I never know when it’ll hit. My tear ducts seem to empty themselves at the most inopportune moments, like at the grocery store check-out or while receiving sympathy from the bank teller. Tears aren’t cause for embarrassment but do make the other person uncomfortable or beyond that, sad, which then makes me feel worse. I find myself apologizing, for lack of something better. “Don’t mind me,” I say, dabbing at my eyes.

I’ve made an effort to be prepared by putting a box of tissue in every room of the house and one in the car. There’s one in the basement and another above the wash machine. Both bathrooms are equipped, and a couple of strategic closets. I even keep one in the kitchen baking drawer, since paper towels are rough on the nose.

But the best defense for unexpected weeping is a Kleenex in my pocket. Having two seems just right, one for the eyes and one for the nose, a kind of two-fisted approach to getting through the moment. As the old commercial goes, “Never leave home without them.”

As most of us do, I have an array of winter coats, some twenty years old but, as mom used to say, “Still serviceable.” Every one of them has two tissues in the pocket. And on Sundays, there are two tissues pressed between the pages of my Bible. After one difficult experience fanning the 2214 pages of my big study Bible in a desperate search for the Kleenex, I had to use my kid glove as a poor substitute. It was either that or my sleeve. Now I let my two tissues peek out of the Bible pages ever so slightly, tipping me off to their hiding place before the next emergency.

Recently I’ve made an effort to study the circumstances around my tears, especially since I’ve never been much of a weeper. So far, every break-down has been different, which is the reason each one is a surprise.

This morning I re-read the words to a song a friend had hand-written in a greeting card. The lyrics were powerful and full of encouragement, but what got me crying was the date on her note, October 10. The minute I realized Nate had still been alive when I’d last read the card (most likely out loud to him), the hurt came rushing back. In a flash my face was buried in my hands, and I was a goner. No one was around, so I felt free to boo-hoo it out, and thankfully, I found two tissues in my pocket.

Last week while hunting for a blog photo in last year’s album, I had another episode. Although Nate’s face betrayed the back pain he was experiencing, when the photo was snapped we still thought the problem was fixable. Neither of us knew the dreadful surprise immediately in front of us. Looking into both of our faces in the photo, knowing Nate has since been transported far away, the whole thing seemed too much to bear, and fresh tears came.

My two tissues are like an insurance policy. If I don’t have to use them, that means all is well. If I do, they’re instrumental in getting me through the moment. When I put my hand into my pocket throughout the day and feel those tissues, they communicate comfort, even before I have to use them.

The other day I was catching up with a friend I hadn’t seen since before Nate’s illness. As she listened to my answers to her questions, her eyes filled with tears of empathy and love. Wiping with her hands but quickly losing ground, she sniffed and apologized until I reached into my pocket. “One for you. One for me.”

“Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff [and tissues] protect and comfort me.” (Psalm 23:4)

I love wind chimes. The breeze blows, rearranging the chimes, and music is made. Sometimes movement in the air escalates to wild winds, and the chimes are thrown against each other producing racket instead of music. At other times there’s no wind at all, which means there’s no music.

Life can parallel a set of wind chimes, moving in different ways on different days. What kind of “music” we make depends on the strength of what’s blowing in and out of our lives. The winds of change have been blowing hard within our family in recent days, playing a variety of tunes on the chimes.

Linnea, Adam and two day old Micah Nathan left the ordered world of the hospital this afternoon to begin life at home as a family of four. The breeze of their lives is picking up. Skylar, awaiting their arrival, had no idea how stiff the wind was about to get in her short life of 18 months. Baby brother has arrived, and the music of her life-chimes will soon rise in volume and intensity.

The mini-chimes of little Micah, though, must have been tinkling loudly during these last two days as all five senses have been assaulted with change. On Sunday he was living in a dark, watery world of muted sound, warm and comfy with every need met. On Monday he was breathing cool air and being touched by eager hands. He was pricked with needles and blinded with light. Loud voices surrounded him, and his windless world grew turbulent.

Nelson’s life-chimes are making significant noise, too, as he’s answered a call back to Youth With A Mission. Over the next six months, the wind currents surrounding him with blow from soft to hard but will never stop, since he’ll be on the move as a leader in a Discipleship Training School beginning in New Zealand. Changes in wind-weather will come daily, and every chime-tune will be different.

Lars has been hearing some raucous chime-music in his life lately as he copes with raw winter weather and snowbound traffic after 12 winters spent working in San Diego. His group of friends has shifted, and his office has changed from hundreds of co-workers to just a few.

Klaus, too, is hearing a new chime-tune after leaving his Chicago sales job to live in Michigan near me and work in construction. His new apartment is sparsely appointed but his life-chimes are making pleasant sounds as he lives completely on his own for the first time.

