This afternoon, I sat down to do what I do every January but hadn’t gotten around to doing yet this year. Like many people, I transfer birthdays year to year with a colored marker.

As I paged through the months of 2010 writing 89 names on their special squares, I came to Nate’s birthday in August.

Thankfully Louisa and Birgitta were sitting nearby to keep me from slipping, and I wrote his name down as if he would be with us: “Nate – 65”

After our Chicago-based children had departed, I returned to the calendar to finish. Splashed all over the month of October was the green script detailing Nate’s rapid decline. When I got to November 3^rd, the day he died, I wished the girls were still nearby. But tears are cleansing, and eleven tissues later, I felt much better. I wrote “Nate gone: 1 year.”

Nate’s cancer and death was a test God permitted, but the test didn’t end on November 3^rd. It’s still ongoing for each of us. I think of it like the grueling ACT, SAT and GRE tests of school days where one subject would end and another would begin. Not until every section had been completed were we allowed to consider it done.

Nate’s cancer diagnosis was Part I of this test. His 42 day battle was Part II. His death was Part III. The many changes and continuing sorrow are Part IV. As with the ACT, SAT and GRE, we may get breaks between testing sections, but sure-as-we’re born, another test will follow. The only one of us completely exempt from testing is Nate.

This afternoon I sat for a long time thinking about life’s tests. Unlike in school testing, we aren’t being asked for facts. Rather each test is to prove our allegiance. What or who do we live for? Where do we get the strength to keep going?

And another important question, who’s grading the tests?

The score-keeper is God, of course. Those of us who know him personally want to pass his tests with flying colors for one reason: we love him. But I’m fairly sure the greatest benefit of God’s testing program is not for him at all but for us.

As each set of challenges comes, in our case Nate’s death, we have two choices. 1) We can look to God for “tutoring” to get us through it, or 2) we can shake a fist at him screaming “How dare you!”

Both responses involve deep pain, but the first also includes encouragement and hope from the Tutor, while the second brings dissatisfaction and bitterness from the student. One proves we have a strong faith in God. The other should make us wonder.

Jesus offers a great example. When facing death for millions of sins he never committed, he pleaded with God to exempt him. Unlike the life-tests we experience, this was a torment beyond our comprehension. But when God didn’t change the plan, Jesus willingly changed everything about his own point of view. His trust in God held him, and he came through with a perfect score.

Our family’s test, losing Nate “early” to a disease we couldn’t stop, is insignificant compared to the test Jesus had to take. How could we shake a fist at God after watching his Son experience the cross?

Through Nate’s death we were all given a chance to see what’s buried deep within us. Is our faith real or is it all talk? Just as the ACT, SAT and GRE score sheets tell us where we stand academically, our response to a life-test indicates where we stand with God. Personally, I want to be sure of what’s on my score sheet.

Hanging my calendar back on its nail tonight, I knew that some day, when my name and death are written on a specific calendar square, the only test that will matter at all will be the one Jesus passed. Because of that, I’ll be able to join Nate and all the others who will never have to take another test again.

“The Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. It is the Lord your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him.” (Deuteronomy 13:3b-4)

Our son Klaus is very good at making plans. Maybe that’s why he’s never lacked for friends. I’ve overheard many conversations among his pals that have gone like this.

Person #1: “So, what should we do tonight?”

Person #2: “Oh, I don’t know. Whatever you want.”

Person #3: “It doesn’t matter to me.”

Person #4:  “I’m easy. Whatever the rest of you want.”

Finally Klaus would say, “How ‘bout if I call and make a reservation at ________ and then we’ll text so-and-so to see if he wants to meet us there at 8:00. After we eat, we can go bowling at ________. They’re open till midnight. Let’s take so-and-so’s car, and we can all chip in five bucks for gas.”

Everyone would jump up and follow that lead. It’s enjoyable to be around someone who’s good at making plans and setting them in motion.

The ultimate Plan-Maker is God, of course. He was making and activating plans long before the earth existed. Although we’re drawn to him when his plans for us turn out well, we often turn away when his plans cause us pain.

A few days after Nate and I found out about his cancer, we talked about the great Plan-Maker’s plans for him, for us. In those early days of shock and disbelief, it was too hard to look forward into the storm of disease and death. Instead we looked backward to study the plans God had made for us, to see whether or not they had worked out well.

For example, it had taken four and a half years to sell our old farmhouse in Illinois, despite houses around us selling like hot cakes. While we waited, we’d had to lower the price six times, bringing it down to nearly half of where it started.

