We’ve passed the two-month mark now. Life is speeding along around us, and we’re doing our best to keep up, but every once in a while, we bump into a road block of anguish.
This morning I looked at the mountain of reading that has accumulated in the weeks leading up to Christmas, still untouched but calling loudly, and decided I’d better shuffle through at least some of it. Sorting it into piles was helpful: 1) for much later, 2) as soon as I can, 3) now!
That sounds efficient and well organized, but I am neither. Turning to leave with my pile of “nows” in one hand, the December Focus on the Family newsletter caught my eye. It was atop the “for much later” pile, but in a flash I was reading it.
Each December that newsletter breaks with the format of the other eleven months and shares a warm Christmas story, the kind families could confidently read around the holiday dinner table. I look forward to each December’s story and this morning found myself into it even before I had my pajamas off.
Sitting down with coffee, my “nows” and the newsletter, I read a husband’s story about his wife’s surprise pregnancy after cancer and intense radiation. Although they’d been told she would never have children, there was a positive pregnancy test, which unleashed nine months of anxiety over the condition of the child.
Their miracle baby due at Christmas, arrived at Thanksgiving, tiny but healthy. The young couple, without money for Christmas gifts, put their tiny month-old newborn under the tree with a miniature red Santa hat on his little head. His daddy wrote, “He was our gift to each other that year. Nothing else could have come close.”
They saved that Santa hat, and every Christmas since 1976, have topped their Christmas tree with it. The husband wrote, “It serves as a reminder of how out of the depths of despair and the shadow of death can spring hope and expectancy, and ultimately affirmation [of new life].”
This morning as I read that story and landed on that last sentence, I broke into sobs like I haven’t since my encounter with the homeless man weeks ago. I couldn’t stop. And once again, I didn’t know why I was crying. My head was hanging down, and tears began pooling in the lenses of my reading glasses. What was this all about?
Maybe it was the husband’s positive statement that hope and expectancy can spring from death and despair. If that was it, my tears were those of happiness. I might also have been unconsciously thinking of the three newborns God is sending to our family, one due in three weeks, the twins in about three months.
But also underneath that emotional eruption was Nate’s death and disappearance, along with my yearning never to let the memories fade. Maybe I was unconsciously asking, “What represents our Santa hat for Nate?” Over the next few days, I’m going to think about it.
In Old Testament times, the Israelites had their Santa hat. It was called a “rock of remembrance.” God instructed them to set up stone markers as reminders to them and future generations that he was the master of rescuing, of performing wonders and of bringing new life from the death of old ideas, habits and hopes. This morning while reading the baby story I realized afresh that God is the same today as he was in 1976, and the same in Bible times, and the same even before time began at all. One of the best things about him is how he still brings life from death. Always did and always will.
God saved the life of the young wife suffering from killer-cancer but even greater than that, he brought new life directly from her. This is the kind of spectacular work God does. He doesn’t always cure cancer or send new babies, but he always, without fail, brings new life. The categories in which he works are myriad. If we don’t believe it, it’s because we haven’t seen it. And if we haven’t seen it, it’s because we haven’t asked for it. When I ask, he shows me, and when I see, I’m overwhelmed with pleasure and hope, just as the young couple in the story was.
I know God will bring new life from my husband’s death. In a way, he already has by using Nate’s life as the focal point of this blog. With every positive feedback, a little something new is born. For that, and for all the new life I have yet to see as a result of Nate’s death, I am truly thankful.
“I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” (John 12:24)
“Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” (Hebrews 13:8)
In the midst of our sorrows and questions, thank you for your encouragement to look to the Lord, for He alone has the power to see that His purposes will be accomplished. God brings hope to every situation.
Truly his compassion (for us in our sorrow, confusion, fear, whatever) is new every morning. Doesn’t it just warm your heart with courage when he gives those reminders? The first song I heard this morning was “the Voice of Truth says ‘do not be afraid!'” (can’t remember the name or artist, just that phrase) It amazes me to realize our Father is not only faithful but ENTHUSIASTIC in reminding us of his abilities. He loves to help us through what we are facing! Thank you for that timely reminder.
