“This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Those words made my friend angry. They were supposed to be comforting, but in that moment, they enraged her. “Rejoice? Seriously?!” she thought. That didn’t make sense. She couldn’t even think of rejoicing right then, especially with all the uncertainty. Rejoicing was for later, when her mother was in the recovery room and out of danger.

The surgery was risky. Everyone knew it. The doctors told the family to say goodbye beforehand.

As my friend sat in the pre-op room, waiting for the nurses to take her mother into surgery, she couldn’t stop crying. How could she say goodbye, not knowing whether this would be the last time she’d see her mother alive? She wanted to be brave, to trust God, to not worry, but somehow, she couldn’t. She couldn’t even force a smile.

As she sat at her mother’s bedside, already grieving, mentally preparing for the worst but hoping for the best, her mother declared: “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

Those words made my friend angry. They were supposed to be comforting, but in that moment, they enraged her. “Rejoice? Seriously?!” she thought. That didn’t make sense. She couldn’t even think of rejoicing right then, especially with all the uncertainty. Rejoicing was for later, when her mother was in the recovery room and out of danger.

“Don’t say that,” she hissed. Seeing her mother’s pleading smile, she softened and said, “I can’t handle the thought of losing you. I can’t rejoice. Not now. Not yet. But I will rejoice when you’re out of surgery and doing fine.”

Her mother whispered as she pulled her close, “Of course you can rejoice. Rejoice means to return to the source of your joy. The true source of our joy is Christ and that will never go away. So I can always rejoice, no matter what I’m going through.”

Those words were still echoing in my friend’s head when the nurses came to take her mother for surgery. She kissed her goodbye and walked into the waiting room.

My friend’s mother died on the operating table that morning. That bedside encounter was the last time she saw her mother alive.

In the days following, she kept replaying her mother’s last words. Could she do what her mother suggested? At first it seemed crazy, and moreover impossible, but over time those words have marked her life. Living them has been the best way to honor to her mother. And the Lord.

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The source for this document was originally published on vaneetha.com—however, the original URL is no longer available.]