Category Archives: God’s plans for us

Who’s Who?

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All of us are curious about how we came to be. Why did we end up male or female, and how were we assigned to a certain family? How did we land first, middle, or last in the birth order? These are interesting questions without ready answers, but that doesn’t stop us from wondering.

The Nyman family was designed like this: boy-boy-girl-boy-boy-girl-girl. I say “designed” because I believe God puts families together purposefully. Whether born-into, adopted, originating as a frozen embryo, or arriving in some other way, the Lord considers all the factors in his decision-making about each birth:

  • which parents?
  • what sex for each child?
  • what position in which family?
  • what personality?
  • what physical appearance?
  • when in human history he/she should arrive?

Linnea and her brothers, and dadI remember our Linnea ap- proaching me at the age of four. “It isn’t fair!” she said, her freckled face full of fury. “You had four boys and only me for a girl!”

Before I could comment, she launched into a lecture, letting me know I had no business tipping the scales so heavily toward the boy side. “Why did you?” she cried.

I had to admit, it did seem unfair. If we were voting on babies, her impression was I’d stuffed the ballot box in favor of boys because I liked them four times better than girls.

The answer that came to me was, “God decided.”

Like it or not, that was the truth; the baby-buck had always stopped with him. I’ve been thankful on more than one occasion for his permission to use his omnipotence in debates with children, and as always when God shows up in authority, the argument ceases. Even a six-year-old knows she can’t win against The Almighty.

All of us have questioned at one time or another why we were born as we were. Because faith in God is the fulcrum of my life, I’ve  wondered why I was born to Christian parents who led the way to Jesus. What if Mom and Dad had been Muslim? Or Buddhist? Or Hindu? Would I have followed their lead? Or would I have found Christ another way?

We aren’t in a position to demand answers to those questions. But I believe one day in heaven we’ll be shown, and when we hear God’s explanation we’ll say, “Ohhhh. Now I get it.”

Linnea eventually accepted her feminine fate, and I worked harder to partner with her in family femininity. Once she accepted that it was God who made her and her siblings exactly as they were, she chose to partner with him in finding a solution to the problem of too many brothers: pray and ask him for a sister.

Linnea and her sistersShe prayed for 5 years, and lo and behold, God sent her two!

“I, Wisdom, live together with good judgment. And how happy I was with the world the Lord created; how I rejoiced with the human family!” (Proverbs 8:12,31)

 

Praising and Praying with Mary

  1. I’m rejoicing tonight that my 3 scans today revealed no stray cancer cells!
  2. Chemo resumes on Monday (9 down, 9 to go) with an additional anti-nausea drug in the “cocktail.”

Hidden Info

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After we’ve bought a certain kind of car, we feel a camaraderie with matching cars on the road. Although I’ve never owned a Toyota before, now my eyes land on them, particularly Highlanders like mine. “What a handsome vehicle,” my brain tells me. But before my purchase, I’d never even heard of them.

ToyotaThe other day I pulled up behind a Highlander at a red light. I was admiring its silvery color when I noticed something interesting about the Toyota insignia. The letters T-O-Y-O-T-A are all present in that one symbol. And suddenly it made perfect sense. The loopy design I used to think resembled a man in a cowboy hat was just a clever way to embed the company name into their emblem.

Before the stop light turned green, God put an interesting thought into my head. He, too, is hidden in a similar way, not the letters of his name but his touch, his influence and his wisdom, embedded in the world around us.

I think of God every time I see a flower with five perfectly arranged petals instead of four or six. It would have been easier to make it symmetrical. I see him hidden in the endlessness of outer space as the Hubble continues to travel and show us more of the heavens. Mankind thinks we’ll eventually see the end of it, but my guess is there is none.

God is hidden in the conception of a baby. With fertilization comes the full potential of a complicated human being. The invisible DNA, present from the first cell division, is so unique it can be trusted to finger a criminal and send him to prison.

The Lord has also hidden himself in the circumstances that come into people’s lives. Our family “saw” him again and again during Nate’s illness as coincidences became too numerous to be happenstance. We are seeing him in similar ways in Mary’s situation. He is also hidden in the unexplainable phenomenon of changed lives, of radical turn-arounds that defy logic.

God is hidden, yet he calls to us. “Come and find me!” And he intends to let us discover him. This invitation is, of course, the opposite of our M.O. We try to hide things from God, hoping he’ll never ask about them. It might be a deed we’re not proud of or a secret sin we don’t want to stop. It might be a way of thinking we know is wrong.

How ridiculous to think we can hide anything from the Almighty. He has the ability to see beyond x-ray vision right into our thoughts. Nothing can be hidden from him. We would do well to follow his example by telling him, “Come and find me.”

“ ‘Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?’ declares the Lord. ‘Do not I fill heaven and earth?’ declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 23:24)

Praising and Praying with Mary

  1. Pray about 3 scans I’ll have tomorrow, Tuesday, to check for hidden cancer. Pray that I’ll be strong and courageous and respond in a way that glorifies God, no matter the outcome.
  2. I’m thankful today was my off-week: no chemo.

You never know…

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Baby MomMom was born in 1912. Arriving several weeks prematurely, she was the fourth baby in her family. Because she was tiny, the doctor told her parents, “Don’t give her a name. She’s not going to make it, so you don’t want to get too attached.”

But Mom fooled everybody; she lived to be 92. You just never know…

Nelson at 9 monthsOur firstborn nearly died at nine months with a case of croup we thought was just laryngitis. When he couldn’t sleep for all the coughing, we called the doctor, who sent us to the hospital. En route, the baby went limp, his eyes rolled back, and we were terrified.

Thanks to quick, discerning doctors, he lived, and after four days in the hospital, he slowly recuperated. When it was all over, Nate and I fell apart, realizing how close we’d come to losing our little guy. You just never know…

Fast forward to 2009, when Nate and I relocated to Michigan. His plan had been to continue full time lawyering for two more years, then gradually scale back. But “untimely” cancer arrived, and 42 days later, our plans were shelved. Nate died “ahead of schedule” at 64. We hadn’t planned on that, but you just never know…

Celebrating lifeLast February my sister Mary learned that after 70 healthy years, she, too, was slated to tangle with cancer. Since then it’s been 1 major surgery, a couple of minor ones, and 3 months of chemo. We’re all hoping she’ll live to be an old lady, and so far so good. But as she says, you never know…

None of us ever knows. The biblical Methuselah lived to be 969 years old, but King David’s baby died as a newborn.  When we were born, God didn’t promise old age, yet we find ourselves angry when someone is taken “before their time.” If they’ve died, though, it was their time. We can’t know ahead, because God doesn’t tell.

???????????????????????????????The Bible describes long life as a blessing, and everyone seems to want it. Mom was thankful for her long life and lived each day vigorously, but in her last years she often said, “Old age isn’t for sissies.” Troubles of all kinds pile high on the elderly, weighing them down with woe, and she was no exception. In order for anyone to handle those burdensome days, great stores of wisdom and godliness are a prerequisite. So when we wish for longevity, we’re signing up for the toughest challenge of our lives.

You just never know…    But then maybe it’s better that way.

”No man has power over the wind to contain it; so no one has power over the day of his death.” (Ecclesiastes 8:8)

Praising and Praying with Mary

  1. I’m thankful nausea continues to be mild.
  2. And my new feeding tube, a different system than the old one, feels much better. PTL!