Category Archives: Submitting to God

Nelson’s Journal, Entry #3

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When Nelson died seven weeks ago, one of the gifts that came to his wife Ann Sophie was ownership of his journals. He journaled faithfully throughout his adult life, often working out problems with words on paper, committing them to God as he went along.

A few years ago he switched to journaling on his computer, and it’s these entries Ann Sophie and I have been looking at recently. Nelson never made his journal public, but as we’ve been reading them, we’re learning how he coped with his lung cancer diagnosis. How does it feel to be told you have Stage 4 cancer? How do you cope in the days and months that follow? How do you bear this heavy burden, day after day?

As Nelson tapped out his thoughts each morning, usually at around 5:00 AM, he wrote words that might help us all—should we ever hear a similar diagnosis while sitting in a doctor’s office. The entries are a combination of feelings, scriptures, and prayers.

In our recent blogs we posted Nelson’s thoughts from the day he heard he had cancer, and the day following that (5/10 & 5/12, 2022). Our plan is to back up into January, before cancer, and move through his his last year, posting entries every few days. Maybe he’ll show all of us how best to respond to the shocking news of lethal disease, and what to do next.

January 19, 2022

“Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O Lord! Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in the way. He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way. All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies. For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great. Who is the man who fears the Lord? Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose. His soul shall abide in well-being, and his offspring shall inherit the land. The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant.” (Psalm 25)

Lord, you have really done this for me. Seeing a domestic violence thing in the paper the other day reminded me of where I would be if you hadn’t stepped in and offered me a way out of drinking, and then offered me a way out of a bad relationship. It’s real.

You really do the things you promise in the Bible. Thank you for answering my prayers. I will bank on the promises in the verses above. You have forgotten the sins of my youth, taught me the way to go, pardoned my guilt even in sin after the start of the sober years. And now you have given me offspring.

To see them inherit the land would be amazing and a total miracle. Thank you for little Willard Nelson Nyman who is soon coming into the world. Thank you for what is in a name.

Thank you for Papa [Willard Nathan Nyman] and what he taught me and how in sharing my testimony with the grounds team at Denny’s, I was able to refer to his words about not making decisions only for money. I pray for integrity with money. I can see the temptation to want more than I need, but I do have a family now and don’t want to sell us short. Please show me how to lead them. I know you will.

Should we buy something in Michigan to prepare to move there, or just wait? You know the future, Lord, and know what will happen. I pray for wisdom to know what is wrong and what’s right.

“Who is the man who fears the Lord? Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose.” (Psalm 25:12)

 

A Bad Phone Call

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After sharing a couple of Nelson’s journal entries from one year ago, we’ll go back to the day when he first heard the word cancer. We’ll see how his emotions responded after being told about it. He had gone to the emergency room after struggling to breathe, while also suffering from sharp pains in other areas of his body. His coughing wouldn’t stop, and getting a doctor to see him quickly on the big Island of Hawaii wasn’t possible. So it was the ER or nothing.

Doctors there admitted him and were in the process of gathering data through tests when Nelson first heard the word cancer. He was alone in a hospital bed, because Ann Sophie was home with newborn Will. Covid restrictions in Hawaii were still extensive, and she was running into problems when trying to visit Nelson in the hospital. But she was determined and ended up finding a nurse who “looked the other way,” allowing her to walk in.

The uncertainty of his symptoms was bad enough, but then he got a phone call with some terrible news.

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May 10 2022

Today is day 2 at the hospital, my second time coming in to the ER because the pain and coughing was so severe. Annso pretty much insisted I do it. I went to campus and taught the Korean Foundation School then came home, ate a nice salad with her and came up here [to the hospital]. 

Once I was here, there was this really young doctor who zeroed right in on fluid in the lungs. Once I told him I was coughing so hard at night and that I was so out of breath, he ran and got a mini-ultrasound machine and found fluid in my heart cavity and lungs. That led them to do tons of tests, including a CT scan showing a tumor or growth in my neck and a few lymph nodes in the lungs about 11 mm at the biggest. 

All of a sudden the fluid makes sense, the cough, and none of it has to do with the thyroid, which is what everyone has been looking at. So the admitting doc calls me on the phone and tells me she really thinks it’s cancer and so does the tech who does these scans all the time.

They will test more tomorrow, including a full body CT scan to see what else is going on. Maybe there are things growing in other places, not that these places aren’t severe enough. 

