Category Archives: Hearing from God

Mom never worried.

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My mother was a yes-mom who loved trying new things and taking risks. She especially loved children and thought every idea that came from the mind of a child was a good one. As a matter of fact, many of her adult ideas were childlike. For example, she used to have us collect rocks in a bucket then climb in the car. She’d drive us around Wilmette with the windows down telling us to throw rocks at stop signs to see if we could hit the middle and make a “ping”. To her it was good clean fun. Today she’d probably be behind bars. But being raised by a mom who never worried about the what-ifs made for a delightful childhood.

Actually, mom never worried about a thing. She used to tell us, “I have nothing to worry about; your father does enough for both of us.” That was accurate.

As we move farther into the new year, my mind wants to wander forward through the months, wondering what will happen. All of us look back to last year at this time when 2009 was stretched out in front of us and shake our heads remembering how little we knew. Here we are at another January, and after looking back, today we worry forward.

Worrying comes naturally to most of us. Last January we had no concerns about pancreatic cancer, yet it came. So our brains follow that with, “You’d better worry about that and lots of other things for this year,” as if fretting about the unknown could possibly help.

As Nate’s illness progressed, I worried about quite a few things. What if he fell again? What if he broke a bone and landed in the hospital? What if we couldn’t get him home again? What if I got the meds mixed up? What if he got out the front door and walked away without us knowing? What if he cried out in pain as he died or left us with an expression of agony on his face?

What if, what if, what if. Not one of these things happened. In essence, I worried for nothing. That’s one reason why worry isn’t good. A second and more important reason is that stressing about the future betrays a lack of trust in God to care for it. Scripture tells us worrying never helps a thing. (Luke 12:25) And more serious than that, it chokes out God’s efforts to guide us while we’re trying to be our own guides. (Matthew 13:22)

All of us have enough to do living one day at a time. We don’t need to mentally travel into the future putting down roots of worry there, wasting time and energy on unfruitful thinking while eroding our relationship with the Lord. He’s watching and making a continual assessment of what we need. Better than that, he’s the only one able to satisfy those needs.

I believe God is constantly preparing to take care of our basic needs ahead of our arrival to the future. We saw it happen again and again with Nate’s cancer and related needs, sometimes in dramatic ways. I’m ashamed to say I was often surprised when the needs were met, considering it a rare gift each time rather than the fulfillment of what God said he was going to do all along. Didn’t I believe him? Apparently not.

I hope to do better on that score in 2010, expecting my basic needs to be met through God’s provision, then responding with gratitude. That is precisely what Jesus was describing when he told us to “have the faith of a little child.” Children have faith that their parents will care for them and don’t wrestle with the what ifs. When parents do meet their needs, security and trust are built into their lives and they can transfer that kind of faith-in-parents to faith-in-God without too much trouble. We could take a lesson.

Maybe that’s what mom found so attractive in kids, their complete abandon of worry. As she spent more and more time with them, she became like them in that way. Once again, we could take a lesson.

There’s only one thing to be worried about: buckets of rocks in the back seat of a car.

“For all these things [food, clothing, shelter, goods, possessions] the nations of the world eagerly seek; but your Father knows that you need these things. [You won’t be] forgotten before God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear; you are…  valuable.” (Luke 12:30, 6b-7)

Favorite Christmas Gifts

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Nate used to talk often about his favorite Christmas gift, received in 1955. His one and only wish as a ten year old was that he get a BB gun from his parents, but he knew it was nigh unto impossible. His folks were not “outdoor people” or hunters. Besides that, his mom was cautious and not big on letting children take risks. Their home was managed with efficiency and order. Nate knew it was a long shot but when asked what he wanted for Christmas, he answered, “A BB gun.”

When he saw the long skinny box under the tree on Christmas morning, he could hardly believe it. Even this year he talked with fondness of the feeling he had when he tore open the gift and saw exactly what he wanted. His impression was a mix of “They really love me a lot!” and “Oh boy, am I going to have fun!”

So how about this Christmas, 2009? It won’t be that much fun. Gift-buying seems out of sync with Nate so recently gone. I used to call him “Big Giver” because of his desire to give us whatever we wanted, and that included BB guns for all four of his sons. None of us are expecting a big gift-unwrapping session this year, but all of us have received an early Christmas present, something that couldn’t be gift-wrapped. Hans and Katy called from England to give us the exciting news that their expected twin babies are one boy and one girl! While God has been weaving together these two little lives, knowledgeable of every detail, we’ve been longing to know more about who they were. Boys? Girls? The information that Katy and Hans will be greeting a son and a daughter is a fresh blessing that’s brought us all great delight.

These two children, along with Linnea and Adam’s baby boy arriving in February, are gifts of life the Lord is bringing to our family to help us move from sadness over Nate’s death, to joy over new life. The timing is not accidental, and I appreciate God’s creativity in helping all of us in such a dramatic way. All of these babies were astonishing surprises, gifts of immense value. Nate’s cancer was a surprise, too, although it was not a gift.

This morning during my prayer time, the Lord reminded me of a blessing I hadn’t directly thanked him for yet. It has everything to do with Nate’s death and was actually hinged upon it. At several points during his adult life, he’d experienced spiritual dry spells, as so many of us have. Those times were frustrating for him and also for me, and I’d prayed passionately that God would open Nate’s heart and mind to fresh understanding of himself and his ways back then.

What occurred to me this morning was how abundantly God had answered my prayers! Nate is with the Lord now and no longer has to “live by faith and not by sight.” He’s living with the Christ he can actually see and talk with. His questions have been or are being answered, not just through the written words of Scripture but by the Lord himself, face to face. No more dry spells, not ever! He has received the fresh understanding I’d prayed for, with benefits beyond measure.

Thinking about that this morning was another early Christmas gift to me. And the Lord reminded me of something else, difficult to absorb but nevertheless true. In order for Nate to have been given the gift of no more spiritual dry spells, the gift of living in the Lord’s presence where a person’s understanding is expanded like never before, he had to go through cancer and then through death’s door. If I look at it this way, his cancer actually was a gift after all. That’s hard to believe, but it turned out to be Nate’s avenue to vibrant, fulfilled living such as none of us has ever known. And this is superior to any gift that could ever be found under a Christmas tree… even a much desired BB gun for a ten year old boy.

“If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.” (Philippians 1:22-23)

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)