Author: Jane Foard Thompson

Jane Foard Thompson is an inspirational speaker and award winning author and poet. A former Montessori teacher in Texas and Utah, for eight years Jane and her husband were missionaries in Honduras, Central America. After working for the American Red Cross in Idaho, they now live in Florida, where she writes, leads music and women's Bible studies at their church, and enjoys nine grandchildren and her Golden Retriever, Lily.

She Gave Up the Ghost

MomMom and Janie w bday strawberry shortcake
MomMom and Janie w bday strawberry shortcake
After almost a week in hospice, with loved ones by her side, my mother gave up the ghost. Long after I said goodbye, “give up the ghost” lingered in my mind. For over a decade I had walked with Mom through the tunnels of advancing dementia, then stood watch in the dim light of her hospice room. Over and over, she seemed ready to go. Her breath would stop, then twenty seconds later, she’d suck in air and battle on with furrowed brow. Giving up the ghost took on a different meaning.

‘Giving up the ghost’ comes from the King James Version of Jesus’ death on the cross. It’s also used commonly, as an old car gives up the ghost.

For Mom, I think more of ghosts that haunt. Ghosts that lurk around corners and pounce at unexpected times. Ghosts of Christmas Past. Ghosts of if-only. Ghosts of what-I-should-have-done.

I believe the “ghost” that threatened her peace and made her reluctant to run to the Light was guilt over the death of a tiny soul.

When I was ten, my youngest brother drowned. As families will after a tragedy, we all privately blamed ourselves. But Mom was the mother, and she hadn’t cared for her three-year-old. Though she maintained she was fine, since Mac was safely in heaven with Jesus, that event shook her foundations, and brought her back to her Lord.

However, as executive function diminished in her brain toward the end of her life, nightmares and delusions often crowded out her joy. In the final days, clearly she could not let go. When my sister and I, separately, talked to Mom of going to heaven, that her mother and sisters were waiting for her, she beamed. But when we mentioned our little brother, she drew back, almost in fear, and the darkness covered her again. When we realized what was happening, we assured her that she was forgiven, by Jesus, and by Mac.

Still, I believe she was afraid to face that child.

After several more days of prayers, Psalm reading and songs, Mom found peace. The shadows gone, she is restored and whole and radiant. With her dear son, and the Son who makes true restoration possible.

Why, you ask, am I sharing this with you?

Because many of us have buried pain. Remorse still raw, or guilt not absolved. Perhaps “The Secret” that lingers in the shadows, waiting to accuse, again.

I’m encouraged by the lesson from my mother’s bedside to continue to let go. To journey forward on The Healing Path, and offer you, my friend, a hand.

When it’s my time, I want to run to Jesus with open arms, not edging back into the darkness.

Come join the journey to Peace.

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matt 11: 28-30
(If you do not see the video below, click on the title at the top to view pictures and videos in the webpage.)

Mac
Mac
Mommom holding great-grandchild
Mommom holding great-grandchild
Mom birthday 2008
Mom birthday 2008

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Mom
Mom

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Janie and Mommom
Janie and Mommom

Mommom love
Mommom love

Transcendent Love

I write this from my mother’s beside in hospice. After Mom was transported to the ER on Wednesday morning, a CAT scan revealed a hemorrhage inside her brain. She suffered hours of extreme pain, but regained movement and seemed to be improving. However, by Thursday morning, it was clear she wouldn’t recover. In the afternoon, she was carried to hospice, where our extended family has taken up vigil.

Janie and Mom at Hospice House
Janie and Mom at Hospice House

When we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, our own, or the shared journey of a loved one, the tyranny of the urgent goes to a corner.

Even breathing takes on a different rhythm.

Like the brilliance of the sun on the snow after a blizzard, true values rise up in our clear vision.

What I see astounds me.

If you’ve read my Glimpses for long, you have journeyed with me through some of the long healing process from the scars of my childhood.

Each person in our family has good reason to nurse their scars and protect the wound.

