Category Archives: God’s plans for us

Widow Warriors

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The word “widow” is all about negatives. To qualify, a woman has to lose her husband to death. She becomes half of the whole that marriage had been for her. Her marriage label is withdrawn, and she embarks on a journey characterized by alone-time.Websters widow 2

Wives are into togetherness. They understand partnership and burden-sharing. My Mom’s generation used to say, “When you get married, you double the joys and cut the sorrows in half.” Marriage is a joint venture in which one person can bounce ideas off the other, get a second opinion before making a decision, and balance a singular point of view with the opposite approach. Scripture underscores the reality of all this affiliation in Ecclesiastes 4:9-10. “Two are better than one… for if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him that is alone when he falls, for he has not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat, but how can one be warm alone?”

When widowhood arrives, the twosome is pulled apart. She falls, maybe just emotionally, and wonders how she’ll get up or even if she will. One of Webster’s definitions for a widow is “a woman deprived of something greatly loved or needed.” Such a definition evokes raw emotions for me, because like it or not, that’s my life.

But as I move deeper into widowhood, I know I’m not alone. First and foremost I have my Heavenly Father who promises to step in for Nate as God the Husband (Isaiah 54:5). He’s already fulfilled that promise on several occasions.

I also have my fabulous, attentive children and children-in-law, who go above and beyond for me, day to day. I have my fantastic sister and her husband who notice and then respond to my needs in ever-creative ways, ministering kindness (and gifts!) again and again.

Although I used to live with my own lawyer, now I have my talented brother going to bat for me in handling Nate’s law practice and managing his personal financial affairs, no small task for my husband, who was deficient in filing skills! He signs his notes, “Your brother and lawyer.”

I have scores of people backing me up with prayer on my behalf, some every single day.

And if all that isn’t enough, I have my Widow Warriors List. On this list are 14 women who have gone ahead of me into this foreign land, a place to which none of us wanted to travel. Each of these ladies has pointedly told me, “I’m here for you. Call me. Here’s my number. Email me. Here’s my @ address. If you have questions, ask me. Nothing is off limits. I’ll check in with you from time to time,” which they have. And their most meaningful comment: “I know what you’re going through.”

One widow friend has been energized and organized by God to set up a valuable web site for those of us in the widow club: www.WidowConnection.com She works tirelessly for all of us and says, “We’re available even during your darkest night when everyone else is sleeping and you can’t.”

How blessed I am! I feel like someone looking out the window at a wild blizzard, knowing I have to head outdoors but being told, “Take your coat off. We went out there on your behalf, so you can stay in. Come over by the fire and get warm.”

Webster has one additional definition of a widow: “a short line ending a paragraph and appearing at the top or bottom of a printed page.” To me that indicates something came before and something new is coming after, which is the truth of my situation. Life as we know it has ended for Nate, but for me, the half that remains, something new is coming.

“The good deeds of some people are obvious. And the good deeds done in secret will someday come to light. Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. For you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless.” (1 Timothy 5:25, James 1:27, 1 Corinthians 15:58b)

Thank you!

Carried by a Blog

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Nate didn’t follow my blog. It wasn’t that he didn’t have an interest. Even before we learned of his cancer, I’d written specifically about him and thought he’d want to know what was going out onto the World Wide Web with his name on it. So one day in August, after I’d been posting blogs for a couple of months, I said, “Would you like to read a few of my blogs? Sometimes you’re the star of the show.”

We went to the family computer, and I brought up the post about him bringing me flowers (8/14/09), knowing he’d enjoy the compliment.

“In this one I’m bragging about you being a good husband,” I told him, but he had speed-read it and was on to the next entry. He read three and then got called away.

A week later I offered to print out a few more posts to read in his nightly relaxing time in the tub. He accepted the pages, but I’m not sure he ever read them. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal held more interest.

After cancer barged into our lives, the two of us spent every evening on our king size bed. Nate was desperate to get the pressure off his painful back and was exhausted from radiation. I sat with a laptop, reading emails and every blog comment out loud, many written directly to him. About then he asked about the blog again.

“People are commenting about it. Can you read me what you’re writing?”

Before I got to the end, he was asleep. I felt almost like I was reading a bedtime story to one of the children. Several more times he asked me to read the day’s blog, which I always did, but each time he’d be in dreamland before I got to the end. And so the days ticked off, and blog posts increased in intensity.

Sometimes as I wrote, I wondered if the words were too descriptive or the messages too frank. What if Nate asked me to read this one to him? Or that one? Would it be too much for him to bear? But as his physical challenges escalated, his interest in the blog waned, which was just as well.

