As I pack two suitcases with the goal of keeping them both under 50 pounds, I’m thinking of you. Five months ago I visited the United Kingdom to meet newborn twin grandbabies. I loved blogging while I was there, sharing with you what God was showing me during those busy days. Just like the Lord always travels with me, I wanted to travel with you.

When I spent those weeks with Hans and his British family (Katy, Nicholas, Evelyn and Thomas), I found that happy blog topics popped up everywhere. The only negative was the frying of my laptop, most likely because I hadn’t studied the outlet discrepancies very thoroughly and didn’t know the correct plug-in routine.

On this trip I’m leaving my new laptop at home, although I’ll be continuing to spend time with you each day. My plan is to post pictures instead of words (by way of Hans and Katy’s computer) in order to stay close to you while I’m away. Maybe I’ll be able to figure out how to add captions, or you might enjoy making up some of your own.

When I return to the USA, I’ll be eager to reconnect with each of you by way of the usual 500 daily words. Although our relationship is only in cyberspace, I sense a strong bond, thinking of you often during each day and praying for you faithfully.

Should you ever want to talk back to me, my son-in-law has put a “contact” button next to the “subscribe” button on this site. Those comments go directly to my email inbox, and I would be delighted to meet you there.

So, tomorrow Nelson (godfather of Nicholas), Klaus (godfather of Evelyn) and I (grandmother of all three) leave for northern England. What a joy to be traveling with two of our sons, to visit a third. And renewing my relationship with daughter-in-law Katy and our three grands is, well, absolutely grand!

So let’s hope each picture posted will be worth 1000 words. If nothing else, the blog will take a lot less time to read!

“May the Lord bless you and protect you. May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord show you his favor and give you his peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)

During the 11 months since Nate’s death, we’ve been pacing through scores of first-time-without-him events. Everyone says once we’ve passed the year-mark, grieving will lessen significantly. I hope so, although the thought of a future graduation or wedding without Nate makes me grimace.

These days we’re going through the last of our firsts, with November 7 marking the end. That day will be the one year mark of Nate’s funeral. Last October was torture as we watched him slip away; logic tells us this October should be less painful. Not necessarily.

Back then we lived on continual red-alert, anxious about possible falls, stressing about meds, agonizing over Nate’s increasing pain. We put one foot in front of the other hour after hour, day after day, focusing on the must-be-dones. No one noticed an absence of down time. We were numb.

Now the protection of numbness is gone. We’re feeling everything for real and with full impact. During the days of Nate’s cancer, there wasn’t much chance to cry, but we’ve wept buckets since then. My hope is the weeping will end when the firsts do.

One of my college friends, Junior, is just beginning a grieving period of her own. She’s starting through her ”lasts”. After decades of joyful service as the pastor of a large Washington DC church, she’s retiring next year and has related how sad she’ll be to preach her last sermon, conduct her last communion service, counsel her last parishioner.

The different count-downs, ours of firsts and hers of lasts, are similar in many ways. Both involve grief and pain, and both predict radically changed futures.

The Hospice people, compassionate to the max, have sent us encouraging words every month since Nate died. Their letters have helped our understanding of grief. Here’s a quote:

“We learn a great deal by going through grief. We may become more perceptive, more aware, more determined… We may rearrange our priorities, and our lives may become more focused.”

When we say goodbye to something or someone we love, whether by choice (Junior’s) or not (ours), we’re forced to change. Everything around us shifts, and so must we.

My role went from wife to widow, someone with a partner to a woman alone. Junior’s role will change from pastor to parishioner. If either of us tried to hang onto our former roles after the shift occurred, life would set us aside. Like it or not, we both have to redefine ourselves. It reminds me of a pilot who continually reorients himself in the sky, checking and correcting his course.

Although I loved my role as a wife and Junior hers as a pastor, both of us are in the process of letting go of those images. God is traveling with us though, giving us each a hand. We both expect he’ll reveal new facets to our lives we never knew about. He may equip us for fresh categories of service. We may gain new strength and daring we didn’t have before. Our worlds are changing, and we are, too.

The lasts of a pastor and the firsts of a widow can give birth to priceless new beginnings, because out of grief comes new understanding and new resolve.

“The God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” (1 Peter 5:10)

For whatever reason, my bedtime has become later and later. Although I was a keen critic of my teenagers for staying up till the wee hours, the past few months have seen me following suit. I’ve had to eat my words that “nothing good happens after midnight” since God often gives me blog-insights well after that.

At first I tried to camouflage my new “bad habit” by telling the kids, “Last night was just a fluke. I’m still a morning person.” But as the weeks have passed, my lark-ness has morphed into owl-y-ness. Even Jack has complied, dragging around all morning like a record at 33 1/3 speed but zipping up to 78 at night.

If I was living alone, I could sleep late without guilt and have breakfast at lunchtime, lunch at dinner. But with steady stream of visiting family, girlfriends, grandkids and neighbors, coming downstairs for my first coffee at 10:30 doesn’t seem appropriate.

Last night I crawled into bed after 3:00 AM. My final words to the Lord before sleep were, “I know. This is ridiculous.”

This morning God announced a new program for me. Just as he provided a worm to eat Jonah’s biblical vine to get him up and going, he provided a tiny critter to nibble me awake, too. I never saw it, but my best guess about the sharp jab in my arm was a spider. Although we’ve seen quite a few innocent daddy-long-legs in our basement, I’ve always told skitterish kids that spiders aren’t interested in making the two-flight climb to the bedrooms. But when God says go, animals do.

Nate was right when he repeatedly said our battle against woodland critters would be ongoing, since we lived on the edge of a forest. We agreed it would be pointless to call pest control, sort of like trying to keep the bottom of a boat from getting wet.

After this morning’s wake-up, I noticed the clock said 8:00 and knew I needed more than five hours of sleep before tackling my long to-do list. But as I was drifting away, another “ouch” grabbed me, and so it went for 45 minutes.

Ouch, awake, asleep.                Ouch, awake, asleep.

God persevered, though, and eventually I got his message. My thought had been more sleep; his was more hours in my day.

One of the magnificent things about God is how creative he is in achieving his goals. That’s good news for those of us who hunger for his participation in our lives. Oftentimes he allows painful circumstances, but being the recipient of God’s personal attention always includes a positive undercard. If we’re willing to respond, we’ll eventually experience the good stuff.

This morning’s unique wake-up call left a welt that’ll disappear tomorrow. Maybe tonight God will prompt me to simply set my clock. Or maybe he’ll direct another critter to climb the stairs. In the mean time, where’s that number for pest control?

^“The Lord God provided a vine… to ease [Jonah’s] discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered.” (Jonah 4:6-7)