It is incredible how a person can go from being excited about the future – looking forward and seeing all the possibilities to feeling and seeing the opposite.

What has changed? Mindsets.

It all has to do with what one rehearses in their mind. Let me share my experiences with my mom during her last seven days before stepping into heaven.

Exhaustion from emotional ups and down the past week wore me out. Bringing enough joy and faith into the room for mom was a heavy task.

It reminded me of when Bob dug a vast bolder from the ground with the backhoe. The wheels on this heavy-duty equipment are tremendous and aired up to maximum pressure. However, when he carried the bolder to place it at the end of the drive – the tires looked flat. The weight of the rock had put so much pressure on the wheels that they seemed to have no air.

The first few days my brother and I were in Montana, I noted all the medical things happening, and the things mom had spoken to me (us). I ensured I communicated everything to my sister-in-law so that she could explain our mom’s condition in laymen’s terms more clearly.

Thinking of these facts put a heaviness on me as I prepared to go to the hospital for another day being at mom’s side. My hope was flattened after three days, like the backhoe tires.

My spirit was becoming crushed with my heart and mind set on the facts, not the truth of God’s word.

Proverbs 12:25 EVS – Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad.

What things weigh us down? Hopelessness.

Hopelessness swirls in the air around us that it has become the very ingredient in most conversations and the outlook of many. 

Hopelessness is how I began to see my mom’s passing; the outcome for her did not come to be as I (we) would have liked.

But ultimately, my mother is no longer in pain; she is no longer alone and is in the presence of pure, unconditional love (God is love). My faith in this gives me hope to move forward. Thinking the opposite would only crush me to the point of being motionless.

I recently heard a message that said; Fear tolerated is faith contaminated. Fatih is what separates us from the fear running rapidly in this world.

If we can learn to stop and think about what we are thinking, we can cut off the stings of hopelessness that ties us down. 

Romans 5:1-2 NIV

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in hope for the glory of God.

So as we walk out this week, let’s keep our key, hope, in our pocket to unlock the doors that keep us from moving forward.