Hans and Katy have had a period of calm breezes with a mellow-fellow for a son and gentle chime melodies playing in the background of their lives. But that all changed as they learned of another pregnancy, discovered it was twins, moved from their rental home and bought a house. Soon they will move, just in time to welcome two new babies. Wind velocity is increasing, and the chimes are making louder music.

Louisa and Birgitta are enjoying the chime-tunes of their lives as they live in the big city on their own. They’ve loved the “sound” of making their small place an inviting home and are working toward becoming financially independent. New jobs and new classes may blow their life-chimes a little harder as the months go by, but they are listening to the music with eagerness.

My chimes have recently resonated in a minor key as I’ve been learning to live without Nate, and there have been times when a piece of life’s chime-set has fallen to the ground and shattered. But the pieces left swinging in the breeze are still making music. It’s just that the sound is different now.

One of us, however, is listening to a completely different set of chimes than the rest, and that’s Nate. The wind has completely stopped, yet somehow, by supernatural power, the music hasn’t. No violent storms will ever again cause his life-chimes to clamor, and what he hears will always bring pleasure to his ears. Every change has been a positive one for him.

All this family rearranging can be disconcerting, or it can create a concert. Changes, adjustments, breezes and winds will continue for us and most other families. But after we all make the same enormous change Nate has made, we’ll be part of God’s glorious symphony. Until then, we can either plug our ears or choose to hum along.

“Then I saw in heaven… they were singing… the song of the Lamb: ‘Great and marvelous are your works, O Lord God, the Almighty’.” (Revelation 15:1a,3)

“Make music to the Lord in your hearts.” (Ephesians 5:19)

As we watched a picture-perfect snowstorm out the window today, I was reminded of the snow-related care Nate put into action for our family. Before our teenage kids would drive away in a storm, he’d always check to be sure they had a snow scraper/brush in the back of their cars, often brushing them off before they got out there. He would always clean my car off, and if his schedule allowed, would volunteer to drive me wherever I needed to go, if a storm was in progress.

Our extra-long driveway was a bear to shovel, but he did more than his share, and if he was short on time, he’d still shovel a path to each car door.

He was faithful to check the windshield wiper fluid in the cars and add more to meet the fill lines, if needed. “Salty streets make for cloudy windows,” he’d say. “You don’t want to run out.”

We began thinking about buying a snow blower after shoveling that long driveway for 15 years. When a neighbor died and his widow offered to sell us his blower, Nate took her up on it. “The only thing is,” she said, “I’ll need someone to clear my driveway, too.”

That winter Nate began blowing snow off her driveway every time it was needed. He always did hers before ours, sometimes in his business suit and dress coat in the pre-dawn hours of a frigid weekday morning. Often he’d get hers finished but didn’t have time to do ours, slipping and sliding away in his sedan, on a rush to the commuter train.

I often think of Nate’s willingness to help this widow. Despite the major inconvenience of keeping her driveway “shoveled”, he never once complained about doing it. I’m ashamed to say I did complain a few times, but thankfully he just sloughed that off and remained consistent in his commitment.

Nate was duty-oriented, and since our neighbor had no one else to help her, he felt it was his duty to do so. The Bible says a great deal about widows, and God makes it clear he is pleased with those who help them. He is also pleased with those who keep whatever commitments they’ve made. God was watching Nate blow the equivalent of mountains of snow off our friend’s driveway over the years, but I don’t believe Nate was ever aware of divine approval on those icy mornings. He was simply doing the right thing, which of course is often the hardest thing.

Now I find I’m the widow needing help, and I’ve learned it’s difficult to ask. Nevertheless I’ve been surrounded by a host of friends willing to step in even before I ask, all of whom are bringing pleasure to God by helping me.

When the first big snowfall arrived outside our cottage in December, I was rummaging around in the basement looking for a snow shovel when I heard the delightful roar of a snow blower outside. Running upstairs to look, I saw our next-door-neighbor, pink-cheeked and dodging clouds of flying snow, clearing off our driveway. When I ran outside to express my enthusiasm, he smiled and said, “Well, those of us with blowers should help those who don’t have them.”

I’ll never forget the rush of feelings that came over me right then. I flashed back to Nate’s work on our neighbor’s driveway, as well as my self-centered whining about it. And I felt the difficulty of humbling myself to receive the help I needed (instead of saying, “Oh, you don’t have to do that!”) coupled with the deep gratitude I felt for my neighbor and his cheerful willingness to help the widow next door.

^“Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord? Who may enter your presence on your holy hill? Those who… do what is right… Those who refuse to… harm their neighbors… and those who keep their promises, even when it hurts.” (Psalm 15:1-4, parts, TLB)