One of the hidden joys of our walk is the fact that we will never know, until we get home, the effect our walk has on those around us.
One of my favorite Hymns is “Thank you for Giving What You Had” – not even sure that’s the correct title – but the message is the crowd of people we will meet on Heavens shores – many of whom we may not have known well, or even in person, who will thank us for the help we were in their lives. The Spirit uses us in ways we cannot begin to imagine.
Keep on keeping on Margaret – you are ministering to more people in more ways than you can even dream of.
Yes, God does bring life! A week after my Mom died in 1981, my sister gave birth to Sara. Although it was sad my Mom never saw or held her granddaughter, Sara brought joy out of sadness. As one life, as we know it, ended, a new life began.
Remember the Words above Moody Church’s Baptistry? As a young child, I weekly read them, and even today, they daily come to mind. Our youngest grandchild turned 2yrs old, 11 days after Jim die. Whenever he comes to her mind, she points to the sky, and says, “Popo sleeping Jesus. Take naps, Jesus Popo”.
That first came out of her mouth, when she saw Jim at the funeral home. Yesterday, a 5yr old grandchild made this comment to me, when she saw me struggling with a stubborn jar lid. “If Popo was here, he could open it. I’ll have to do it, now.” I’m still amazed how the Lord uses everyone and everything around us to bring closure and healing. Thank you, Lord, and thank you for Margaret and her blog.
Dear Margaret,
Even as I was laughing yesterday about the potential demise of stop signs courtesy of your chucked rocks, at the same time, on a more serious vein, those Old Testament memorial stones also whizzed past my thoughts, your “rocks of remembrance.”
You were calling to mind a long ago event conceived by your mother. I haven’t counted, but there have been numerous times you have referenced your mother in these blogs. The blog I think of most, and shared with marvel and misty eyes with a friend over coffee, was the time you were so desirous of hearing a word from your mom… and then out of “no where” a long time family friend produced a letter your mom had written so many years ago, the contents that of giving counsel to a recently widowed woman. Unbelievable- a memorial stone for sure- a marker where God showed up, performed a wonder, and parted your own Red Sea when the enemy of your soul was closing in on you.
In Hebrews 11:4, it says of Abel, “through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks.” At first, your mother was taken from you, and now she is in you. The teaching of your mother is “continually on your heart and tied around your neck”, a strand of memorial stones. I am sure you had times of panic when you could not remember what she smelled like, or forgot the tone of her voice, or her face blurred around the edges. But here she is, speaking to you, though dead, and it seems the memories are sharper, her life clearer.
The same will be true of Nate. Now, he has been taken from you, and you have a searing and open wound. You will panic when you think the memories are fading. But the time will come when he will be in you like he wasn’t when he was right next to you. Though dead, he will speak to you, and you will assemble from him a new strand, one that will fall directly over your heart.
In trying to soothe troubled and sorrowful hearts before His impending departure, Jesus spoke to His disciples in the upper room. He said bewildering things to them at the time, like ” in a little while you will no longer behold Me… and in a little while you will see Me.” And “greater works will you do because I go to the Father.” He was next to them for three years, but pretty soon He was going to be in them. He acknowledged that His absence was going to bring sorrow, like a woman in childbirth. He promised that the new way in which He would be present would bring joy.
The Lord might give you a single, tangible “Christmas hat.” It would not surprise me as He has given so much of what you needed at the moment you needed it. Who knows what will hang from your Christmas tree a year from now- perhaps a garland of memorial stones that will grow in length as the Lord faithfully meets you at all your Bethel’s and at every water’s edge.
“Lord, thank You that Your heart is tender to us when our hearts are in sorrow. Your daughter, Margaret, is in travail now, and desires to birth life from it. Lift up Your staff, divide the waters that flood her soul, and accomplish Your salvation for her today. For every time she reflects back and says surely the Lord was in this place and I did not know it, give her a memorial stone. Amen”
Much love your way,
Terry
Thank you, Terry Davis, for your comment, shown above.
Thank you Terry David for your beautiful comments. It has really spoken to me tonight as I struggle with the loss of my husband Tom.