On September 19, 1998, I received a call from my twin sister in Houston, Texas. Her voice shivered as she told me that my mother had had a heart attack. The week before this incident, my mother, a dialysis patient, was admitted into the hospital for an AV shunt repair. 

That same day my supervisor granted me an extended leave of absence.  The drive from Los Banos, California to Houston, Texas took two days. Along the way I called the Intensive Care Unit to make sure my mother was still alive. The last thing I told my twin sister before leaving California was to keep my mother on life support until I got to her bedside. 

It was very important that I see my mother alive, to hold her and to kiss her one last time.  I moved from Houston 15 years ago and I needed a special time with her now.  My pastors had always told me that if you pray for something and believe it then God will answer your prayers. I prayed that God would add 15 more years to her life as he had done in the past for King Hezekiah  (2 Kings 20: 1-6). 

I always considered myself the strongest spiritual child of my mother. My sisters and brothers frequently called to ask biblical questions or enlist my help in preparing a talk for a religious program. I felt that nothing could put a dent in my relationship with Jesus. I knew that I was strong in my faith.  When I arrived I told my sisters and brothers to have faith and believe that our mother would make it through this illness. Each night we would pray in the hospital chapel as a family and cry out to the LORD for my mother's health. 

Four weeks later, my mother died. I felt like a failure. It seemed as if God was punishing me and I couldn't understand why. My mind started going over all the events of the past four weeks. I began to question myself. Did I do something to make God punish me? What's wrong with this picture?

Satan began to play games with my mind. He would tell me things like, God doesn't love you and God didn't even answer your prayer. I got a dent in my faith. I began to question God as Job did in earlier biblical days. I wanted to know why all of this injustice had happened to me and my family. What in the world was God thinking when he let my mother die? Didn't he hear me praying? Am I really his child? Am I on one accord with God or am I just fooling myself? 

One question kept coming back to me. How can you be happy when your mother has just died? How can you be happy when you prayed to God and he didn't answer your prayer the way you wanted him to answer it?

With my mind made up to find a way back to God I started reading my Bible for answers. I learned that God's ways are different from mine.  In 2 Cor 5:8 (NIV) it states, "We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord". 

As I mediated on this scripture, I realized that my mother was absent from this world and present with the LORD. What Christian in their right mind wouldn't want their loved ones to be present with the LORD? God can take care of my mother better than I ever can. He can keep her from suffering day after day due to her heart condition and renal failure. 

I fell on my knees and asked God to forgive me for doubting his love. God did what was best for my mother.  Before she went to be with the Lord, all of my sister and brothers were standing around her bedside.  She opened her eyes wide and looked straight up. I glanced at the cardiac monitor, which showed her heart rate at 34 beats per minute. My twin sister and I were standing at the head of her bed. We told my mother if she saw Jesus to go to him. We will be fine. God will take care of us as he has taken care of you. She closed her eyes and the cardiac monitor read zero beats per minute. A flat line appeared on the monitor. My mother went to Christ on October 12, 1997 at 12:30 A.M. 

God does thing according to his will and not ours. He blesses those he wants to bless and curse those whom he wants to curse. We don't control God's actions. My mother's death taught me that all prayers are not going to be answered the way we want them to be answered. 

When trials and disappointments come into your life, continue to trust in God. I thought I could stand on my biblical understandings to will my mother to good health. God taught me that in this world we should be praying "Not my will but thine".

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