On The Topic Of God...
Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 4:06 pm
...being such a (self-anointed) intellectual as I thought I was, I imagined I had the whole God thing figured out. To the point of believing He could be ignored most of the time...
...then, I witnessed the passing of my dear Mother, in her home, surrounded by her loving family.
As she lay in her hospital bed that had been set up in Mom and Dad's dining room, she was in a semi-comatose state; eyes closed, slow, shallow, erratic breathing, with her mouth slowly opening and closing, almost as a fish would do on dry land. She did not respond to any stimulus, such as my voice or touch.
As I sat with Mom, dampening her lips with a sponge soaked with water, I noticed her breath had the most delightful fragrance of apples. Odd, since she had not eaten anything for a couple of days...
...suddenly, she lifted her head off the pillow, her eyes came wide open, staring directly into mine, really, looking through my eyes, not into them, which were only about a foot or so from hers, and she plainly said "aug", and immediately laid her head back down, her eyes went closed, and she was instantly back in her semi-comatose state. As our eyes locked onto each other, I saw the most intense, sapphire-like shade of blue, with tiny, pinhole pupils, and the whites of her eyes I can only compare with, and I know this sounds, well, odd, but the whites of her eyes reminded me of the white of a fried egg just before it is flipped...moistly glistening, without a flaw of any sort, no veins, redness, or anything but a pure, smooth,dewy, uniform whiteness...now, the only problem with this is, Mom's eyes were brown her entire life... she was 88 years old when this event took place. The occurrence only lasted for a moment, but it seemed as though we looked at each other for a long period of time. Her eyes appeared huge. I could see every detail in her eyes, as if I was looking at a painting. Mom quit breathing and passed away a couple of minutes later.
Needless to say, it took some time to absorb what had happened, and the enormity of the event was confirmed two nights after her passing...
...our older daughter, who had moved from the area and returned home for Mom's funeral, had gotten together with some high school friends this night, and forgot to turn off the porch light when she came in.
About 4:00 A.M., our cat woke me up and I carried him downstairs. As I passed the front door, I looked out the window to see a beautiful, sleek doe deer picking crabapples off a tree in our front yard, illuminated by the porch light.
Now, in the 20 years we have lived here, I have seen deer in our yard about 3 times...
..this deer, which hung around picking apples off the tree for about 20 minutes, actually stood on her hind legs to reach some of the crabapples. As crabapples are pretty bitter in the fall, I can only guess that the several freezes we had before this event must have made the fruit more palatable...this whole sequence of events started the Thursday before Thanksgiving, 2009, just a month or so ago...
Did that deer represent my Mother and her sweet, apple-scented breath I smelled two days before as she lay dying before my eyes? I am convinced that it did. Is this an act of faith? No, I believe it is much stronger than faith, if there is such a thing. I was never much of a believer in faith. I'm one of those prove-it-to-me kind of people. Well, I am now totally convinced.
As for the word "aug", which she spoke a couple minutes prior to her clinical death, the strangest part is, I heard the word as a specific spelling.
Not "og", but "aug". I have absorbed and evaluated this sequence of events over the past several weeks, as I imagine I will for the rest of my life, and I can only come to one conclusion: There is a God. No theories, no reliance on "faith", just plain, indisputable evidence.
I looked into His eyes, heard His voice, and bore witness to His works.
Sorry for the long post, but it had to be shared.
...then, I witnessed the passing of my dear Mother, in her home, surrounded by her loving family.
As she lay in her hospital bed that had been set up in Mom and Dad's dining room, she was in a semi-comatose state; eyes closed, slow, shallow, erratic breathing, with her mouth slowly opening and closing, almost as a fish would do on dry land. She did not respond to any stimulus, such as my voice or touch.
As I sat with Mom, dampening her lips with a sponge soaked with water, I noticed her breath had the most delightful fragrance of apples. Odd, since she had not eaten anything for a couple of days...
...suddenly, she lifted her head off the pillow, her eyes came wide open, staring directly into mine, really, looking through my eyes, not into them, which were only about a foot or so from hers, and she plainly said "aug", and immediately laid her head back down, her eyes went closed, and she was instantly back in her semi-comatose state. As our eyes locked onto each other, I saw the most intense, sapphire-like shade of blue, with tiny, pinhole pupils, and the whites of her eyes I can only compare with, and I know this sounds, well, odd, but the whites of her eyes reminded me of the white of a fried egg just before it is flipped...moistly glistening, without a flaw of any sort, no veins, redness, or anything but a pure, smooth,dewy, uniform whiteness...now, the only problem with this is, Mom's eyes were brown her entire life... she was 88 years old when this event took place. The occurrence only lasted for a moment, but it seemed as though we looked at each other for a long period of time. Her eyes appeared huge. I could see every detail in her eyes, as if I was looking at a painting. Mom quit breathing and passed away a couple of minutes later.
Needless to say, it took some time to absorb what had happened, and the enormity of the event was confirmed two nights after her passing...
...our older daughter, who had moved from the area and returned home for Mom's funeral, had gotten together with some high school friends this night, and forgot to turn off the porch light when she came in.
About 4:00 A.M., our cat woke me up and I carried him downstairs. As I passed the front door, I looked out the window to see a beautiful, sleek doe deer picking crabapples off a tree in our front yard, illuminated by the porch light.
Now, in the 20 years we have lived here, I have seen deer in our yard about 3 times...
..this deer, which hung around picking apples off the tree for about 20 minutes, actually stood on her hind legs to reach some of the crabapples. As crabapples are pretty bitter in the fall, I can only guess that the several freezes we had before this event must have made the fruit more palatable...this whole sequence of events started the Thursday before Thanksgiving, 2009, just a month or so ago...
Did that deer represent my Mother and her sweet, apple-scented breath I smelled two days before as she lay dying before my eyes? I am convinced that it did. Is this an act of faith? No, I believe it is much stronger than faith, if there is such a thing. I was never much of a believer in faith. I'm one of those prove-it-to-me kind of people. Well, I am now totally convinced.
As for the word "aug", which she spoke a couple minutes prior to her clinical death, the strangest part is, I heard the word as a specific spelling.
Not "og", but "aug". I have absorbed and evaluated this sequence of events over the past several weeks, as I imagine I will for the rest of my life, and I can only come to one conclusion: There is a God. No theories, no reliance on "faith", just plain, indisputable evidence.
I looked into His eyes, heard His voice, and bore witness to His works.
Sorry for the long post, but it had to be shared.