The Wisdom in a Mother's Last Words

“I had one plan, God had another. We are going to go with God’s plan because He knows best.” These are some of the last words my mother ever said to me. July 2011 my mother was battling stage 4 breast cancer for the 4^th time in 14 years. She developed an intestinal infection because her immune system was so low from the chemo and was admitted to the hospital. Within 48 hours she went from doing pretty well to hospice care. We were told to say goodbye as she had only hours left. During one of our tear-filled moments together, she just hugged me and said “I know” and then said those words above.

I have dealt with sickness and disability for years by then. In fact, the week she went into the hospital I had my regular, full-length leg brace on my left leg, AND had a walking cast on my right foot and was using crutches! I didn’t know it at the time, but her words would be of great comfort to me since her death. I have been going through even more than I could have imagined at the time. “I had one plan, God had another. We are going to go with God’s plan because He knows best.”

I always wanted to run a marathon; wanted to travel and hike in faraway places. I never did. “I had one plan, God had another. We are going to go with God’s plan because He knows best.”

I never wanted to be in pain every day; never wanted to spend my days in doctor’s offices and testing labs; never wanted to have to take so much medication to get through the days, but I am. “I had one plan, God had another. We are going to go with God’s plan because He knows best.”

I find it peculiar that in the 40 years I had together with my mother, the words she uttered just hours before slipping into a coma, would be some of the most impactful. Of all the lessons she tried to teach me and in the ones in which she succeeded in teaching me, her last lesson rang most true. “I had one plan, God had another. We are going to go with God’s plan because He knows best.”

As I prepare to spend the 2^nd Mother’s Day without her, I am comforted in God’s amazing sovereign goodness yet again. My heart aches for a little more time with her. I thought that we had so much more time together, thought that we had so many more talks to have, so many more places to go together, but we didn’t. “I had one plan, God had another. We are going to go with God’s plan because He knows best.”

God used my mother to help remind me to daily cast aside my plans, my dreams, and my hopes. Daily I am reminded to embrace all God has planned for me, to pray that His desires would be my desires. I am seeking to be comforted and contented in His plan, while I continue to let go of my own. Thanks be to God, whom allowed my mother’s last words to produce fruit and be a symbol of His goodness, mercy and grace.

“I had one plan, God had another. We are going to go with God’s plan because He knows best.”