Mom's Death: God's Catalyst

It's amazing how differently I look at salvation now that I, by the grace and mercy of God, have been truly saved. The Lord makes sure that His children recognize the difference between a true relationship with very God of very God and something false. It would go against God's nature for His redeemed to stay in complete ignorance concerning His saving grace. There is no way that we mere humans, nothing more than dust and with our finite minds, could ever understand an infinite God. His children hold fast to Proverbs 3:5-7 which talks about trusting in the Lord and not leaning on our own understanding. We wouldn't want to try to understand all the aspects of an Omniscient God anyway. We realize that He is God and we are not! He tells us in Isaiah 55:8-9 that His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. As high as the heavens are above the earth, His ways and thoughts are higher than ours. So although we cannot begin to wrap our limited knowledge and finite minds around the things of God, He does give His children wisdom, discernment, and understanding about the difference of His true salvation verses a worldly false one. It wasn't until after I was saved that He opened my eyes to just how much Satan had kept me blind, for years, thinking that I was a Christian when I was nothing more than a wicked hypocrite. God used Mom's death as a catalyst to bring me to the foot of the cross. It wasn't until after I was saved, 3 years after her death, that I realized that my beloved mother was probably in hell. You know, when God saves you and opens your eyes to true salvation and takes Satan's blinders off, you look at every single person in a different light....God's light. After salvation I realized that there were people in my life that I cared about very much that didn't have a true relationship with Jesus. It hurt me and still hurts me but at that time, not to the extent of the pain of my mother. I have been praying for over 6 years now for God to absolutely break my heart for ALL of the lost souls in this world!! I have asked him to give me a heart for ANY member of my family or for those close to me who do not have a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want that same grief in pleading at the throneroom of grace and mercy for all of the lost like I had for my son Joshua before his salvation about a year ago, and the grief I had over my mother's eternal home, before it's too late for these people who have not come to the cross. But I have to confess this: I just don't grieve as much for some as I did for Joshua. I don't plead as often for their salvation as I did for his. And I sure don't shed as many tears for them as I did for him, and that is wicked and so very selfish! On the one hand it might be understandable because he is my child and the love you have for your children is like nothing else. But when you have GOD's love for the lost, then you will grieve for every single one of them, and pray fervently for their salvation with many tears. That kind of heart for the lost is exactly what I have been praying for, because it doesn't come naturally or easily. It is the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of His child. The wonderful news is that God is so faithful and will answer yes to any and all prayers that are in keeping with His nature and are in line with His will. He has been changing my heart so much. When I pray for lost souls, I truly plead with tears from a broken heart for their salvation. But it's just a fact that it is easier to love some more than others. We all have those whom we are closer to. But God loves everyone and 2 Peter 3:9 says that He wishes for none to perish but for all to come to repentance. God is broken hearted over the lost. Also, it used to be easier for me to admit the lost condition of some people than it was for others. It's so very painful to see someone you love being deceived by Satan into thinking that they have genuine salvation when in fact they don't. It's hard. It's very difficult to deal with the realization and so extremely painful. It's difficult to see and face up to the fact that someone you love is living a lie and if they don't see the truth and come to repentance, they will be one of the ones that Jesus spoke about in Matthew 7:13-23. He concludes in verse 23 by saying, "Depart from Me, I never knew you". If you look at it, these people won't be lightly saying, "Oh come on Jesus, let me in". No, they will be utterly SHOCKED!! Their response will be: "LORD, LORD"!! It will be like they are saying, "How can this possibly be?? Of course I belong to You!! Look at how pious I was my whole life. Look at all the wonderful things I did while on earth! Look at all the money I tithed and gave to charities! I believed and even SAID that I was a Christian!!" And Jesus will tell them, "I don't know you, depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness"! Heart wrenching. I can't even imagine how horrible that would be! But the truth is, that would have been ME had I not been saved! Oh God, you are so gracious and merciful to me! I am completely and utterly undeserving! Who am I Lord, that You would save such a wreched soul as me? Thank you, holy God. Please show me what You want me to know about false salvation, no matter how much it grieves me for now, or how much the world hates me for speaking out about it. Please God, show me, equip me with Your truths and use me, Lord, for Your kingdom and glory, no matter what the cost! And so He does. It was and is a tremendously hard journey, but a glorious one, which God took me on and is still walking me through. It started with coming to terms with my mother's salvation or lack thereof and praising Him no matter what and no matter where she is! Once I came to realize what true salvation looks like, and what it is like, the journey took many different roads. But those roads that I traveled and continue to travel are never without my Shepherd and King going before me, always with me. God brought me from hating Him for taking my mother to saving me and then to praising Him even if she is in hell. Wow, that's quite a journey, wouldn't you say? And it is only possible with God!! These truths were not something I even knew existed or would have ever imagined for myself before He revealed it to me.

