Jesus Silently Throwing Stones into the River

Annette

A 79-year-old mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. Living in a Care Unit following a stroke in 2023. I am well taken care of, and am lovingly supported by my family and friends, and the God who has never left me.

When I look back over my life, I see that God has spoken to me many times - sometimes as my Father, and sometimes as Jesus - through thoughts always accompanied by a feeling of peace, and many times followed by a prompt to action. When I have listened and followed, I felt at peace.

When I reflect on my life and learnings, I begin when my Mum was killed in a road accident outside our home along the Whanganui River when I was ten years old. In my tearfulness and grief, I could not understand why the most important person in my life had left me.

I navigated secondary school and early working life, and in 1966 I married at the age of twenty. We had a family of five children. After a busy and sometimes challenging thirty-four-year marriage my husband left me for another woman. I felt devastated, catapulted back to the age of ten. I asked again, ‘Why has this important person in my life left me?’ His family chose not to associate with me after this, and I was perplexed. It was yet more loss of important people in my life.

Over the next months, Jesus spoke to me and, in my mind, he took me back to the Whanganui River, to the place where my mother had died all those years ago. I imagined Jesus standing, throwing stones into the river, and without words, I understood that I needed to lose my anger over the death of my mother before I could find lasting peace.

And so, I did – with passion and grief. I threw stones into a local river.

Around that time, I felt prompted to reach out in an act of love which healed the rift with my ex-husband’s family. I had my marriage dissolved and felt at peace.

In 2003 I attended a weekend run by out church for people who were widowed, separated and divorced. At that weekend I met the man who was to become my second husband and we married in 2007.

On the 12th of April 2010, we both set off for work. That was the last time I saw my husband alive, as he passed away that day.

Once again, I thought, ‘Why do important people in my life leave me?’ However, this time the question was without the anxiety of the echo of my past. I understood the journey of my life and was able to peacefully bid farewell to my dearest husband.