Category Archives: Heaven

Family Similarities

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I love looking at baby pictures of friends’ grandchildren, studying pudgy faces in search of resemblances to parents and grandparents. God often weaves physical characteristics through the generations in a way that’s familial but new.

Grandparents have the delightful perspective of being one-generation-removed from the new babies that arrive. We’re involved with our grands, to be sure, but are no longer on parenting’s center stage.  Watching from the wings, we can observe similarities and differences, strengths and weaknesses that parents are often too busy to see.

As a young mom, my focus was getting the job done, whatever the moment demanded. Pausing to contemplate the inner-child required a slow-down I couldn’t afford. Now, as a grandma, I have the luxury of watching and listening. The more I study children, whether my family’s or others’, the more I appreciate God’s handiwork, particularly his unending design creativity.

Despite similarities through the generations, he never runs out of ways to make each individual unique. After creating trillions of people, he’s still enjoying his work-in-wombs, knitting together DNA strands of infinite variety.

Our family is looking forward to February, 2012, when we’ll get a look at what God has been up to for 9 months within my daughter Linnea. Who is he sending to join our ranks? What family characteristics will come through, and what fresh ideas will God have woven into this new person?

Craving answers to these questions is what’s partially responsible for Nate and I having 7 children. We couldn’t wait to see who else he might put together and send our way. I wish there’d have been more baby-bearing years so we could have had more children, because as our 7 have grown into honorable adults, I continue to be impressed with evidence of God’s creative flare in each of them.

I believe when we delight in the children God sends us, whether by birth, adoption, guardianship or friendship, we’re bringing pleasure to the One who made them. We can study children the same way the Creator stood back and studied the first human ever made. Just like him we can say, “You’re very good!”

This week God handed me a remarkable new thought. Nate has met and gotten to know our miscarried child.

It was a goose-bump moment for me and probably for Nate, too, when they first connected. Heaven is all about relationships, both backwards (past-borns) and forward (future-borns). On earth we’re limited to knowing only 3 or maybe 4 generations, but heavenly camaraderie will have no such limits.

We’ll get to see God-initiated traits and features threading their way through every generation, all the way back to Adam and Eve. And because he made us all in his image, maybe we’ll even be able to see attributes that began as far back as the Father, Son and Spirit! Awesome thought…

“Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous.” (Psalm 139:14)

Dear Nate

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I miss you.

Especially today, because it’s your birthday.

Sometimes my longing to be with you is so strong it grows into an ache that’s hard to handle. One day that longing will melt away, when I travel to be where you are now. That’s comforting.

Two years ago, you and I were still celebrating our birthdays together, an annual double-header. With only 10 days between us, we were the same age 355 days a year. But that calendar has aged me into 66; you locked in at 64. It’s hard to get old without my birthday-buddy.

In August of 2009, cancer wasn’t part of our lives. Mary and Bervin hosted a party for the two of us, remember? And despite ongoing back pain and a mysterious stomach ache, you smiled for the camera.

I never heard you complain about physical pain, not in 43 years of knowing you, but that summer you didn’t feel good. One day you even said you wondered if something other than back problems might be wrong. A month later we found out you were right.

Today I spent time praying about you. Of course you don’t need my prayers in Paradise, but I wanted to thank God for bringing you into my life and for choosing you as my husband, a man who was willing to love me with a 1st Corinthians 13 love as well as to father and support 7 children.

I also re-read journal pages from those days surrounding your birthday two years ago and found something utterly astounding. Your back had become so severe that the highlight of every day had been at 8 pm when you eased yourself onto the bed atop two ice packs placed at the small of your back.

I was concerned about our future, upset by your pain, and worrying about what God was doing (or not doing). So I wrote out a 3 page prayer to him, all about you. Here’s part of it:

Lord, please touch Nate’s body with your supernatural power, I pray. Lift this back misery right out of his life. I cry out to you to bring him to your feet, into your presence, Lord, fully dependent on you.

And that’s where I caught my breath, because that’s exactly what God did! Touched your body… lifted away your pain… brought you to Jesus’ feet… into his presence… dependent on him.

(I bet you’re getting a kick out of this,  probably laughing with joy. Oh how I miss your hearty laugh!)

I know you’re glad I read that journal today and made the God-connection, saw how he’d answered my prayers. Although your departure wasn’t my choice, I want you to know I’m doing ok (partly because I know you’re doing ok). All of the credit goes to God. I don’t know where I’d be without him…

…but I know you can say the same thing.

Happy Birthday, Nate. I love you.

“Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.” (Psalm 90:17)

Winning Approval

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None of us like to be refused permission, but like it or not, the world is full of hoops to jump through in order to win approval.

Some of that jumping takes place at local DMVs, Department of Motor Vehicles. Although today was Birgitta’s last day at home for quite a while, we had to spend several hours working on three stressful projects:

1.  Replacing her misplaced driver’s license

2.  Updating her car’s license plate sticker

3.  Switching the plates from IL to MI

4.  Applying for a car title with her name on it

Before leaving the house, we tallied our documents: birth certificate, two pieces of mail addressed to her, her social security card, the car title, student ID, proof of valid insurance, checkbook. Rumor has it it’s difficult to get approval in the state of Michigan, and we’d already been turned down once for incomplete documentation.

As we clutched our items and drove to the DMV, my mind drifted back to May of 2009, when Nate and I were trying to establish Michigan residency. It was a daisy chain of approvals that had to occur in the correct order: first, register to vote, but that couldn’t happen without getting a driver’s license, which couldn’t happen without Michigan no-fault insurance.

We were excited to be moving to Michigan, anxious to get legal. Nate’s back pain was severe that day, so I drove the 20 miles while he tipped back in his seat, closing his eyes. Once we got there, he made good use of the hour-long wait by setting up Michigan insurance on his cell phone, after which we worked with DMV personnel at separate desks.

At the end of two hours they told me, “Everything’s in order. Here’s your license.” But poor Nate. He heard, “Sorry, big guy. This piece of mail doesn’t qualify,” and was denied. I saw his shoulders drop as he realized he’d have to go through the whole process again.

Two weeks later we returned toting complete documents but found the office closed.

Today Birgitta and I stood together at a high counter at the mercy of the woman across from us. She had the power to approve or disapprove Birgitta’s attempt to become a Michigander. Although the outcome was important since she needed a new license, I thought of another outcome far more critical: approval by God.

All of us want mercy in eternity, and because of Christ’s death in our stead, we can have it. Repentance of sin and belief in this Savior are the only “documents” needed. The biggest difference between getting Michigan citizenship and citizenship in heaven is that we have to prove ourselves in the first case and have already been approved in the second.

This afternoon, despite two major set-backs, we walked out of the DMV with all 4 tasks completed.

As for Nate, when he and I readied to make our third trip there, we learned he wouldn’t need to become a Michigander after all. He was on his way to merciful, pre-approved existence in heaven.

“Am I now trying to win the approval of men or of God?” (Galatians 1:10)