Faith Without Doubt, Patience, and Trust

By jerushah8833

Is an ordinary life, really, an extraordinary life?
How does a life unseen touch those who see you?

In Faith without Doubt, Patience, and Trust, the extraordinary touch and times of an ordinary woman come into focus in her last eighty-five hours of life, as she begins her journey across the River of Life into the open hands of Jesus. She attempts to let us see what she is seeing, and as her final reckoning is made, a family motto is born: “Even when we cannot see the road ahead, we will have faith without doubt, patience, and trust.”

For one woman, her fate was to become nothing more than a druggy, a prostitute, and a prisoner; when she shattered, she sat down by the water of death and wept. Where was there any hope in life for her? But that’s when she heard it! His still small voice, “You are worth more than many sparrows.” She looked about to discover a man who gave his dying breath to grant her a more abundant life—and she was sold!

• Language: English
• Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
• Release date: Aug 5, 2019
• ISBN: 9781489723185

jerushah8833

Regarding jerushah8833, jerushah simply means “owned,” and the author of Faith without Doubt, Patience, and Trust has a big head wrapped around a small mind; she thought her life was complete, only to turn around and discover she was completely undone. But with and in Jesus Christ, she turned her back on her fate to embrace a greater destiny. And the 8833? That is for the few who really seek to discover!

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Copyright © 2019 jerushah8833.

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This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

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ISBN: 978-1-4897-2319-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-2320-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-2318-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019906699

LifeRich Publishing rev. date: 08/01/2019

CONTENTS

Dana

Maggi

Ted

Davey

Me

Old Home Place

Foster Stories

A Thanksgiving Prayer

Funny Little Thing That Happened Story…

To My Lost Or Any Contemplating Suicide…

This book is written as simple insight into the extraordinary life and death of an ordinary person.

FAITH WITHOUT DOUBT, PATIENCE, AND TRUST

Names have been changed to protect privacy

I added some text between us for this writing

IHS

jerushah 8833

To The Reader…

We, as a family, were shocked to discover that one of the first people to come to Mother, as she entered her last hours, was a young long forgotten victim of suicide from our childhood; having two separate nurses tell us, You should write a book, just seemed to put some sort urgency that we should let people know.

So I am going to try…

Within my family alone, we have had four known suicides, one grandson and one father (a post war veteran) of my sister, Dana’s grandchildren on one side and my own grandchildren’s father (a post war veteran) and their aunt’s partner (their uncle) on my side.

When my grandson, Sean, came to me, at the tender age of eight years old, with the weight of this burden of pain within the depths of his eyes and the rigid set of his posture, to pose this question,

Is this what is supposed to happen to me?

That one so young should even have to consider such thoughts is incomprehensible.

Time has come to step up and speak out- NO! This is Not what God has planned for any of us!

If out of the entirety of this book You come away with, but one express understanding that…

The Lord’s Day is Coming!

Then my writing will have fulfilled its purpose.

For what is supposed to happen upon any given Sabbath Day?

We are to be taught the Word of God- to Learn.

Society, as a whole, is starving spiritually at the moment, we are losing Hope & Confidence in God- in Jesus Christ- and many are beginning to take their own lives due to this starvation of their Spirit Being.

Questions such as-

Why was I created? (To Love God & Be Loved)- or-

Why am I here? (To Choose God & Life or to choose satan & death)

We find answers to when we discover that Faith Without Doubt on our journey and learn that Patience and Trust in Jesus Christ as we overcome the obstacles in this life.

Great Beloved Father in Heaven, may my heart be ever with You, I remain now and forever Your humble servant with much love.

Don’t look at me for I will fail you- Look to Him- Who promises He never has and He never will.

IHS

jerushah8833

It was, I say, that we were in the middle of building a new goat house…

We had been asked by the cancer-riddled owner of a billy goat to babysit his kid some ten or more years ago, while the man went thru chemo treatments.

We are still babysitting.

Mikey, being a lonely kid of the Genus Capra species, has taken to thinking himself somewhere between the human variant or the canine. I can give honest account of writing some of my stories sitting in a yard swing with this billy goat right beside me as we both swayed to and fro; a child to either side laughing at his antics as he generally just hopped in between us and took a seat. We had to put a cease to his free range roaming and tie him up when it became apparent that he was not going to leave the neighborhood mums alone. Given this little tidbit, whether to break his boredom or for the fun of it we will never know, in any event however, due to the incessant bang of his horns upon his little house the frame finally gave up and collapsed. Since, our son, the true dog house carpenter, was away, the task of delegating the chore fell upon the questionable intelligence of FSI- father, sister, and I- with varied guess work about our progress.

So, it was in the midst of finishing this task up that I received that fateful call declaring our Mother’s clock of time was nearing its end.