We’d made a plan, our own plan, to buy a townhouse with cash from the house sale and stay in the area until Birgitta graduated from high school. But real estate took its now-famous dive, along with a simultaneous dip in Nate’s law practice. The Michigan cottage was on the market, too, but nothing was moving.

Finally we decided to let God make the plan, and his idea was to move us full time into the Michigan house, an idea we hadn’t seriously considered. Right then our old farmhouse sold, and shortly thereafter, we moved. This was at the beginning of last summer.

Once we were settled in Michigan, pursuing permanent residency status, Nate clipped unnumbered articles about the glut of townhouses on the market and how it would be nearly impossible to sell one, once we owned it, with all the new town homes being offered at “used” prices.

It took all summer for me to unpack the boxes, fitting two homes worth of stuff into one. Nate commuted to his job in Chicago’s Loop by way of a train, enjoying the new variety of passengers. By the time we were acclimated to our new environs and fully settled, cancer had arrived. Was all this God’s plan? And the bigger question was, could it possibly be good?

The day Nate and I looked back, we saw the reasons behind some of those plans. First, by causing time to pass before the old house sold, he saw to it that Birgitta graduated from high school, so there was no longer a need for us to remain in the area. Had we purchased a townhouse, we would have been stuck with it.

Secondly, by having the summer to unpack and get settled, everything was in order just before our cancer news arrived, and we were set up to receive our crowd of children for the duration. Thirdly, after Nate died, the cottage was the perfect place for a grieving widow to cocoon with the Lord through a snowy winter.

I see all of those things now, plans God put into motion for our good. I still don’t understand why Nate’s death had to be part of his plan, and it sure doesn’t seem good. But because God planned it, and because I believe God took him to paradise with intention, I accept it. Maybe down the road I’ll look back and see the reason. But if I don’t, I’ll continue to believe God doesn’t make mistakes, and that he is still the best Plan-Maker in the world.

^“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

This blog site has never belonged to me. It wasn’t my idea, but came into existence early last summer through my daughter Linnea’s urging. I believe her idea was prompted by God, since he was looking into our future and saw Nate’s cancer. He knew we’d need a way to communicate with people who wanted daily updates on his health. Beyond that, the Lord saw the help it could be to readers (including me) who were struggling to get through other things.

www.GettingThroughThis.com has been a joint effort all along, first with Linnea, then her husband who set it up, followed by the Lord’s prompting of what to write each night. Others have contributed words and ideas, and you, the readers, have poured forth encouragement with your comments.

Today I gave some thought to the strong connection I feel with each reader. You and I, we are a blog-family, tied together in cyberspace by tentative words on a pretend page, all of which could disappear with one “delete” click. Without knowing many of you personally, I still feel an attachment. I believe this is partly because I’ve been praying for you from the beginning.

God has encouraged me to bring “the readers” to him every single day, praying different requests at different times. Although I can’t list all of your names, he knows every one of you intimately and makes my generalized prayers specific, according to what he knows each of you needs. And when one of you writes, “This post did something for me today,” I thank God for answered prayer.

When I read the comments left at the end of each post, it thrills me to see some of you interacting with each other, developing new cyberspace relationships separate from the one with me. I feel like a mother hen watching over her chicks, glad to see them getting along so well. We are an extended blog-family, not by blood but by adoption, not because we have to but because we want to.

The Lord sees far down our life pathways, knowing which of us is about to enter a season of sickness, death, unemployment, financial shortfalls or other stresses. Even while we’re reading the blog, he could be using it to prepare us for what’s just around the next corner. He knows exactly what’s about to crash into our lives.

Writing these words each night is a joy for me. As I listen throughout the day to hear what God will prompt me to write, I sometimes feel nervous, wondering as the hours pass what the subject will be. As evening approaches, if nothing has yet come to mind, I come to the edge of panic and must firmly remind myself its God’s blog, not mine. He’ll bring the words when the moment comes, just like he sent daily manna to the children of Israel in the wilderness. There was nothing for their tomorrows but plenty for their todays.

Nate’s hospital, Rush University Medical Center, has asked if they can re-post the “GettingThroughThis” blogs from the 42 days of Nate’s cancer. Posting three entries a week on the hospital’s web site, they have just put up Day #14. In this setting God is applying my prayers and the blog words to those who are in the middle of medical issues: pain, disappointment, disease, surgery, even death. The Lord knows what he’s doing.

Thank you, readers, for sharing this experience with me. None of us knows where it’s leading, but we can all be confident God is taking us there together, the whole bunch of us. We are family.
“But to do good and to communicate, forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” (Hebrews 13:16)