My Jesus, I Love Thee

Last night in church we sang a song entitled, “Trust and Obey”. The pianist told the congregation that she chose that song because it was her grandmother’s favorite song. Her grandmother lost her husband one year after their family immigrated to Canada. She was left with six small children whom she reared alone. Grandmother or Oma, as Thiersa calls her, testifies that because she trusted and obeyed God for all things needed in her role as mother and breadwinner, God was faithful. Perhaps it is the other way around. Perhaps because God is faithful, Oma trusted and obeyed. One could make a case for both.

The next song we sang was, “My Jesus, I Love Thee”. If I had had a microphone, I would have had a story to share about that song. My mother was very sick with cancer. It started as breast cancer and spread to her abdomen. From beginning to end, it was a seven-year fight. One of the treatments used was male hormone treatment. Once Mom began those shots, she lost her singing voice. She simply could not sing and she missed that. The last year of Mom’s life, she was hospitalized for three months. It became apparent that we were losing the fight. I spent most of each day caring for her during her last months of life. My family was young. Our oldest daughter was eleven at that point and much of my work at home fell to her. She was good at it, but now I grieve for her when I think of all I burdened her with. I remember coming home around dinnertime and seeing that she had begun something for our family meal. Her grandma was precious to her and she did much thinking about Grandma’s illness while she cooked and cleaned. She recalls one day that she stood in the dining room and raised her voice at God and questioned why he would be taking her grandma from her. It was a terribly painful process for all of us.

One day when I walked in the backdoor of my parent’s home, I found Mom sitting in her usual spot in her green chair. It was the same green chair from which she had enticed a frightened Korean son we had just received through adoption into trying his first American food. This time she wasn’t doing much eating herself. She said to me with a smile, “Listen, I can sing!” With that, she began to sing, “My Jesus, I Love Thee”. While I should have been thrilled along with her that she was able to sing again, I couldn’t bare to hear the words. I wasn’t much into listening to the following:

My Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine;
For thee all the follies of sin I resign.
My gracious redeemer, my Savior art thou;
If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.
I love thee because thou has first loved me,
And purchased my pardon on Calvary’s tree.
I love thee for wearing the thorns on thy brow;
If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.
In mansions of glory and endless delight,
I'll ever adore thee in heaven so bright;
I'll sing with the glittering crown on my brow;
If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, 'tis now

The words we sang tonight touched me again. I wasn’t terribly emotional over them as sometimes happens but the depth of the words considering her condition moved me. Jesus did feel her deepest woe and bore her sorrows, too. I wish I could say that at the time, I experienced the same grace as she did. I was still fighting. Fighting hard to keep my mom around for our family’s sake. My youngest brother wasn’t a child any longer but he had just married and it wasn’t time for him to be motherless yet, at least in my estimation. He would have children who would never know their grandmother. As it turned out, she had six more grandchildren after she died.. I’m not exactly sure how long after this moment Mom went to be with the Lord, but I do recall getting very tired of the fight of trying to keep her alive. It seemed no matter what we tried, it didn’t help her any longer. I recall attending night church one evening where I saw both of her doctors. I walked to them and said, “You guys have to do something; we can’t go on like this any longer”. The next morning when I arrived to care for her, my dad said she was hemorrhaging and that his call to the doctor meant that we had to have her transported to the hospital one more time. Mom didn’t want to go into an ambulance again. She complained about the rough ride and how uncomfortable an ambulance ride was for her. She finally agreed that if we would put a twin size mattress in the back of their van, she would allow us to take her. The doctor came to the house and rode with us. (Remember, this is a rural community and the doctor was a member of their church) Mom died in route. Jesus loved her enough to rescue her from the debilitating disease that she fought for so long.

The song always brings back the hurt just a little bit. The words are more meaningful and comforting with the passing of time. Yes, I can sing it with conviction now, too.