My mom was the rock of our family. She was the illumination and the one who made everything so nice. She loved her family more than anything else in her life. Everyone enjoyed coming over to the Greenslade house and especially any contact they had with Shirley Greenslade(mom). And at the holidays, she made everything perfect. She cared so very much about every single person in our family, extended family and even friends. Everyone was important and felt so special in her presence! She was such a good person. Everyone loved my mother, including me. But despite all the things in our lives that we saw as so wonderful, we never bothered to acknowledge or praise God for them. We were just happy; a normal happy family living the "good life". I guess we thought that we were just "lucky". But Mom never spoke of any of the things of God, nor lived for or acknowledged the name of Jesus. I don't know that I ever, in my 39 years before her death, heard my mom say the name of Jesus concerning anything, much less in praising Him. "God" and "Christian" was just something that we attached to our Greenslade name. What Charles Spurgeon said a long time ago hit home with me. He said that a good name is of little value if you are indeed dead in trespasses and sin! Wow that's it and sums it up perfectly.

After Mom died, I cursed God and literally called Him every name in the book! I told Him just how much I despised Him for taking the only person in this whole world who truly loved me. My feelings are not a statement of fact, they're just how I felt. (of course it goes without saying that my child would not be included) It's true that I always felt as if nobody loved me on this earth except for her. And although she was very hard on me and stayed so extremely disappointed in me, I still knew that she loved me. And then God took her. After a long phase of despising and spitting in the face of the One who took her life, I moved on to a period of doubt of God's very existence. A close family member explained it to me this way: People are told at a young age that there is a God, just like they are told that there is a Santa Claus. Kids are brainwashed into believing the fairy tale. If they didn't have young impressionable minds, they would never believe something so stupid! And once they get older, they realize that there is no God just like there is no Santa Claus. That's it, God isn't even real. I stayed there in my thinking but only for a while. You see, God had chosen me before the foundations of the world.(election) Read Ephesians 1:4-6. God was not going to leave me in unbelief and the Holy Spirit started working in my life. God willing, another day I'll write about my salvation experience in depth but today I'll just say that after the denial of His existence, shortly thereafter I repented of my sins and was saved by God. God says in Exodus 33:19 and Paul later quotes it in Romans 9:15 "I will have mercy on whom I'll have mercy and compassion on whom I'll have compassion!". God had mercy and compassion on me in choosing this unworthy sinner for salvation! Hallelujah, praise You God!
Immediatly upon conversion He started showing and teaching me His truths. I was a clean chalkboard and I was a sponge. The Holy Spirit gave me the desire to know Jesus and learn the things of God. I was starting from scratch and wanted to be filled up with Him. He showed me things about my life before salvation and about the fact that I was NOT saved before April 6, 2003, no matter what I claimed for all those years. It wasn't long before He brought me around to dealing with the fact that my precious mother, unless there is something that I don't know at the very end of her life, was not saved either. She was a wonderful woman, but all of her "wonderfulness" is filthy in the eyes of a holy God. The only way for her to be seen as righteous in the eyes of the Father is for Him to see her through the righteousness of Jesus Christ. We have to be dressed in the righteous robes of Jesus to stand before a holy God. We cannot stand before a holy God in our own goodness or righteousness. We have none. God cannot even look upon sin, for He is holy and pure. He says that the wicked will NOT inherit eternal life.(1 Corinthians 6:9-11) I went through a period of terrible grief over the lost condition and the realization that my mother, unless salvation came to her on one of her last days, was in hell for all time and eternity. But God wants His children to understand His holiness, His perfect holiness. God is all good, and He is all love. He is a righteous holy God. There will not be one soul in heaven who did not come to the cross of Jesus, no matter how "good" of a person they were while here on this earth. Jesus says in John 14:6 " I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." The people who think that all it takes to get into heaven is to be a good person here on earth are dead wrong! Those who teach that there are many ways to heaven are heretics spreading lies straight from the pit of hell!! I can't stress that enough. There is only ONE WAY to heaven, and that is through Jesus Christ!! No exceptions! Are you listening, Oprah?
