5 minute read
MAMA’S BLESSING
BY BEKKI BUCKLEY
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Numbers 6:24-26
If you knew my mom at all, you would remember her telling you at some point how very blessed she was.
Grocery store clerks, office workers, co-workers, clients, strangers, and anyone who cared to ask how she was would inevitably hear, “I am blessed.” Indeed, she was.
Sometime between the years of 2004-2006, Jack began to teach truths about the Scripture from Numbers 6:2426. My mother attended the early services of Mars Hill and learned that there was a family blessing that God told Aaron, the priest, to speak over the offspring of the newly liberated nation of Israel. This was not only a blessing that was spoken but held with it a promise to future generations. So my mother took this teaching literally and began to stand in the gap for her family. Both my sister and I began to get daily phone calls where our mother would speak this blessing over us. If by chance we were not home to receive the message from her personally, she would leave the blessing on the answering machine for us to hear it as soon as we came home.
Honestly, not having had the teaching, my sister and I just didn’t “get it.” What we did understand however, was the importance our mom placed on the blessing of the Lord to the children that He had blessed her with. On this Earth, I do not believe she desired anything more than this. Over time the phone calls diminished, but I am convinced her faith did not. She believed for the blessing of her Lord, upon herself and those she loved.
On February 1, 2022, my sweet mama finally won her victory day. Like many people over the last two years, she had fallen very sick and was hospitalized. I arrived at her bedside that morning, thankful to be allowed to be with her. The hospice nurse had been in as well as the doctor who explained to me their ideas of how things would progress throughout the day. I knew that she was close to death, but just how close I did not know.
Trish Anderson and daughters Teri and Bekki.
The chaplain of Mobile Infirmary came around. He asked me if he could pray with her and I agreed. To this day, I do not know his name or church affiliation.
Before he prayed for her, he asked a little about her life. Did your mother attend church? Where? For how long? With a perplexed look that quickly crossed his face, he told me he had never heard of Mars Hill Church. Then he asked whether or not she loved the Lord, and I was so thankful to be sure of this answer.
As much as the doctor, nurses and chaplain tried to set me at ease, it was a cold, sterile, and unknown environment. I was uncertain and afraid and, to say the least, uncomfortable. Even when the chaplain prayed, he called my mother by her given name, Patricia. He had obviously read this from her chart or hospital bracelet, because no one who really knew my mom called her Patricia. You see, if you knew her, you likely called her Mrs.Trish, or just Trish. Perhaps if you had known her in her younger years you may have called her Pat. Unless of course, you were one of the “blessed” ones that got to call her Nana, Mama, or Aunt Trish. “Patricia” felt so formal and impersonal and revealed that he indeed did not know her.
With the machines and the tubes and the nurses covered in gowns and masks–everything seemed so impersonal. But then, after he prayed, he raised his palm above her forehead and repeated this precious blessing over my sweet mama:
In that moment, there was a very holy presence. A familiar comfort. There was no way he would have known the significance of that prayer. I don’t know if he could feel it, but I definitely could. I think my mama could too. I could not hold back my tears. He did not understand why I cried, though maybe he thought he did. And in that moment I knew, just as that blessing was spoken at the end of every Mars Hill service, her life was coming to a close.
My precious mother lived for about three more hours. Things were done to ensure that people who loved my mama dearly could arrive or be phoned in from far away to her bedside in order to say things that needed to be said. Then there was a bit of a wait to have machines unhooked and tubes removed. Once that was complete, her breaths, numbered not only by the machines that would count exact respirations per minute, but before the foundation of the world by the Lord God Almighty, were very few. My mama walked beautifully out of this existence into one she longed to see, and she had been ushered in by the words of a very familiar blessing, from an unknown chaplain.
If you were fortunate enough to attend her celebration service, you have already heard this story. You also heard Jack end that service the same way he ended so many Mars Hill services for over 15 years–with this blessing. If you drove with us to the grave side you may have seen the little church sign on the road before the cemetery. The sign complete with this blessing.
And if you stood with us at her earthly bodily resting place you listened as Jack proclaimed the truth of the Lord over her life, in the past tense:
Indeed the Lord has blessed you Mrs.Trish, He did keep you. During your life He made His face to shine upon you, and now His countenance is actually, literally shinning upon you as you are forever in His peace.
To that I say to my Mars Hill family: And to you also!
Jared C. Wilson