At seventy-eight years of age, it was announced that time was of the essence now, as Mom awaited for the rhythm of her heart to wind down to the point of standing still; we, her family, were now in a race against it. A race against time, itself, to be there to hold her hand, if only for a moment, to whisper our solitary ‘I love you’ before the swaying pendulum came to a complete stop in its final commitment to her eternal rest.

My brother, Davey, had called in the lobbing of hammer swings to ask me if I had plans on going to see Mom that day before breaking the news to me that a Doctor had come in and given the report. We were lucky that his daughter, Jessica, had been there visiting when the conclusion was given; they had done everything for our Mother that they could possibly do.

How can that be?!

I erupted to demand in stunned disbelief, I was just there yesterday! I went on to relate how it was that Mom had eaten a tablespoon of peanut-butter along with a lick or two of jelly, by this point she was determined that every known food was saturated with too much sugar and not fit to consume, yet she had even taken a drink of water for me. I knew she was in a frail weakened state of health. True. However, I saw the gesture as proof that she was well on her way to recovery. I stayed only an hour or two so that she would attempt to actually rest. As that is what she had perpetually told me she wanted most to do…

If I could just get some sleep. If I could just get some rest…

Were her exact words on the subject, time and time again, so being, I would visit to assure myself that she was recovering, but try not to linger around too long.

After informing me that he would like to come also, but by this time, Davey had requested so many days off, due to Mother’s repeated health issues he could no longer afford to ask to take time.

After hanging up, I hurriedly called Jessica and got the confirmation directly from her that ‘yes’ this was the final diagnosis.

The clock starts ticking faster and time is running out….

It would be an injustice for this writer not to explain to the reader the how and why it was our family motto ‘Faith Without Doubt, Patience, and Trust’ came into being…

It was once upon a time, after a move to a certain state due to a work transfer of her husband that our sister, Maggi, had a house she needed to sell in a different state. She wrote to our Mother pertaining to the position of her struggle and her fears and how it was in the midst of this she would open her Bible and it would fall to the place where Jesus is healing the woman who had touched the hem of His garment. He said to her, Woman, your Faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your affliction. Mark 5:34 and then again when she was praying about the house and Please God make it sell, once more when she opened her Bible, it fell to Luke 8:48

Daughter, be of good cheer; your Faith has made you well. Go in peace.

There were others too, but it escapes me just which one or where she picked up the others. In any event, it was in this letter, which somewhere still must survive amongst our Mother’s possessions that Maggi first put those words to use.

If any man asks WITHOUT DOUBTING in his heart it shall be so. (Mark 11:22-24 & Romans 5:1-5)

Faith without doubt, patience, and trust.

The house sold.

The words continued to abide.

Mother picked up the line and began to speak it before she, line upon line, page upon page, wrote and re-wrote the words again and again and again, day after day after day.

Faith- without doubting.

Patience- for God’s perfect timing.

Trust- He will bring it to pass.

I hurriedly showered and got myself up to her hospital as quickly as I could. Upon my entering her room, I immediately burst into tears to which my Mother thrust her finger pointing hand into my face, demanding,

NO TEARS! She smiled, I am going home.

Was she scared?

Yes.

You could see it in her eyes. Yet, the resolve that she was too tired and too weak had resigned her to the fact that it was time to stop fighting, lay down her struggles, finish her course, and rest.

I turned to Jessica, who then, once more amid my questions, re-related the Doctors words to me in person.

Tasked with the job, I began calling family. Davey said he would take some calls out to family as well, which gave me only a few to get into contact with directly, which was a great relief.

Stepping Stones

Jessica informed me the doctor had no sooner left the room than Mother stated to her,

What is that on the wall? That pink thing? Take it down and take it home with you.

Stepping stones are a curious anomaly, yet I never gave contemplation to the idea that we might actually collect them through-out our journey, picking them up perchance as we overcome obstacles along life’s pathway. You know those various indiscretions that attempt to hold us captive in the midst of a brook when we have strayed away from that straight and narrow path God set out for us?

Until we can gather the courage to take a leap of faith towards those hands being held out and open wide. For some of us, I suppose, like Mother, we wait until we see Jesus standing across that River of Life. His arms lifted, His hands open, assuring us that He will definitely be there to catch us and gather us to Him in a tight embrace of reassurance on the other side.

Indeed, Isaiah 54:11 gives insight to this when God states, O you afflicted, tossed with tempest and not comforted, behold I will lay your stones with fair colors and lay your foundations with sapphires. Given Mother was born in the month of September and sapphires were her birthstone makes a fine co-incidence.

That Mom spent the entirety of her death-bed hours in search of these fair stones is what makes it astounding; repeatedly requesting she was in need of finding a yellow, green, and purple one.

How my jaw had dropped; the day in which I had picked up the local weekly paper to discover on its cover page a picture of a rainbow on the day she finally slipped away from this earth.

Somewhere over the rainbow?