God wanted me to see and understand His holiness and His perfect right to do as He pleases. He is God and who are we to question Him? We all deserve hell. But He so graciously chose to have mercy and compassion on some and save them. However that does not take away the responsibility or guilt of the sinner in hell. Our finite minds cannot reckon the two: election, compared to verses like 2 Peter 3:9 or the "whosoever will" passage. If my mother is in heaven, she is there by the grace and mercy of God, having been chosen before the foundations of the world. If she is in hell, she is responsible and will be judged at the Great White Throne Judgement for her rejection of Jesus. I didn't know anything about any of these truths. I never even heard of election or never even knew that you could claim the name of Christ and still go to hell. If you were a good person and said you were a Christian, then that was all it took. Or if you did go to heaven, it's because you decided to choose Christ, not God choosing you. That's what I really thought for the first 42 years of my life. But God wanted me to understand Him and the truth, His truth, and to come to the place where I could and would praise Him, even if Mom is spending eternity in hell. If God winked His eye at sin just once, and let just one person, my mom, who had not repented of her sins and trusted in the Lord to save her, into heaven, then He would no longer be God!! Did you get that, beloved? If God allowed my mother or any other unsaved person to slide by and just come on to heaven, then He would NOT be God. Period! Even one exception would nullify Who He is! There would not be a God or a heaven and I might as well close my bible and live any way I want to here on this earth because it is all a lie!! So I had to decide. Did I want God to make an exception to His very nature and allow Mom into heaven even if she was not saved, or did I want to let God be God and remain true to who He is? Did I want everything about God to be a lie and not even be real? Did I wish for God to not be quite as holy as He truly is? God is God. He is holy, holy, holy! All of His attributes combine together to make Him WHO HE IS!! You can't take one single part of Him away and Him still be God! Beloved, does that make sense? We can't pick and chose what we want to believe about Him and what we want to accept and bow the knee to. We have to bow the knee to all of His truths and all of His attributes, whether we understand them or not. That is critical, oh it is so critical. God wants His children to humble themselves to any and every single thing that He decides and every part of Himself that makes Him God. You can't say, "Well, I'll take a little of this part of Christianity but I really don't want that other part because it's just too hard". Think of what I would be missing in my wonderful relationship with the King of kings and Lord of lords if I had been unwilling to submit to and praise Him for who He is and what He chooses. The bible makes it clear that in eternity believers will have no tears over anything. No sadness for ever and ever. That includes no tears or grief over those we love who will spend eternity being tortured day and night in hell for their unbelief, and being punished for every sin they ever committed. It's hard to imagine and many people have come up with theories on how this could be possible because it seems so unthinkable to not be in a constant state of grief over our loved ones in hell. Beloved, it's possible to praise Him for your loved ones who are in hell before you ever get to heaven. ALL things are possible with God!! When you realize the utter holiness of God you can, here and now on this earth, praise Him for everything. When you humble yourself in prayer and see with the spiritual eyes of your heart, the face of Jesus and realize how He suffered and died for your sins, you will praise Him with all of your being, no matter what His holiness and judgements mean for your life, or for others. It is possible to honor the name of God our Savior Jesus Christ right here on this earth. Do you really think, as His child, His redeemed, that you will actually bow before Him in heaven and not be overwhelmed with His mercy on your soul? Read Isaiah 53:4-6. Could you possibly think that you will look on the One who was pierced for your transgressions and crushed for your sins and say, "Hey thanks Jesus, but did you REALLY have to send my loved one to hell?"? NO!! Beloved, no. When you get to heaven and behold the face of the One who loved you so much, see the nail prints in His hands and the wound in His side and the love for you in His eyes, you will fall before Him in praise, adoration, unspeakable gratitude, and worship Him forever and ever! We will thank God for being who He is and all of His attributes and every single one of His perfect righteous decisions. We will praise His holy name with unending grateful worship! That's what we will do the minute we get to heaven. We will understand all of it and we will praise Him for everything. Why not see it now? Why not praise His worthy, holy Name now? As perfect, like our Savior, we will have that capacity in heaven. But He will give you that understanding and capacity right now if you will only seek His face and ask Him. He wants you to have it. He wants that humble deserving praise from you even now, precious one. How very wonderful, and a sweet smelling aroma that praise is when we can offer it to Him here and now before we have perfect sight and understanding of everything in heaven. God, oh God, if my mother is in hell, and suffering this very minute for her rejection of my Savior, then I still praise Your holy Name for who You are and what You choose and all that You do! I love you, my LORD!