Instead, this week, love has transcended every decision, conversation, gathering. As voice messages pour in from Switzerland and NJ, emails and text messages from Maryland, Ohio and Texas, and anyone in driving distance joins the vigil, it is clear that our “Mommom” is a magnet for us all.

In spite of failings and her own hidden pain, she has loved us. Given us a sense of our true selves. Helped us to be real. (Read The Velveteen Rabbit.)

Mom has four living children, 10 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren who love her, but her greater legacy is the ability to transcend hardships, difficulties, differences, and yet love. To put aside preferences and pride. To seek the good of the other. To laugh in spite of grief, to hug and not retreat. To share the gift of tears.

So we sit by her side, at the moment simply listening to her breaths and watching her chest rise and fall, and savor her presence, her life.

Earlier today, as I wrote out my reflections on her life, I realized that transcendent love sprang from my little brother’s death, sixty years ago, which shook Mom’s world and cleared her vision. She ran to the Savior she’d been ignoring for many years. She’s been running that race ever since.

LOVE in her has become love through her. Reckless, transcendent love.

Measuring stick or burning bush?

Chocolate Village by Youngest Daughter
Chocolate Village by Youngest Daughter
My senior year in college, my French teacher gave individual oral exams. I’d worked hard all four years, learned every vocabulary word, memorized French kings and battles, read the famous French authors and poets, and scored 99% on my written exam. But when she asked her last question, she frowned. In English, she said, “Though you know the language and speak it fairly well, you would never make it in Paris. So I cannot give you an ‘A’. You swallow your vowels.” When I asked her a question, she sat up in surprise and said, “Oh, you swallow your vowels in English as well.”

That was it? My chance to graduate with high honors gone because I swallowed my vowels? I have to admit, I hated her as I walked down the hall, feeling the same pain I felt the end of senior year in high school.

The first day of Chemistry class our teacher had announced no girls ever earned an ‘A’ in his class. So, I’d studied hours every day to prove him wrong. When I showed my straight ‘A’ report card to my father, he scowled and pointed to my Chemistry grade. “What’s this ‘A’ minus?”

I know some of you struggled to get through any class, and may feel like reaching through the Internet to slap me, but I’m only sharing this to show how I shaped my life around trying to be perfect, to do well, to shine — to win approval.

In some form, that need for approval has driven my life, sometimes pushing me to do more than I thought I could, and more often, to shrink back, fearing failure and rejection. I have measured my value in the eyes of others.

That is a very precarious way to live, because it is impossible to please everyone, and some people make demands I shouldn’t meet.

And because, I am learning, measuring myself by other’s yardsticks, seeking their approval, is an idol.

It’s not a shiny statue or marble pillar idol. It may even look like a good thing, most of the time.

After all, those I’ve served through the years have benefited from my efforts. To a large degree, western society, and even our churches, run on the energies of those working to earn their way.

But, it’s what Dee Brestin calls a heart idol. I can’t see it, only the results in my life. It’s usually something one has struggled with for years, and wondered why it keeps jumping back up.

“You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. . .” Ephesians 2:2 The Message

The good news is, after hearing the Voice of Love so many times through the years, I’m beginning to receive the message.

When I look around me for approval, I’m missing the Presence. Missing the only true source of value for my life. Missing the only true source of joy.

In “How the Hidden Dangers of Comparison are Killing Us … {and Our Daughters} : The Measuring Stick Principle”
Ann Voskamp says, “The world isn’t a forest of measuring sticks. The world is a forest of burning bushes. Everything isn’t a marker to make you feel behind or ahead; everything is a flame to make you see GOD is here.”

“Open your mouth and taste, open your eyes and see – how good GOD is. Blessed are you who run to him. Worship God if you want the best: worship opens doors to all his goodness.” Psalm 34:8-9 The Message

I’ll take a burning bush over a yardstick, any day.

Do you have something you’ve tried to change or conquer that keeps coming back up?