It’s a story I am sure we have all heard. In Sunday School, Bible School and numerous sermons from the preacher. Moses and the Red Sea. God parted the waters of the Red Sea and the people of Israel walked across on dry land. So many times we refer to this chapter in Exodus when we are trying to encourage someone who may be having a hard time. We tell them God will part the waters and make a path for you. Oh how I know this to be true as I have experienced it so many times. When there were months that seemed to have more bills than income, someone would need some random work done and pay my husband to do it. God works like that. I know He does. I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it. I have watched Him show up and show out. But what if the waters don’t part?

April 5, 1999, I found out we were expecting our second child. The date is easy to remember because it was the day after I spent all day in labor and delivery with my sister who delivered my nephew on April 4th. Can you imagine my mom’s reaction? I had a son who a little over a year old and my sister had a brand-new baby and in a few months, another would be added to the mix. We handed them three grandchildren in a two year time span. 🙂 But of course, she was excited. In the midst of that joy, we had no idea that she would not live to see this precious girl born.

Within the next few weeks, we finally received a diagnosis for all the issues she had been having. An unheard of (at the time) autoimmune disease. A hard word to say and even harder to spell. Scleroderma. It would soon become an ugly word to me. By August she was in the hospital with kidney failure. I spent the night of my 3rd anniversary sitting in the waiting room of the ICU praying for recovery. And she did, for a little bit. She was in full kidney failure. But dialysis would help. Fine. If that’s what it took to keep her alive, I would load her up and take her to as many sessions as needed. By the first of November, we were told she would not make it. I prayed. I cried out to the God I had been raised to believe could heal. I sat in a chair at the altar of our church and was anointed with oil. All in faith, believing that God would heal her. But on November 13, 1999, at a little after 5 in the morning, she died. The waters didn’t part. And my faith was shattered.

I wish I could say that I spent the last 22 and half years knowing that God has a plan and there is a reason for what happened to her. But I haven’t. I was mad. I was intensely jealous of my cousins, my friends who still had their moms. Christmases, Thanksgivings, Birthdays and Easters were never the same. It was always glaringly obvious that she wasn’t there. The waters had not parted, and I felt like I was drowning.

I wanted nothing to do with God. For several years I was in and out of church. My prayer life was pretty much non existent. Oh, I could tell you about Jesus. I could pretend with the best of them. That’s how it is when you have grown up in church and baptized at 7 years old. But that reason is also why I was never happy that way. At 7, I truly accepted Jesus. Not saying there wasn’t some sketchy times in between, but I knew Him then. I believed every word written in His Word. So of course, God got pretty tired of waiting for me to come home. So He placed me in front of another Red Sea. I was diagnosed with the same rare disease she had. For the first time in a long time, I prayed, really prayed. I prayed the tests were wrong. I just prayed. Once again, praying for the waters to part and show me some dry land. So did they? No.

But……something else happened. A promise. A verse that I am sure I have read many times, but never truly READ. Isaiah 43:2 “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fires, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you.”

Not IF you pass through, but WHEN you pass through. I realized He never promised we would go through this life without heartache. Without trials. Without loss and hard times. But He promises to be with us WHEN we do. Wow. What a promise. That the God of Heaven is right beside me, walking with me through the waters. I look back now and see that He walked me through those waters as well. Those time when I didn’t think I could go on another day with a 2-year-old and a newborn and no mom, He carried me through. He held my hand kept me afloat when I was scared I was going to drown.

Do I still question it? Yea, sometimes. Do I still want to get a little angry? Yea, sometimes, when I look at my son and my daughter and think of all she missed. But now I have the promise in my heart that He will be with me during those “sometimes”. And the best part? I have the oh so exciting promise that when I take my last breath, I will lay eyes on her again. ❤

**This blog was hard to write. It’s been on my mind, but I’ve ignored it. But the promise is SO SO great. And to tell of my story of this promise, I had to tell you about mom. If you held on til the end. Thank you. I know it was a long one 🙂