Heart Failure that was making it harder for her to breathe, move her legs well, and have functioning kidneys. The last time I had been able to spend any longer time with her was on my birthday: Sunday, March 15th. That was the last weekend we had met as a church, and I had to jump in and do the teaching on stage for Paul Ford, who couldn’t travel. I went to visit her and sat with her for about an hour that Sunday afternoon in between the morning and evening services. It would be the last extended time that we spent with one another, just us together. Her retirement community would not let anyone visit, so this two-day stay at St. Luke’s hospital was a window of opportunity. I got in, at least then, and hung out with her in her room.
She, as always, was way more interested in hearing how things were going at church, and how people were responding to the Lord, and how the staff was coming along than she was in talking about herself. My mom had faithfully prayed for us, for Fred and Janet, and for our church since we came back to Kansas City in 1990. I’ve seen it in her prayer journals and extensive prayer lists she kept. That afternoon, she wanted to watch the message I had preached online and wanted me to bring it up on her iPad or her phone. It hadn’t yet been published for the weekend, so I could only bring up the previous week. The one where we had our on-stage discussion with Gina, Roger, Steve, Season, and me. “Well, you can watch this one if you want…” I said, explaining to her that our main goal in doing the team on the stage presentation was to show people that when you face difficulty, if you trust the Lord, and go together, He can lead you through. We on the stage had NO idea that weekend, as we confidently spoke of God’s faithfulness to provide and lead through difficulty, what was ahead of us in the next three weeks.
She couldn’t focus on it right then, she said. Seeming a bit tired. I did show her a great little video clip that my son, Peter, had sent of Lila, our granddaughter singing happy birthday. I’d gotten the video via text between services that morning, and it made teaching at the 11:00 service that much more fun…. Being blessed by a little singing two-and-a-half-year-old was a great birthday gift. My mom began to cry, and beg forgiveness, because she had forgotten it was my birthday. She never forgot things like that, and always had a card written, usually with a check tucked in it. She wrote cards to hundreds of people a year on their birthdays, always with this beautiful cursive handwriting that only lately had become a bit shaky. “It’s fine, Mommy, don’t worry about my birthday – you have been such a blessing to me throughout your life. Besides, I got to teach today and see the Lord move in people’s hearts and that’s a great present.” My mom was still somewhat shaken that she had forgotten my birthday when I gave her a kiss and said I had to go. She went back to assisted living on another day, then stayed there until Wednesday, March 26th when they sent her once again back to St. Luke’s. This time, it was different. She was more direct with the nurses. One of them said she had commented to them “I don’t know why you all are trying so hard to keep me alive!” So, instead of an update call from a nurse, we got a call from the hospice coordinator.
Things were kind of a blur from that Wednesday. Our teaching team meeting was going on via zoom, and I had to excuse myself to take the phone call. I was getting ready to give the weekend message, so the teaching team is usually where we go over our thoughts about what direction the message is taking, and get input from one another regarding what the Lord is speaking to the church and how to communicate it. It is helpful, to do this every week, hearing about last week’s message and praying and preparing for the upcoming weeks. The team could see me taking the call, but I had muted the zoom conference while I spoke to the hospice coordinator. “You need to talk with your family, and make a decision about your mom,” she said, trying to sound caring, but in my mind and heart, sounding a bit too clinical and business-like. I asked, “Well, I think my mom is capable of making these kinds of decisions, so why not I come down and we talk together with her?” – “Oh no, they will not allow any visitors of any kind at this point… You can’t come to visit your mom at the hospital.” the hospice coordinator said. Meanwhile, I look up the COVID-19 visitor policy for the hospital and remind the coordinator that it specifically says that someone at end-of-life COULD be visited. “No, you can not come to visit her. You know there are lots of germs here, and we can’t guarantee that she won’t get infected, so we just can’t have visitors…” I thought that sounded a bit strange, given I was talking to the hospice coordinator about someone who had beaten cancer three different times over thirty years, and was truly near the end of her life. “They could give her a cigar to smoke and a bottle of scotch… They just told me she was dying…” I thought to myself. My mom, who had never smoked or drank, couldn’t really be hurt by anything at this point. I posted a chat on the screen to the teaching team meeting. “It’s hospice on the phone. They won’t let us visit our mom. I’m going to have to help get her to the Lord over the phone, without being beside her” I typed. Steve and Season both posted chats back they were praying.
By that night, I was able to have a short phone call with my mom, who didn’t seem too with it, and with a phone battery that was dying, I couldn’t talk long. My two brothers and I, along with our sister got on our own zoom conference. Everyone had their contributions to make and we scrambled, trying to find a hospice place that would allow visitors. The other issue was wondering how much time she had to live. We agreed that she should probably go back to the skilled nursing side of her retirement community, and be made comfortable. They said when she was near end-of-life, they would allow us to visit, and all of the financial arrangements were already in place from her long-term care policy. The next day, Thursday, my brother was able to be the “transport” and pick my mom up and drive her the 1/2 mile to the skilled nursing facility. All of us in the KC area met at her destination, kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids… waiting outside for her to arrive. We got out of town relatives connected via zoom and were able to spend a few minutes each, telling her that we loved her and that we would come to visit when we could. She was glad to be able to tell out of town kids that she loved them, but seemed tired. After just a few minutes on a call, she just said it was time to go. I had to leave as well, to go record the weekend message.
