Category Archives: God’s plans for us

Why was I surprised?

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How did summertime flea-and-tick weather get such a jump on Jack’s Frontline treatments? The sad truth is we haven’t treated him for a year, thinking he was healthy enough to fight fleas on his own. Wrong.

Because of his itching, scratching, licking and nibbling, today we took him to the vet. Although Louisa and I thought he might have worms (common in outdoor-loving pets), the doctor disagreed, insisting it was just a bad case of fleas.

“Have you been using Frontline?”

“Uh…”

“Have you been giving him his heartworm prevention pills?”

“Uh…”

“Has he been tested for lyme disease?”

“Uh…”

“Did you bring a stool sample?”

The bottom line: we are negligent pet owners, and Jack not only has fleas but also lyme disease. The vet, who casually leaned on his stainless pet-examining table when he told us this, had no alarm in his voice. “We’ll treat it with antibiotics, and he’ll be fine.”

After two hours, we left the office with Jack and his bagful of goodies: Frontline, Hartgard, antibiotics, a fistful of explanatory pamphlets and a bill for $289.

But we can’t blame Jack. He got into trouble just doing what comes naturally, nosing under bushes, chasing deer through the woods (thus deer ticks, thus lyme disease), swimming in the lake and drinking creek cocktails.

While Weezi and I waited in the lobby between a stool analysis and the blood draw, a different drama unfolded in front of us. A whole family entered the office, mom, dad, sister and brother. The young boy came in last, carrying a fluffy white pillow on which lay a big Siamese cat. Louisa whispered, “I guess they brought the whole family?”

But in two minutes we understood. Their cat was very sick, and they had come to put him to sleep. While waiting to go in, the mom approached the receptionist with two vials of pills. “She didn’t use these,” she said. “We never opened them. Maybe you can donate them somewhere. If not… well… we never… we couldn’t… we didn’t…” and then she burst into tears.

Her daughter hugged her while she wept, and the receptionist offered Kleenex. Then all of a sudden, I was sobbing, too. Louisa turned and said, “But Mom, it’s not our cat…” I couldn’t explain. Somehow watching that family grieve as death approached their friend caused deep empathy to well up and overflow. It had to do with death’s finality, its forced separation from the ones we love and, yes, it had to do with Nate.

Why was I surprised?

God created people to live forever. He meant it to occur in a perfect world without sorrow, and when death aborts life, something inside us turns upside down. The scene we witnessed today and the one in our home last fall belong in that up-ended world, and we hate it.

God hasn’t changed his mind about us living forever, though. The only adjustment is our need to pass through earthly death (as Nate did) before we can reach eternal life. If we do things God’s way by entrusting our lives to his Son, death becomes a passage to the sorrow-free life he intended at the beginning.

God will bring joy from suffering and life from death. Why am I not surprised?

“His anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime! Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning.” (Psalm 30:5)

Father Knows Best

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God is full of surprises. He doesn’t think like we do, plan like we do or respond to circumstances like we do. He has no limitations and never runs out of ideas. He never has to “rack his brain” or wonder, “What should I do?”

That’s because he’s God, in the top slot, in all categories. So it makes perfect sense, since we’re not at the top, that we don’t understand why things happen to us. With our limited point of view, we reason that if God is in control and this awful thing has happened, why didn’t he stop it?

Growing up in the 1950’s, my family didn’t watch much TV. Television was new, and there wasn’t a whole lot to look at. By 10:30 PM, the national anthem was played, and all programming ceased until morning. One show we did find to watch, though, was “Father Knows Best.”

Mary and I have sweet memories of our relationship with the Andersons, a family much like ours with two girls, one boy, a home in the suburbs and a daddy who walked in each evening wearing a hat and carrying a newspaper. Tonight we watched one of those black and white episodes from 1958. Just hearing the theme music was a thrill, and seeing our old “friends” again was a pleasure.

In tonight’s story, the father, Jim, finds himself facing Saint Peter at heaven’s pearly gates. Peter is assessing whether or not Jim ought to “get in.” When he questions him about a decision he made, Jim says, “That was an especially difficult one.”

Peter says, “Naturally it was difficult. It’s part of our master plan. We do that purposefully. We keep throwing difficult choices in your path to test you. It’s the decisions you make that shape you into what you are.”

Without realizing it, this script line had made a scriptural point. And because of God’s perfect analysis of every person and what each needs, we can believe there are exceedingly important reasons for the “difficult choices” that are “thrown” at us.

As autumn approaches, my mind back-steps to a year ago. On this date, though we knew nothing of Nate’s cancer, we were within three weeks of finding out, within nine weeks of his death. But God had already decided on the test, had put the details in place and was about to light the circumstantial fuse. The difficult choices Saint Peter mentioned were barreling toward our family.

Every day for 42 days Nate woke to new tests buried within the big cancer-test, and so did the rest of us. His trials were excruciating, both physically and emotionally, but ours also involved pain, and still do. Television-Peter was quoting the biblical-James when he said, “It’s the decisions you make that shape you into what you are.”

While we knit our brows and wrestle with the tough ones, there is a choice we can make up front that’ll facilitate all the rest: to choose to believe each test does come from an all-wise God.

Of course that means even if we don’t like our tests, we must trust that our heavenly Father really does know best.

“Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.” (James 1:12)

You just never know…

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Mom 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…

Our 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 last year, when Nate and I relocated to Michigan. His plan had been to work full time until 2011, then subtract one work day each week for the next five years. But “untimely” cancer arrived, and 42 days later, our plans were shelved. Nate had died “ahead of schedule” at 64. We hadn’t planned on that, but you just never know…

None of us ever knows. The biblical character Methuselah lived to be 969 years old, but then King David’s new baby died.  Not one day is guaranteed to any of us. 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 just can’t know, because God doesn’t tell.

The Bible describes long life as a blessing, and everyone seems to want it. God sometimes rewarded righteous behavior by extending a life. Today, for those who passionately want to increase their time on earth, Scripture gives the how-to: obey everything God says.

At least five times the Lord plainly advises that keeping all his commands, decrees and statutes, and living by his wisdom, will lengthen life. We can’t know from what original end-date he’s computing that, but if we believe the Bible, obedience definitely brings additional time.

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. Maybe that’s why the genuinely righteous are the only ones who get their death-dates bumped; God knows that in order to handle those burdensome days, great stores of wisdom and godliness are a prerequisite. When we seek 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)