Category Archives: God’s plans for us

Upbeat or beat-down?

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Driving in to Chicago today for three days of back-to-back commitments, I took the “radiation route” Nate and I had driven 14 times. Although Jack was sitting in the passenger seat, I was alone with my thoughts. Today it doesn’t seem possible that Nate is permanently gone. I just wondered how it could be.

I drove past the Drake Hotel where we spent our entire honeymoon in 1969, then past Oak Street Beach where we “broke in” a wedding gift, the high-tech super 8 movie camera. I still have the silly movies we took of each other running along the beach in our winter coats at the end of November on a freezing cold day. Could all that have been 40 years ago? It didn’t seem possible.

Overwhelmed with a desire to reminisce about those happy days, I was frustrated Nate wasn’t in the car to banter back and forth about them. No one else was on our honeymoon but us, so nobody would “get it” when I might say, “Remember that dachshund in our honeymoon suite? And how ‘bout that throne in the bathroom? And wasn’t it incredible what room service delivered?”

It isn’t enjoyable if I have to explain the whole thing to someone else first. Those were secrets and inside jokes only Nate and I shared, and a secret isn’t fun if only half of us is still keeping it.

I drove on, past the park where we ditched church to kiss and hug in the car and finally to Moody Church where we were married. Memories, memories. I was swamped with them, and without my partner to share them, I felt sad.Moody Church chandalier

I’d come to Moody to meet five of our kids and my sister and husband to enjoy a fabulous Christmas concert in a packed auditorium in which all 4000 seats were full. Remembering our wedding, I wondered how I’d feel. But as we walked in, it was like coming home.

My memories of Moody Church go much farther back than our wedding. My grandfather was chairman of the building committee that built this magnificent church building in 1925, and my parents met and married there. Mom was one of the organists, and I was raised in the Sunday school where I learned all the major Bible stories. I was baptized in that baptistery, and just before we were married, Nate was baptized there, too. We dedicated our children on that platform and made sure they were in Sunday school to hear the same Bible stories. Nate and I enjoyed friendships with four consecutive senior pastors. Memories, memories. But these seemed to cover me like a warm blanket.

Looking back is sometimes a beat-down and sometimes upbeat. The trouble with mourning is never knowing which is coming next. It’s hard to be ready. Tonight, though, the positive memories of Moody Church, including walking down the aisle to marry Nate, won out over the negative of not having him next to me to share the reminiscing.

I know there’s magnificent music in heaven where Nate is, so in one sense, we were sharing the evening because the music we heard (his in paradise and mine at Moody Church) was all about praising and extolling Jesus. That, to me, can only be upbeat, and I can’t wait to hear that heavenly choir. I bet it’s out of this world!Moody Church choir

”Our Lord… has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” (2 Timothy 1:9-10)

Being Ready

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December 25th is less than two weeks away, and I’m not ready, so I thought I’d do some shopping this afternoon. We’ve scaled our Christmas down to very few gifts with the siblings drawing one name each and buying for that person only. It doesn’t make for a very big pile of presents under the tree, but that might not be a problem anyway. We haven’t got a Christmas tree.

I drove to the closest Wal-Mart, a 36 mile round trip. Despite the Salvation Army ringer at the door and lots of Christmasy stuff inside, I couldn’t get into the swing of it all. Wandering up and down the rows, I passed the men’s cologne and felt sad to know I wasn’t shopping for Nate this year. Most men are hard to buy for, and Nate was no exception, but I was wishing I could try one more time. I ended up buying a Christmas present for Jack (rawhide bones). Everything else in my basket was groceries. I suppose shopping will be fun again eventually.

Dingo 2

As I motored home on the expressway, the orchestra in my CD player was playing “O Holy Night”, and I enjoyed losing myself in thoughts of Jesus’ birth. How old was he when he realized he was going to have to die an excruciating death that required him to become the sins of all of us? Surely he was aware of it when he voluntarily left heaven (where he was 100% divine) to be changed into a human baby. Was he reduced down to the level of one cell? After all, he was human, and that’s how we all got started.

I hope somehow after Jesus had been born a baby and was a growing little guy that he’d “forgotten” about his eventual death for the souls of the world. To have such knowledge as a young child would have been a burden too great to bear. No doubt his Father gave information to him in bite sized pieces. Jesus’ Father used that same method with us. Our family had a death, too, and God showed us only what we needed to know for each day as it came, just one bite at a time. It was best that way and was probably done like that for Jesus, too.

