Category Archives: Grieving

Words from Mary

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After 4 days in the hospital, last night my sister Mary got her greatest wish: to go home. Nobody likes the plasticized pillows or the unending interruptions. (…like the nurse who came in to take more blood: “Good morning!” she said in a cheery voice, flipping on the lights. It was 4:00 AM.)

The function of Mary’s stay was to complete a battery of tests so her team of doctors could make an accurate analysis and recommend treatment. Next week she’ll receive the news, whether good, bad, or somewhere in between.

???????????????????????????????Last night I promised we would hear from Mary today, and below are excerpts from a letter she wrote on Sunday, letting it be known for the first time she had cancer:

Last week I experienced three days of mysterious high fevers.  When I saw a doctor on Saturday, he sent us to the emergency room for tests.  It was a huge shock to [husband] Berv and me, and it will be a shock to you, to learn I have been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  The testing will enable them to stage the cancer.

As we learn more, I’ll pass it on to you.  Margaret has offered her blog to share any updates, and God has led me to say yes. If there are specific prayer requests, you’ll find them there too.

Having to tell my [7] children what I’ve just told you was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. No mother wants to cause her children pain. But Scripture promises great spiritual gain can result from suffering, and that is my hope and prayer. Please pray for my children, children-in-law, grandchildren, and for Bervin, who is holding up as well as can be expected, trying to stay strong for all of us. But he is understandably sad and upset.

???????????????????????????????Today Margaret brought me a beautiful beach stone, the most beautiful one I’ve ever seen. On it was inscribed Psalm 71:3. This afternoon six year old [grandson] Beck read it for us. “Be to me a Rock of habitation, to which I may continually come.  Thou art my Rock and my Fortress…my confidence from my youth.”  I know, without doubt, God will never leave me or forsake me, and I’m clinging to Him and His Word to carry me all the way through.

Thanking the Lord for you, 

Mary

*            *            *            *            *            *            *            *            *

On Saturday when we heard the words “pancreatic cancer,” we all jumped to a radical conclusion: that Mary would follow the same path Nate did. (He died 42 days after diagnosis.) But with great joy we’re now believing we were wrong about that. Mary’s cancer is a very rare pancreatic, occurring less than 10% of the time. In cases like hers, surgery has been known to extend a person’s life for quite a while.

In the mean time, Mary is setting the example by not worrying about tomorrow, because just as Jesus said,

“Don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” (Matthew 6:34)

Part One & Part Two

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At workLast night I received Part One of a two part gift: a dream about Nate. In the dream he was wearing a white shirt and tie, and was working on legal papers. I found it interesting that he was wearing one of those half-sleeves men used to wear in print shops (wrist to elbow) to spare their dress-shirts from ink. In the dream Nate was using a leaky fountain pen, so I was pleased he’d covered his sleeve.

Strangely, the two of us weren’t indoors but were sitting on chairs outside, perched on the sidewalk along the main street in our little town. I was enjoying the sunshine while he worked.

“It’s almost time,” I said. “Will we be leaving soon?”

“Yes,” he said, “but not till I get this work done.”

And that was it, a mini-conversation and a quick glimpse of my husband’s face. But I loved it.

Old fashioned mailPart Two of my gift came today from the back of a drawer. It was an envelope with Nate’s writing on it. His script was horrendous, and I frequently complained about its illegibility, but this card was printed. I interpreted his doing that as a desire to make it legible for me. I probably didn’t appreciate it at the time, but today I did.

The note was written on a retreat weekend by himself at our summer cottage in Michigan (now my permanent home) in 2006. Since he’d been under incredible work stress then, I’d encouraged him to take some time away, and it didn’t take much persuasion.

Nate's cardOver that weekend, he bought and mailed a card to me: “To my one and only…” it said. He knew I wouldn’t receive it until two days after he’d arrived home, but he wanted to put his thoughts down while they were fresh, and he sent it regular mail. Inside it said:

 

LegibleMeg, thanks for the idyll in Shorewood, extremely generous (as always) to me. Great as it is, “it ain’t the same without you.” Dinners alone are empty.

Time on lesson #8 [a Bible study we were doing together] – work notes and investing are beneficial – Psalm 75:6-7 really hits me – “Only from God” – not degrees, work, shrewdness – lessons learned and to be learned.     Love, Nate

(Note the asterisk after the paws, referring to a note at the bottom: * Not only paws but millions of doggy kisses!  — private joke)

The longer Nate is gone (4 years now) the more precious my dreams of him and these “finds” become. I see them as God’s custom-designed gifts of tender care, and he does this kind of thing for all his children. Although he doesn’t send dreams or letters every time I miss Nate or every time someone is sad, when he gauges the time is right, he sends something special.

And today I’m smiling over his two-part gift.

“If you then…. quite naturally give good things to your children, how much more likely is it that your Heavenly Father will give good things to those who ask him?” (Matthew 7:11)

Our God of Grief

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Scripture includes an interesting (and somewhat disturbing) verse I’ve always wondered about: “Though [the Lord] brings grief, he also shows compassion because of the greatness of his unfailing love.”  (Lamentations 3:32)

Most of us think of God as a grief-healer, not a grief-bringer. People have said to me, “The heartaches you’re experiencing have all filtered through God’s loving fingers.”

GrievingI can’t say those words have ever brought comfort, though they have spoken the truth. But that verse from Lamentations goes one step further than admitting our grieving comes to us filtered through God’s hands. It says that he sometimes brings it.

This is tough to swallow. Why would God do that? Why would he initiate grief?

Maybe the answer is in the second half of the verse where it says he shows compassion and has unfailing love toward us. The experience of grief feels more like being set out in the cold than being covered with compassion, but maybe God’s version of compassion somehow includes grief.

In the deepest part of my grieving for Nate, the tears and deep sobs that came out of me that first dark winter were, in a way, a strange kind of relief from the constant heartache. I’ve said many times in these blog posts that Nate never told me not to cry, because he believed each new cry let some of the sadness out.

I’ve heard the same thing from others since then, and I firmly believe it. During my first winter without Nate, I’d walk Jack around the neighborhood late at night and bawl almost uncontrollably. And 40 minutes later as we walked back into the house, me with mascara running and eyes swollen, I felt slightly better.

Maybe the Lamentations verse is trying to teach us that the whole process of grieving is God’s pressure valve for our hearts. Without experiencing the heartache, tears, sobbing, and moaning, we’d be so bottled up inside we’d practically burst. And thus the “unfailing love” part makes sense.

We get additional clues in the next verse: “[The Lord] does not enjoy hurting people or causing them sorrow.” The NIV says he doesn’t “willingly bring grief to anyone.” In other words, God wasn’t the one who willingly brought death, injury, disease, and dysfunction of all kinds into our world.

His original desire was that nothing about our lives would cause grief. But then sin entered, and all of the above grief-causers came with it. He needed a way to help us through, and the grieving process as we know it, is it.

I don’t think there’s any other way to interpret those two verses, because I truly believe God when he says he loves with unfailing love.

“Let the one who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the LORD and rely on their God.” (Isa. 50:10)