Category Archives: Hearing from God

Remembering the Funeral

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Early this morning, taking advantage of the extra hour afforded by turning back the clocks, I spent some time thinking about Nate’s funeral. I read the blog post from a year ago, then asked God, “What do you want me to think about all this?”

His answer came in a millisecond. “Study My words, not yours.”

It’s always a relief when God answers definitively. On November 7 last year, I ended my blog with a quote from Isaiah 61, because it referenced a “spirit of heaviness” (KJV), which was what I was feeling then. Those verses were God’s answer on that day as to what I should be thinking, so I decided to meditate on that passage.

The words describe Jesus, who would “comfort all that mourn,” and having buried my husband that day, I needed comforting. Lying in bed behind a closed door that night, I asked God to shape my thoughts, and the phrases from Isaiah (see the end of this post) wrapped around me like the layers of a soothing quilt.

A year ago I didn’t study the verses or look into their Hebrew origins but simply took them at face value and accepted the comfort they gave. On a night when I might have tossed and turned until the wee hours, I fell right to sleep.

This morning, one year later, I decided to take a closer look at the Scripture using my Strong’s Concordance. What was it about those phrases that had brought me such comfort? Here are the meanings:

  • to bind up = to wrap firmly (like an Ace bandage that feels good on an injury)
  • to comfort = to feel sorry for (as God shared in my sorrow)
  • beauty for ashes = to remove despair and substitute brightness (transforming a weary face into a rested one)
  • oil of joy = to anoint with costly, perfumed oil (symbolizing fruitfulness to come)
  • garment of praise = to feel like singing again (a song God would supply)

In the year since Nate’s funeral, God has done all of those things in multiples, which makes me want to be part of the last phrase of Isaiah 61:3, “…that the Lord might be glorified.” In addition to God’s generous comfort on that night a year ago, he also placed an opportunity in front of me.

It was as if he said, “Would you be willing to show others how you leaned on Me in your time of need? Would you let people watch Scripture work for you? Would you testify to the profound things I’ll be teaching you? If you’re willing, this will bring Me glory.” I said “yes”, and sharing honestly throughout this year has brought me joy.

When I looked up today after studying Isaiah 61, it was 12:25. Even though I’d had an extra hour, I’d completely missed church!

But then again, not really…

“The Lord has anointed Me to… bind up the broken hearted… to comfort all that mourn… to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness… that the Lord might be glorified.” (Isaiah 61:1-3)

The Journal: His Plans or Mine?

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Toward the end of summertime a year ago, I had just finished unpacking after our move to Michigan that June. Because of Nate’s painful back, most of the shoving, rearranging and emptying of boxes had fallen to me, but we were both so pleased to be in our new peaceful setting with a smaller house that the work had been a joy.

By the end of that summer, we’d settled in and were looking toward Nate’s back surgery in September. He was working as much as his pain permitted, and I had an empty calendar, an enormous blessing after having been swamped with seven children and unnumbered volunteer commitments for the better part of our marriage.

That August (2009), my journal read: “The calendar squares of past years have had so much writing on them that some had to have flaps of paper taped on them because everything happening that day couldn’t be written tiny enough to fit on one square.”

In our new situation, I didn’t look at my calendar for days at a time, a true luxury. Life was becoming manageable: “Last week was the very last giant garbage pile in front of our cottage. This week we have only one big can and nothing standing next to it for the first time. So here I am, ready for a new phase of life.”

I had no inkling my “new phase” would be nursing a terminally ill husband, followed by getting used to life without him. At the end of that same entry I wrote a prayer: “I wait at your feet, Lord, for instructions, opportunities, your revealing of the path I’m to walk. Whatever it is, it’s all up to you. I want only to hear you clearly and make the choices that are within your will. Open my hearing to know for sure.”

I only had to wait a few days to “know for sure.” And there certainly was no ambiguity about “the path I was to walk.” But like countless other people thrown into crisis, every move we made, every decision weighed, every hour spent was with a desire to just get through it. There wasn’t time to think any more deeply than that.

But that’s the thing about following God’s lead. He’s done the thinking for us. He’s made the plans. He’s inspected the future. And according to what he’s seen there, he shows us the best way to go. We can either follow or go off on our own. It isn’t that we can’t think for ourselves or use the brain God gave us. It’s that the very best thinking we can ever do is incomplete and therefore not as good as God’s.

When my “new phase of life” arrived, it was something I never would have chosen. But God ordered my path, and so here I stand, gradually adjusting to being without Nate. It’s probably time for me to pray that same prayer again: “What’s next, Lord? What are your instructions? Your opportunities?”

The future looms, and God has already thought through my best options. Without doubt, he has important plans for me, and I intend to follow his lead.

“When you received the word of God… you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.” (1 Thessalonians 2:13)

Seedy Business

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Walking Jack around the neighborhood in September can lead to goose eggs and noggin knocks. It’s acorn time.

Local squirrels are working high in the oak trees, chewing away the shells of acorns and collecting the nut-meats for wintertime. Chipmunks living under our front steps are doing the same. With oak trees everywhere, there’s plenty for all.

When we moved here full time last year, the sound of acorns banging on roofs, cars and wooden decks took us off guard, mimicking gun shots. If we looked up, which was risky, a squirrel would inevitably be busy chomping overhead, causing clusters of acorns to fall.

I’ve seen Little Red (“Taught by a Squirrel” April 13) taking advantage of this year’s abundance. But my next door neighbor tells me getting bonked in the head is enough to make you wear a football helmet outdoors. Walking the roads can be perilous, too, with marble-like acorns carpeting the way.

But acorn season cannot be stopped. God is busy sowing seeds. I love his well-established, logical laws of sowing… and reaping. They apply to oak trees, but they also apply to us.

Erwin Lutzer summarized them well in a memorable sermon years ago: Law #1, we’ll always reap what we sow; Law #2, we’ll always reap in a different season than we sow; Law #3, we’ll always reap more than we sow.

Oak trees produce acorns, which of course produce more oak trees, not maples or elms (Law #1). But acorns don’t exist in the spring. It takes nearly half a year before they’re ready (Law #2). The big oak trees behind our cottage reach above fifty feet, but each had its beginning in one humble acorn. Today thousands of acorns are falling to the ground from the oak trees in only one yard (Law #3).

It’s easy to apply these three laws to the simple acorn, and we nod with understanding. Applying them to ourselves, however, is another story. For example, Law #1 says if we tell a lie, eventually we’ll be deceived ourselves. Law #2 tells us lying probably won’t catch up with us until later, but Law #3 says that when it does, our lives will be permeated with deception, cheating and dishonesty.

Most of us are sure beyond doubt we’ll be the exception to every rule, believing if we take shortcuts around God’s laws, it won’t affect us. But whatever he says is going to happen, will happen.

Sometimes we plow ahead with our own ideas, unaware we’re diverting from God’s wisdom and laws. It isn’t that we’re rebelling. We just don’t recognize our error in the offing. Unfortunately, the biblical laws of sowing and reaping still apply. As lawyers are fond of saying, “Ignorance is no excuse,” and as moms say, “You’ll have to suffer the natural consequences.” I think those statements both must have originated with God.

Too bad we don’t usually learn just by reading what the Lord says. Sometimes he has to hit us over the head with it, just like an acorn knocks us in the noggin. But a few goose bumps are worth it to learn what we need to know.

“All your words are true; all your righteous laws are eternal.” (Psalm 119:160)