I left my Mom, knowing in my heart that more than likely, I would not see her at least aware again. If they did call us and say we could come to visit, I was sure it would be after she had slipped into some sort of coma or something. It was too bad that this COVID-19 crisis had made everyone have to come up with their own policies on the spot, some of which didn’t make sense, like, don’t go visit your dying relative. I began to pray as I drove the eight minutes up to the North campus. Pray that I could focus, and go through a message that needed to bring hope to the church, at a time when I had such mixed emotions – peace and assurance that my Mom was going to see Jesus, and pain in the loss that was to come. It was difficult to simply go through 1 Thessalonians 1, without having an emotional edge to it, challenging everyone in the church who heard it make their lives count for something significant. I didn’t want the emotion of my heart to make the message NOT have hope or come across with a measure of judgment that came from comparing the enormous 91-year impact of my mom’s life, with all of ours, seemingly so insignificant and less meaningful. She had led a women’s Bible study up until just two weeks earlier when the assisted living community had said she no longer could have any visitors. Two of the ladies in her study were navigating their own battles with cancer, gleaning hope from someone who had walked through cancer multiple times, trusting the Lord through it all. Yes, it was going to be a difficult sermon to give. I prayed that the Lord would be the one who spoke, and didn’t even use the notes that I had written, instead simply going to the scripture, and trying to let that be what spoke, rather than me. Only doing one recording, I had to just trust that it was going to be enough for Vineyard Church to hear from the Lord through Paul in 1 Thessalonians, and not from me, whose heart was hurting.
Friday came and it sounded like my mom was doing okay. The nursing people said she was a “fighter” and that surely it would be weeks before we needed to come to visit. We went through the day, filled with more Zoom calls for church and work, trying to be normal, and trying not to think about being barred from visiting. Nancy and I decided to take a walk on the Line Creek trail with the dogs and met there late in the day. Getting out with our doodles is relaxing and therapeutic for me. A stress relief, as we hiked along the trail. Someone had piled up rocks along the trail and placed a long limb in the rock pile, stretching up high. I commented to Nancy that we ought to put a cross piece on the stick, so it would be a cross, reminding people of upcoming Easter, and Jesus. We made a note to look for a cross piece on the way back. It was around seven, walking back, that we found a good piece of a stick, and, with Nancy acting as a lookout, I climbed up the pile of rocks and, using an old broken length of tape measure that we had scavenged along the way, we lashed a cross there, along the Line Creek Trail. The hope of the cross, for anyone who came along to see. One that had a broken measuring tape holding it together. I thought of Gina Hanna’s message earlier in 2019 with the yardstick, breaking it and making a cross – to symbolize how the cross took away the measurement and replaced our sinfulness with the righteousness of Jesus. I snapped a picture of the cross and sent it to the staff via email. Then, my phone rang. It was my mom.
“Norman, I need you to come to get me….” she said. “Why?” I asked. “Well, I’m not where I am supposed to be… I need you to come to take me…” she implored. I asked her where she thought she was. She said that she was over at her old house, and she needed to go back to where she was supposed to be. Convincingly, she was SURE that she was not in the right place, and needed a ride. After some more back and forth, trying to help her realize she was in a room at the skilled nursing unit, with flowers that had been delivered to her the night before, and a window that looked out, she kept on insisting that it at least “felt” like she was not in the right place. At that moment, I began to understand, in the Spirit, what she was saying. “Mommy, they won’t let us come to see you, and I can’t come to take you where you need to go…. But, Jesus is with you now, and He can take you where you really need to go.” I told her, hoping that she would grasp what I was saying, and take hold of Jesus’ hand. I repeated it a few more times as we spoke, then I told her that I was going to pray for her. “Lord, you know where my mom needs to be. Please now, Lord, by your Spirit, be with her now, and take her where you need her to be…Give her peace, and fill her with it now, tonight as she sleeps. Help her get there, Lord… In Jesus’ name, Amen.” I told her that I loved her and that everything was going to be okay. It would be the last prayer that my mom had with anyone. I thank the Lord, that I was able to be with my Dad, holding his hand, singing over him as he died, and that I was able to pray with my mom, that one last time, helping her turn her face toward heaven, not exactly sure of her surroundings, but knowing WHO was surrounding her. She slept that night and didn’t wake up the next morning, Saturday morning, March 28, 2020.
