Do You Not Realize?

This week I flew down to visit my Mom who is in a retirement home in Langley, BC.

Even though her memory is almost gone, she miraculously remembered who I was when she opened her apartment room door to let me in, and we had a wonderful visit talking about heaven and the things of God. There was so much my Mom couldn't remember, but she did remember the Bible.

For example, Mom couldn't remember my four sons, but when I told her their names, she responded in excitement, "You named them all Bible names!" My Mom also couldn't remember the place she was born and raised, but she remembered Heaven is the place she was going to. And even though my Mom couldn't remember much of her childhood, she remembered leading her own Mom and Dad to the Lord, stating to me with certainty they were in Heaven waiting for her. Not only that, my Mom never became sad when she talked about death, but she became sad thinking about those she loves not going there.

My Mom's mind may have been gone, but the Spirit of God in her remains. And she spoke to me not from her mind, but from within.

Then when I was about to leave, she cupped my face in her hands, and told me, "I will always love you." I have never heard my Mom utter those words to me in all my life, and weeks before going down to see her, I brokenheartedly told God that. My visit with my Mom was a visit with God.

Half and hour later when my brother came to see our Mom, I was told she couldn't remember anything about me or our meeting.

We need to realize the Holy Spirit which lives inside us will never abandon us. He will stay with us to the end because we belong to God.

"Don't you realize

that your body

is the temple of the Holy Spirit,

who lives in you

and was given to you by God?

You do not belong to yourself."

1 Corinthians 6:19 (NLT)

My Mom responded to me not from her intellect, but from the Spirit of God who still remained inside her, and reminded her the truths in God's Word.

"But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit,

whom the Father will send in My Name,

will teach you all things

and will remind you of everything

I have said to you."

John 14:26 (NIV)