Someone might read this blog and tell me that I am dishonoring the good name of my wonderful mother. It might be said that I should let her "rest in peace" and just be remembered for the great woman that she was. I know she would vehemently disagree with that and I'll show you how I can say it with such confidence. And whether she is in hell or in heaven, I'll tell you why she would want people to know about her life that didn't honor Jesus. If my mother was saved at the very end of her life and is in heaven, she will someday stand before Jesus at the Judgement Seat of Christ. That is where every Christian will be rewarded for the things they did on this earth. Read Revelation 21:4. Jesus will wipe away every tear of every single child of His before eternity begins and there will be no more death, crying, mourning or pain. Many believe, as I do, that some of those tears are ones that will be shed when we see all the missed opportunities we had on this earth to serve our Master and King like we should have, and like He deserves. And we will see our pitiful excuses for not giving ourselves completely to Him on this earth and all the ways that He would have used us for His glory if only we would have been willing to be broken bread and poured out wine for His kingdom. I know I will shed many tears for all the ways that I fail Him here and now with what He is calling me to. Paul tells us that some will enter heaven "having barely escaped the flames". That would describe my mother if she was saved right before her death. Read 1 Corinthians 3:11-15. My mother, if she was saved at the end of her life, will enter an eternity with Christ but will cry tears for the way she lived her entire life down here, never giving Jesus a thought. If she is in heaven then she has seen the face her Savior Jesus Christ and would want to tell everyone here on this earth to live for NOTHING but His kingdom and glory. She would say that pride is a wicked sin and nothing else matters but humbling yourself and bowing to the will of the One who redeemed you, paid the price for your sins, and deserves your life, your all.
Stop right here and read Luke 16:19-31. Jesus told the story of the rich man and Lazarus. We see the rich man in hell. He is in agony and begs for Abraham to send Lazarus back to earth to warn his 5 brothers so that they too won't have to come to "this place of torment". If my precious mother is in hell, I know with all my heart that she would be pleading and hoping that someone here on earth would warn those whom she loves so that maybe they won't have to come to the horrible place of torment that she is in for all eternity. "Pride?...honor?" she would say. "Forget pride and family honor!!!! Forget being too afraid of stepping on prideful toes!! GET TO STEPPIN!! Please, please, somebody tell them unless they too have to be here in these flames and torture!!" If she is in hell, her tears are never-ending for her guilt of a life of turning her back on Jesus and the horror and agony she constantly feels at the thought of anyone she loves going through the same thing for all time and eternity, separated from a holy God, punished and tortured forever. And as much as that thought of her in torment rips my guts out and makes my heart feel as if it is being shredded to pieces, the thought of NOT praising my God for His being rightous and just in her being in hell hurts me even worse. He deserves my praise, even through my pain. The bible says that there are degrees of reward in heaven and degrees of punishment in hell. The bible makes it clear that the punishment will be more severe for the ones who had the most light and opportunity to gives their lives to Christ. In other words, the heathen who never heard the name of Christ will be beaten with fewer blows than the person who knew their bible backwards and forwards, who sat in a church pew every Sunday, heard sermon after sermon and pleading after pleading to come to the cross and did nothing about it. And those who claim the name of Christ but who live like the devil will suffer more and be tortured more for eternity than the average pagan. My mother is grieved at the very thought of any of her loved ones being sent to hell and would want these things said! I know it from the depths of my heart that she is pleading with all of her being, even now, for these things to be said to ANYONE who will listen! Beloved, are you listening?