So, there I sat, in my office, tears rolling down my face, listening to my sister on the phone, and watching cars still crawling by the window, filled with people, looking for hope and love, in the form of a trunk full of food. Hope that doesn’t come through food. Love that doesn’t come through food. Instead, without them even knowing it, they were asking for eternal hope, eternal love, and eternal value, that only comes from God our Father, through Jesus Christ and His sacrifice. People have needs all the time, that is usually just a shadow, just a type, or indication of a deeper, more significant need; one that most can’t easily put their finger on. These deeper, spiritual needs are only laid bare by the work of the Holy Spirit in someone, when He’s drawing them in, calling them, guiding them to the Father and His adoption offer. We usually are only delivery people, mail carriers, delivering little packages of God’s love to someone, while the deeper drawing out going on in their hearts is being done by the Spirit of the Living God.
I watched the last of the cars go by. Two Hundred and Eighty families had been blessed that Saturday morning, by a whole army of ministers – all employed by the Lord in the work He is doing here at Vineyard Church. But not just that army of ministers, entire other battalions of ministers had already given money that paid Harvesters for their semi-truck of food that morning. Other divisions of the army of ministers had prayed faithfully that the people who came would be blessed, and would receive God’s love in a practical way. Yet more armies of ministers had worked in the office to coordinate, facilitate, and communicate. It is all of us, together, advancing the fronts on the battle for people’s hearts in Kansas City. I cried tears of sorrow for losing my mom, but in it was a spark of hope, that her thirty years of prayer for us, for Fred and Janet, for our church had not been in vain, and that the Lord had begun to accomplish what He set out to do in the beginning: to form a community of people, sold out for Jesus, bringing His love and His truth to the Northland and the city.
I got another call, about an hour later, and had to drive down to the skilled nursing facility and wait with my mom’s body until the funeral home transport people came to get her. Her body was lying in the bed, lifeless, but with her mouth slightly open, just a bit, and the corners of her mouth turned up in a little smile. I knew, that she had taken her last breath here on earth some hours earlier, and as she did, she began to smile, seeing her Lord and beginning to sing her eternal song. She was going to be an opera star, before meeting my dad and having kids. Now she can sing forever, in full voice, to the Lord.
The little girl, who had been born in 1929 nine months before the great stock market crash, and had grown up in a small town, all through the great depression, as the daughter of a war hero who suffered from PTSD and drank to ease the pain. Shame from being poor and this difficult childhood had marked the sisters’ lives, my mom had not escaped that shame. She had, however, turned to the Lord, and what He did in her life is to redeem the shame and replace it with grace. A grace that she lived with all her life. A grace and love that translated to really care for others. She always was concerned with how YOU were doing. It was the great work of the Lord in her life that translated her childhood difficulties into a perspective on hurting that gave her compassion for others who were hurting. It redeemed her pain and made it useful to the Lord, and as a yielded servant, she had an eternal impact on thousands of others. That’s what the Lord wants to do with all of our pain. Not simply erase it, but redeem it, shape it into something useful, and then make our lives count as we now have redeemed pain, turned into grace for others.
I remember this past month, I had a call from my mom, just checking on me, asking how we were doing. She thought she may need orange juice…. She said, not knowing that even last week she had four half-gallons of it in her refrigerator. But as we spoke, she said “I just don’t know why I’m still here….” something she had said to me a few times before, especially in the past year. This time, it was different though, because as we spoke, there was a knock at her apartment door. She called out “Come in!” and then proceeded to talk to someone in the room. I heard her say in a caring and cheerful voice, “Come back in just a few minutes… I’m on the phone with my son right now, but I’ll see you in a few minutes…” When she got back to the phone I asked who that was. “Oh, it’s a girl who works over on one of the other wings of the building…” she related. “She is living in her car right now because she’s trying to get out of a bad situation.” Then she said, “She just comes by every day, and we spend a few minutes praying together…” I incredulously said to my mom – “What do you mean you don’t know why you are still here!” That girl, who was sleeping in her car, working at a retirement home trying to make ends meet and get out on her own, who probably had her own story of shame, and difficulty, was the reason my mom was still there. That girl had needs beyond her physical ones. She had that deep spiritual need for the Lord’s true love, and it was being brought out, by the Holy Spirit, and my ninety-one-year-old mom, within a month of dying, was delivering that love to another generation of potential redeemed pain, turned into grace and hope.
I hope and pray for all of us, that in this season of beginning to walk through difficulty and perhaps some pain, that we can take all of that to the Lord, and let Him redeem it. Let him take the lump of clay that is our own shame, our own mistakes, our own attempts at making life matter, and, in His strong and mighty hands, shape it into something useful, something that can be filled with His Spirit, then poured out, all over this city. Redeeming our pain, redeeming our lives, making us a vessel of His Spirit, and using us, right up to the end of our own lives. Lord, make it so in the lives of ALL your people. Lord, make it so in the lives of everyone who you draw to the Vineyard. Lord, make it so! So we will all one day be written about by our loved ones. Written about and remembered as someone who loved much, who followed You, and who gave their all, in surrender to Your will, to be used by you to change the World!
Blessings to you, Vineyard family! May we all be together, working as ministers for Him!