She had evidently found what it was she had been searching for!

Pass ME the Syrup

Mother had been born in the middle of eight children. She had been the baby long enough that when the next set of infants began to arrive and she was edged out of her space, she went into ‘poor- me- baby’ mode.

To hear tell of her, the youngest of the kids that she was left to tend to felt quite contrary to her belief that she was the family slave. There is told the tale of a certain high chair which was to be used by the baby of the moment as their place at the table.

Mom, at one point, raced into the dining room before any of the smaller babies arrived and took possession of said high chair. Upon entry to the room and finding her in ‘their’ seat the little ones began to cry. Their Dad ordered them to be quiet, Lola was there and that is where she was going to sit. She furthered their upset by barely reaching out, pretending she could not reach the syrup, to which their Dad instructed the babies that they were to reach over and put it in her hand.

Becca says it was at that moment she realized that she might be the baby of the family, but Lola reigned as Queen.

Mom said that in her mind, Carli was Queen. She would tell the story of when the Mummy exhibit had toured their town. Their parents had taken them all to see the exhibit, when they came home and proceeded to play Mummies in the mud, Carli informed her, I am the Queen and you are my slave!

She said it- I believed it! Mom said.

Mom would often drive by trees and streams of certain cuts and varieties and automatically begin to recount the days in her youth when her brothers and sisters and she would arrange logs and haul buckets from the barn in order to make themselves parks to play in.

Time and time and time again, she would so whimsically recall how they would set about every year to build a park for the whole world.

She would countlessly retell the story of when she had scarlet fever and she could listen in and hear her Mother talking to others about how sick she was.

This one little incident in Mother’s life had the longest lasting impact- right on up to the day she died! For she would never address Doctors on her own, she would always defer to the person who was with her. She loved, absolutely loved, having herself lie there whether in the hospital or convalescing at home and she would wave her hand in the air with the instruction,

You tell them what the Doctor said. Or Tell them what is wrong with me.

She would then recline with a small smile about her lips as she would listen in on our conversation about how bad she had it and how greatly she had overcome in order to survive!

Our Mother from her birth onward had most assuredly been a faint-hearted character. She recounted tales of perpetually being chased by cows; claiming that out of eight children, who walked the same route to school every day, she was the only one the bovine horde felt obligated to dislodge from the pasture.

She had carried a distinct fear of horses telling each one of only two times that they were able to persuade her to climb upon the massive animals were the only two times that she and whoever, one of those being her sister, Ella, were thrown off.

She would recall fondly of playing in the mud with some famous Brothers before they grew up to start singing on the radio. She liked that memory.

Or gag at the thought of peanut-butter, informing me on one occasion, You try making peanut butter sandwiches for ten people every day for twelve years and see how you feel!

Or while the rest of the girls could date whoever it was they desired her parents always put their foot down on anyone seeking to ask for her to go out on a date. She used to like to recall the thought I coulda married Elvis- not the famous one- just a regular feller by that name; who had even come to her parents seeking permission to date her only to have them flatly refuse.

I used to laugh at the idea! Somehow, having Elvis as my Dad just seems so hilarious to me! Though, when reflecting on him, if she had, they would probably have stayed together to the very end, because she always made him sound like such a nice guy.

DANA

03/05 4:17 p.m.

Dana: Thank you tell her I love her.

Me: Ok

Dana was our Mother’s first born.

The beginning of her strength.

It was said Dana was born in the middle of a summer heat wave; the hospital made Mom provide proof of a receipt to show that she had purchased a fan to cool Dana before she was even allowed to be taken home. Mother always considered since Dana had not been born a boy, being the first born, that some people might have always held that against her.

Dana had grown up feeling the same way.

From a young age, she had been burdened heavily with the profound rift between Mother and those of the world. For when others would go out for a wild night on the town; our Mother was left at home alone with her. She was the shoulder Mom would cry on.

A huge burden for any child, but being a child around two years of age caused Dana to have to grow up fast, not only fast, but furious. It was equal to being born with a chip on your shoulder which grew in weight and size right along with you.

The love between Mother and child, though turbulent, had remained strong and unwavering even up until the end. It had been during her third massive heart attack in the early summer of 2014, Dana had remained, staying behind to tend to Mother while she was in ICU in the hospital.

Our Mother never fully came back to us after that incident. It was like she resented each of us for having held her to earth when she was so ready to fly away and be free of life and its pains.

She had demanded of Dana why she had made her to stay?

Dana said at the time, though she could not see the Shadow of Death, she could feel the breeze of it when it would pass her by and she could hear its voice speaking to Mom in calling out her name. She would stand until she could stand no longer; repeatedly holding the inserted breathing tube or hold Mother’s hand still to keep her from removing it. Sitting down very little, only if the nurses came in asking her to leave or until she would hear the voice calling to Mom, at which point, she would arise and say,

"I am not ready for you to