Rounding the last bend on the highway before my exit, I had to stand on the brakes. Police cars were pulling up to an accident scene in the right lane, and one cop was using a flare to wave drivers into the far left, away from the newly-arrived emergency vehicle and fire truck. Flares were being lit and set down like construction cones to coax traffic away from the accident. As we drove by, I saw a paramedic standing next to a body on the road. It was covered with a sheet, all the way over the head.

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As I’d driven along, I’d been thinking of Jesus’ death, Nate’s death, and now here was one more. It gave me a chill as I passed and looked at that lump on the road. Maybe that person had been Christmas shopping, too. The incident had just happened, and I wondered if the police had had a chance to call his or her next-of-kin yet. Maybe the family was making dinner, playing Christmas carols, planning to go out later this evening and have some fun. It made me shudder to think of the call they were about to receive, the shock they were going to have to bear.

In reality, none of us will leave this life any other way. As the world ponders the coming of the Christ child and the real reason he came to earth,which was to die for us, we can rejoice in knowing the cross he died on ended up empty, just like his tomb, because death was not the end of his story. Jesus lives today, which is the reason we can live after death, too, but we need to embrace him as our Savior. We need to be ready.

Tonight, rather than thinking of what gifts won’t be under what tree, it might be good to think about the person under the sheet. Was he ready? Are we?

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16-17)

A Call Back to Prayer

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I can’t remember exactly when I started to crave conversations with God, but it was somewhere in the late ‘70s. One Sunday morning our pastor challenged us to choose one hour during the week to spend in prayer. His sermon detailed prayer’s incredible advantages, and when he threw out his challenge, I decided to take it up.

But one whole hour? It sounded like something only a monk could do. I knew with three little children at home, I’d have to get a babysitter if I was going to do it. I picked a day, dropped the kids at the sitter’s and went home to pray. Because I was tired, I decided to write my prayers longhand, a surefire way to stay awake.praying man 2

Once I got started, there were so many people and topics to cover, I didn’t even finish before the hour was over. I’d failed at regular praying in the past yet knew it was the right thing to do, so tried to pray another hour the next week, too, and every week after that. Sudden obstacles often jumped in the way, and sometimes I’d have to stay up very late, but week to week, the prayer got done.

I began looking forward to our meeting times and had full confidence God would always be waiting for me. And amazingly, praying brought changes. I wanted more of that so thought I’d try to bump my weekly prayer hour to a daily 30 minutes, and it worked well. Often we’d talk for over an hour. God seemed to bring that time out of nowhere.

The two of us sailed along with our daily conversations for 11 years. Then Nate got sick, and everything about our lives changed overnight. The schedules filled with doctor appointments, and our empty nest filled with family. My passion to pray was suddenly overwhelmed with a desire to spend time with Nate and the rest of the family gathered from far and wide. I felt guilty ignoring my appointments with God but had to completely let go of organized prayer. That left us with an intense need for God’s steady counsel but a lack of time to seek it out. It was a dilemma I couldn’t fix, and I felt terrible about it.

One day, a couple of weeks into our 42 day tornado of disease, my mind flooded with God’s solution to the problem. “I’ve appointed others to stand in the gap for you and yours,” he assured me. “Down the road, we’ll pick up where we left off.”

Then he proved it to me. Day after day we opened stacks of mail from precious friends and even strangers. Nearly every card included the words, “We are praying for you.” Some detailed exact requests they were taking to God on our behalf, and others cited specific Scripture passages they were claiming. An astonishing number said, “We’re bringing you to God every single day.” I will never get over such devotion and love.

And here we are, five weeks after Nate’s death. Monday morning it was as if I heard the Lord say, “How about getting together today?”

We’ve been meeting ever since. When I stopped praying those 30-plus minutes each day, unwelcome circumstances had rushed in to fill the time. But this week, the time came back to me. After relocating my prayer clipboard with its lists, notebook paper and pen, I could sit down and heave a deep sigh of contentment, thankful to once again partner with God in this unique way, because I need our conversations now more than ever.

“If we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” (Romans 8:25-26)