So, earlier today, I had an “almost-broke-down-in-the-middle -of-my-workday” moment.  When I walked through the hospital lobby, I noticed they had set up a beautiful manger scene. My Mom loved and collected manger scenes.   So tears started welling up thinking how much I wanted to show it to her or at least call her and tell her about it.  It doesn’t cease to surprise me how grief can rise up so strong at a moment’s notice – even though my Mom entered Heaven a few years ago now.  Those moments also don’t seem to care where you are when they appear.  I almost had a mini-meltdown in the lobby of the hospital where I work.

But then God sweetly whispered to my spirit, “Your Mom doesn’t have to look at a plaster replica of a version of me anymore. She sees ME”.  And somehow that perspective changed everything. Yes…. I miss her terribly even after several years. But she – like me – lived deeply in love with Jesus and always longed to see Him Face to Face.  So thoughts of the joy and fellowship she is experiencing with the “grown up version” of the Baby Jesus she loved to display (even when it wasn’t Christmas) changed my near “miss-my-Mom-meltdown” into a moment of thanksgiving for a depth of Grace that goes far beyond any grief or pain we might taste in this life.

“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” –  I Corinthians 13:12  NIV