Heartache Headquarters

Yesterday we left the biblical Peter on an all-night fishing trip aching to be with Jesus, not sure it would ever happen again. After a miserable night of fishing failure (and probably confusion over what he would do with his future), all of a sudden his greatest longing materialized on the beach – a wonderfully familiar voice calling across the water to him!

Jesus calls to the men

Could it be? Did he dare hope? When their fishing net miraculously filled with fish, he knew, and from the core of his heart the ache exploded into fervent glee. It was so overpowering he threw himself into the sea, swimming wildly toward shore and his beloved Friend. Peter no longer cared about the monster-sized catch of fish, his boat, the other men, or anything other than the Person on the beach.

This is one of those scriptural moments when I envision Jesus throwing his head back and laughing as he watched Peter thrash through the water toward him. Did they embrace when he got there, wet man and dry man?

Jesus had been almost playful the way he’d surprised the men with that net of fish. And it wasn’t lost on them that he worked a second wonder when the strained net didn’t rip.

The whole scene must have been punctuated with shouts of happiness as the men encircled Jesus and reveled in the rich satisfaction of being with him again. Proverbs 13:19 says, “The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul,” a truth written all over these disciples on that day.

As I studied this passage, God asked me a question: “Margaret, do you long to see Jesus as much as Peter did?”

“Sure!” my heart answered. “Of course!”

Missing Nate

But then came his second question: “As much as you long to see Nate?”

“Well,” I thought, avoiding the answer, “when my heart aches to see Nate again, the longing will never be satisfied on earth as it was for those disciples. So of course I’m excited about seeing him in heaven.”

On and on my mental reasoning went. “I miss the daily companionship of my husband, the one I knew so well. I miss our conversations and his counsel. I miss him coming home at night, and I miss our I-love-you’s. The thought of one day having him back in all those ways sometimes makes me ache to see him.”

The more I thought about it, though, the more I knew something was amiss in my heartache-headquarters. That’s when God asked his last question: “Do you think you could get to know Jesus even better than you knew Nate?”

It was important to think about that, and in my deepest heart, even deeper-down than my sometimes-ache for Nate, I knew that if I made an effort to get to know Jesus better than ever before, the end-result would be a Peter-esque longing for him that would be unmatched by any other… even my longing for Nate.

“Grow in the…. knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 3:18)

Gettin’ Old

Recently I bumped into some friends Nate and I had known in our early days of marriage. They were older than us by about a decade, and we always admired them greatly.

Handshake

I could tell the husband didn’t recognize me, so I said, “It’s Margaret Nyman,” as I shook his hand and smiled.

But nothing.

“From Moody Church?” I added. But he needed more.

“You sent an encouraging letter to me after Nate died.”

And finally it clicked.

“Oh yes! Margaret!” he said, folding me into a hug.

But what he said next was a bit unsettling, though spoken without the slightest tinge of malice. Studying my face he said, “Oh my! It has been a long time since I’ve seen you!”

Not sure how to respond, I just chuckled and turned to greet his wife.

Sometimes the truth arrives as a smack, and I thought about this man’s comment for quite a while. But he was only saying out loud what I’d seen in my mirror every day.

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Doris D.My sister Mary and I have always been fans of Doris Day, an actress who played the wholesome girl-next-door in movies of the ‘50’s and 60’s. We loved her sugar-sweet romantic comedies and were captivated recently when a special-edition magazine about her life hit newsstands.

When we paged to current-day pictures of this once-adorable woman, however, we gasped, responding much like my friend did to me: “Oh my! What happened to her?”

Mary recovered first, and in a quiet voice said, “It comes to all of us.” And that’s the truth of our steadily declining physical selves.

Doris1.jpg

A popular belief these days is that the Baby Boomer generation, approximately 76-million strong, won’t age. Although this group “got wild” in their teens and twenties, eventually they brought national attention to health food and were responsible for starting the running craze.

They shun retirement and retirement homes, and news commentators have noted Boomers are in a state of denial about their own aging and death, preferring instead to “think about it later.” But deep down, they know it’ll come.

It’s not that each of us didn’t have a grand beginning. What could be more remarkable than God “knitting us together in our mothers’ wombs”? (Psalm 139) If we stockpile enough years, though, Mary’s statement becomes everybody’s bottom line: “It comes to all of us.”

But there is an up-side. Spurgeon says it well: “Our bodies humble us, and that is about the best thing they do for us.” Since God values humility, maybe that’s the whole reason he designed the aging process as he did.

So, no matter how many old friends don’t recognize us through our wrinkles, we mustn’t despair. For now, it’s a healthy humbling, and some day? It’s all going to come to a delightful conclusion:

“The Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will [when he returns] transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” (Philippians 3:20-21)

Who?

Nate and I were privileged to have 7 children. These 4 sons and 3 daughters are second only to God in the ranking of blessings in our lives. We also lost one child to miscarriage at 11 weeks, but I think often of this 8th child, wondering who he or she was.

Three daughtersFour sons

 

 

 

 

I remember the day we announced to our then-six children that someone new was joining our family.

TreasureI wrote clues and taped them to the underside of each dinner plate in a mini-treasure hunt. After we’d eaten, they read them, oldest to youngest, ending with the news of baby-treasure.

I believe this tiny baby, less than 2” long at the time of his or her death, was already as fully a person as our other 7. The hair and eye color had been established, along with his or her personality and temperament. The DNA was complete, and by God’s breath, an eternal soul had, I believe, been placed within him or her.

Some people would find those statements ludicrous, but knowing God as I do and believing his Word to be an accurate representation of who he is, I know they’re true. One day I’ll receive answers to my questions about #8 and will, beyond that, get to have a vibrant relationship with him or her. It’s a lovely, satisfying thought.

I’ve always been impressed with how different each of our children is from the others, despite being members of the same family. They’re all Nymans, sharing a certain family resemblance, but as in every family, no two are alike, a credit to the Lord’s bottomless creativity. As each one came along, my question for God was always, “Who else might be coming?”

Whoever he wanted to send, we wanted to meet. And get to know.

10 week feet

Maybe that’s why my thoughts of #8 are sometimes frustrating. I know virtually nothing about this person other than that he or she was a Nyman due to be born in late October, 1989. I’ve missed him or her for 23 years. But God’s choice was that we not parent this one, and I trust him enough to know his reasons were good ones.

Besides, he hasn’t completely eliminated my relationship with #8, only postponed it for a while. For Nate that postponement has ended, and sometimes I picture Jesus introducing the two of them. Although God has told us our heavenly relationships won’t be parent-child or husband-wife, he has also let us know we’ll share a depth of relationship with one another that will be more meaningful than anything earthly life has to offer.

And now, as the next generation is coming forth, I’m thrilled to see God’s continuing handiwork as he creates one unique individual after another, each one a wonder.

“You, our Lord and God… created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” (Revelation 4:11)