Category Archives: Life’s disappointments

God’s Sneak-Peeks

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Those of us who follow Christ believe him when he says he’s always with us. He also says he’ll never abandon us or fail us and that he surrounds us with his presence. We believe all of it.

The problem comes in trusting this One we can’t see or feel. In our recent days of missing Mary, people have lovingly said, “Hold tight to Jesus’ hand.” Or, “I’m praying you’ll feel God’s everlasting arms around you.”

Both of these word pictures are sanctioned in Scripture, and we want to trust them as real, but there’s no visible proof – and sometimes it’s hard.

hand-of-god

(Michelangelo tried to visualize the invisible, above.)

God knows of our human limitations and the difficulty of relating to an unseen God. After all, Jesus was human, too, and experienced these same limits. Even during his torturous hours on the cross, his cries were to his invisible Father. So how do we bridge this gap? How do we believe he is truly with us?

The answer? It’s by way of the sneak-peeks he gives.

I believe God sometimes demonstrates that he’s close to us in real-time…. in touchable, visible ways. Our part is to notice and ponder what he shows us, deciding for ourselves whether or not to attribute these things to him.

During Mary’s sudden, short decline, he gave us several of these powerful sneak-peeks that we believe indicated his closeness. For example – Julia had given her mom a gardenia plant for Mother’s Day in May.

flower-potMary had put it in a stone-covered pot, writing a Scripture verse around the rim: “Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord Himself, is the Rock eternal.” (Isaiah 26:4)

Through the summer it had bloomed beautifully under Mary’s watchful care. But then her illness escalated, and tending to the gardenia fell by the wayside.

When Julia arrived to care for her mom, she saw that her gardenia-gift was needy. Taking a moment to pluck off the many dead blossoms, she noticed it didn’t have even one promising bud. But then Mary’s illness drew her attention away.

And then Mary went to heaven.

In the painful first hour that followed her death, after Hospice and funeral home personnel had come and gone, none of us knew what to do. Then, as we stood around in the kitchen without a plan, someone said, “Hey! Look at that plant!”

the-gardeniaWe were dumbfounded to see a fully opened, perfectly formed gardenia blossom on Mary’s now-healthy plant.

Some would call that a coincidence or a freak of nature. We’d rather give the credit to our unseen God who uplifted us in a low moment with the assurance that he was close by. And against all logic, we had a sweet-smelling gardenia blossom to prove it.

“Be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)

Collecting Jewels

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Today was a beautiful beach day, something special for Michigan in mid-October. Though the water was cold, the sand was warm, and I had no trouble setting aside my chores for an hour at my favorite place.

Arriving without my beach-buddy of 70+ years, I missed Mary more than ever. But the rhythm of the waves brought comfort, and as I sat in the sun with my eyes closed, my mind drifted back to February of 2014. When Mary received her diagnosis, we heard the word “pancreatic” and jumped to the conclusion she had only 42 days to live…. as Nate had.

But God did it differently this time. We were blessed with three more summers with Mary.

I’m deeply grateful for those bonus beach days next to my sister and for all the words that passed between us during those months – hundreds of conversations we didn’t anticipate having. And as I thought about that today, I knew God was nudging me to feel grateful rather than gloomy.

beach-stonesSo I got up and did something Mary and I had done every summer of our lives. I walked the shoreline hunting for pretty stones, filling a small bag in no time. The way we viewed it, certain rocks were as stunning as jewels, and we have stone-laden shelves, drawers, and closet floors to prove it.

About a week before Mary began her rapid decline, she texted me one morning. “Want to come over and glue some stones?”

When I arrived she was struggling to create a stone-covered votive candle holder.  The challenge was to glue the narrow sides of the rocks to the glass rather than their flat sides. But the stones kept sliding away, ending in one gooey mess after another.

Finally we decided to turn the holder upside-down and start backwards, letting the stones rest on each other as we built them from bottom to the top – which was actually top to bottom. And it worked!

img_4015After making two votives, we celebrated by consuming half a watermelon between us. Neither of us knew this would be our last stoning project, because in less than a month Mary would be gone.

Today, as I walked along, all I could think about was my sister, who was far, far away. While I was picking up rocks, what was she doing?

Then God reminded me that Scripture mentions a “sea like crystal” in heaven, which means there’s probably a beach there, too. Is it possible that every stone on that beach, every grain of celestial sand, is an actual jewel, sparkling in the light of the Son? If that’s true, then I think I can safely say I know what Mary was doing today.

“In front of the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal.” (Revelation 4:6)

Advice from Mary

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A few days before Mary died, I was in my kitchen peeling apples to make two pies for her family. As I thought of my sister and the hundreds of apple pies she’d made over the years, I couldn’t help but smile.  She would “throw them together” while carrying on a complete conversation with her guests…. all of whom would stand around the kitchen counter, fascinated by what she was doing. She never measured anything, just operated on instinct. And her pies always turned out perfectly.

Then suddenly, while remembering Mary and her pies, I started to cry – not over the memories but over a baking question.

bits-of-butterI couldn’t remember whether or not I should put bits of butter atop the apples before adding the top crust, and I desperately wanted to ask my sister, the pie expert. But she was a few blocks away, lying quietly in her bed, in a deep sleep. And she couldn’t give me any advice.

After putting my pie in the oven, I went to spend time with Mary. She “let” me hold her relaxed hand, and I leaned close to her sleeping face so she could hear me. “This morning I couldn’t remember if I should add butter to my apple pie or not. What do you do?”

Of course she didn’t answer, but I continued. “Would bits of butter make it soupy or not? I really want my pie to turn out like yours.”

apple-pieAs she slept, I kept talking, reminding her of a camp auction years ago and a comical bidding war over an apple pie Mary had contributed. The winner had gladly paid $25 for it, testifying that he’d tasted Mary’s pies before and knew it would be worth the money.

Hoping Mary was silently giggling in her heart at that memory, I tried to make a soft giggle for both of us — but it wouldn’t come out. My vision was blurring again, and the process going on in front of me wasn’t the least bit funny. That’s when talking about apple pie suddenly seemed out of place.

So I just sat there, studying Mary’s pretty face, listening to her regular breathing. And flooding my mind were a hundred ways I was going to need my sister’s advice after she was gone.

granny-smithsThat evening my apple pie did get eaten, but the second pie never got made. That pile of Granny Smith apples is still sitting on my kitchen counter as they had been that day before Mary died. Without her advice about the bits of butter, I don’t even want to make it. And now that she’s gone, heavy on my mind is something else: How many other questions did I fail to ask?

And now it’s too late.

“The righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God.” (Ecclesiastes 9:1)