The blog became a lifeline between our family and compassionate readers who had an interest in Nate’s plight. Without that avenue of communication, we couldn’t have kept up with phone calls, emails and visitors. Blogging streamlined contact with others while letting us spend time with Nate, and although distance separated most of us, the blog knit us together in a tight “small group.”

The blog would never have come to be if it hadn’t been for Adam and Linnea. When I expressed frustration in trying to market articles to publishers, she said, “Why don’t you start a blog, Mom? Just write and put it out there for God to use in whatever way he wants.”

I didn’t know the first thing about it, but when they visited during the summer, Linnea was already blogging (www.KissYourMiracle.com) and Adam offered to set one up for me. I remember the three of us sitting at the dining table talking about a name. I wanted the site to encourage anyone who was going through a difficult time and was delighted that “GettingThroughThis.com” was still available.

Looking back, I see how God was working. He planted the idea, named the site and put it all in place before Nate’s cancer hit. The best surprise, though, was the communication that traveled backwards from readers to writer. An avalanche of support, care, love and prayer left me shaking my head in surprise and wonder, feeling upheld by others throughout our ordeal.

In his planning, God even knew blogging would turn into a two way street. Faithful readers willingly turned into encouraging writers the Lord then used to help us “GetThroughThis.”

Thank you, beyond what any blog-words could ever say.

“Praise the Lord. Praise God our Savior! For each day He carries us in His arms.” (Psalm 68:19)

”Even to your old age I [the Lord] will be the same, and even to your graying years I will bear you! I have done it, and I will carry you, and I will bear you, and I will deliver you.” (Isaiah 46:4)

Emotional Winter

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Nate and I always loved summer best. Our birthdays are both in August, which established summertime as party time when we were children. As kids we also spent hundreds of hours every summer in the water, delighting in time at a beach or pool. Once we had children of our own, there was no better vacation destination than a beach. What else is so much fun for all ages and stages? Summer also let us keep our windows open for weeks at a time and eat dinners outdoors where clean-up was a breeze. The summer season meant road trips, long evening walks and the absence of a school-schedule-dictatorship. Summer was our favorite.

Even so, I’d never dispute the loveliness of spring or majesty of autumn. But here I am in that fourth season, bleak wintertime. A Michigan blizzard is clawing at my windows, and the car is buried in snow. Our driveway needs shoveling again, and incredibly tall trees are bending perilously, giving in to nature’s forceful winds. In addition to all this, my heart and emotions are in a winter of their own.

I’ve always wanted to do whatever I could to keep winter at bay for as long as possible, mostly because it’s the opposite of summer. But every season has it glories. God proved that to me today. Jack needed a walk, so we struck out for the lake, despite the wild weather.

Our first glimpse of the beach was striking, despite tasting sand mixed with flying snow. Waves roared in unison with swaying pines on the bluff, and the dune, with its swirl of sand mixed with snow, looked like a giant bowl of fudge ripple ice cream. Suddenly I forgot all about summer, shouting over the wind’s racket about the splendor of winter. Jack wondered if I was in distress, but the view was so exhilarating, it just spilled out in words. God is right. Every season has its beauty.

That’s true about life, too, and even about death. When Nate died, the process of letting him go was much like an icy winter day. Our emotions were dark and stormy with sadness, and when he died, he became cold and lifeless. Yet the best spring of his existence came immediately on the heels of that wintry cold as he stepped into the warmth of paradise.

Every season has its advantages and disadvantages. Personally, I’ve got one foot in life’s autumn and the other on the edge of winter. How this next season of aging goes is up to God. Only he knows when my eternal spring will begin. I may live so long that looking back at 65 will seem like summertime, but I hope not.

Nate is blessed, because he will never have to experience the negatives of life’s winter season. He died in his autumn. If I have to travel a long time in winter, I want to have eyes that accurately take in the view. Just as today’s wintertime beach amazed me with its beauty, so there will be good things about life’s winter season, too. Although a fresh crop of troubles will most assuredly accompany it, Scripture tells me God is “a very present help in trouble” …. not just present, but very present, so even that can’t be all bad.

I’m thankful for the 64 summers I’ve experienced, as well as the emotional summers of life. I’m also grateful for the other seasons, and that includes barren winters. And, contrary to nature’s winters which don’t produce crops at all, our emotional winters often yield the finest harvests of our lives.

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” (Psalm 46:1)
”As long as the earth remains, there will be planting and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night.” (Genesis 8:22)