When she told me that, I could hardly believe it, but at the same time, I could. All the intense pain and coughing now add up. I even said a couple times, “If I was told I had stage 3 lung cancer, I would believe it, because it feels like I think that would feel.”

It’s yet to be confirmed, and I would love for her to be wrong, but everyone is praying and it seems a likely scenario. 

Lots of things come into perspective all of a sudden, but I try not to go worse-case-scenario right away. I think of what happened to Papa and wonder, “Will I be alive this time next year? Will I be alive at Christmas? Will I be alive still even in August?” Unknown for all of us, but especially me.

I don’t know anything, but the people I worry about the most are Annso and Will. What will they do? How hard for them will it be? I would have the easier situation, and they’d be left to pick up the pieces. How terrible. How terrible for her to be turned into a single Mom so soon after our answer to prayer and miracle [baby].

I don’t even want to ask WHY. Doesn’t matter, and no answer will come to that one anyway. I just think of those who went before me and how they did it. Hopefully it doesn’t come to that and I can beat it, whatever “it” is.

God, help me to know what to do now, to be the best man to Annso, strong and optimistic, someone she can rely on and knows what to do, the one who may not know, but knows who to trust. I pray for strength. I pray for healing, for a miracle, for different results on tomorrow’s test. For there to even be a mistake somehow. Thank you for getting Annso in here today. That was a miracle. I pray she gets in tomorrow, too. I pray for supernatural strength for her, too. What will happen to us? To me? To Will? Tomorrow will worry about itself. Amen. 

“Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down.” (Proverbs 12:25)

Obituary of Nelson Hamilton Nyman

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Nelson Hamilton Nyman was a young man who had much to live for with a wife he adored and a new baby boy, his first child. He fought to live with all the determination of a warrior, but in the end, God had a different plan and took him to heaven “early.” On Christmas morning, 2022, Nelson quietly left us.

He was born in Chicago, on January 26, 1973, weighing in at 10 pounds. His noteworthy start was an indication that he would live a large life all the way through, and he did. His family raised him in the Chicago suburbs where he attended Christian Liberty Academy through his elementary years, followed by Hersey High School, both in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Nelson loved working with his hands and working hard, especially outdoors. He delighted in solving problems, whether by repairing an old car, scraping moss off a roof, or best of all, helping others mend relationships.

He and a cousin began a lawn mowing business while still in high school, learning how to do far more than just cut grass. Because both of them were of Swedish heritage, they named their business Scandinavian Lawn. Through the years, they mastered every gardening skill there is and also learned how to balance books and how to keep customers happy. In and out of college during those years, Nelson eventually graduated from Anderson University in Indiana with a Bachelor’s Degree in psychology and a minor in criminal justice, but a desk job was not for him.

In choosing a place to settle after college, he decided to sell his Illinois landscaping business to his brother and move to Tennessee—where the summers are long and a landscaper can work most of the year. Nelson loved country music and landed in the musical capitol of the nation, Nashville. There he began landscaping in earnest, growing his business to include several employees and 80 customers. Even with this success, though, his heart was being tugged in a new direction.

As a little boy of five, Nelson invited Jesus into his heart and life. He attended Sunday school and church every week with his family and found it all fascinating. Throughout his growing-up years he remained conscious of God, His Word, and how he ought to live as a Christian. In his early adulthood, however, he sometimes strayed but would always find his way back to the Lord.

About then, he met several friends who had spent time in Kona, Hawaii, at a Christian organization called Youth With A Mission (YWAM) and wondered if he should try it, too. During the off-season of landscaping, he ventured to Hawaii, taking classes and working at the YWAM campus in Kona. To his great delight, he discovered he could travel the world with YWAM while spreading the good news of God’s Gospel as he went. So once again Nelson sold Scandinavian Lawn and committed to working in the YWAM ministry. He led different groups through a variety of countries and cultures, filling an assortment of positions while 13 years passed. He loved his work, each new day different from the one before, but more than that, he grew to love Jesus Christ with a passion that never dimmed.

Eventually he took a position that was anchored in Kona, running a YWAM program with 50-100 young adults from all over the world, guiding them spiritually while managing their work hours on the campus. It was in this position that lightning struck when he met a new staffer from Germany. Ann Sophie was assigned to work alongside Nelson, and it wasn’t long before co-workers were commenting about the electricity between them. A year later they were married in Kona, both dedicated to continuing their missionary work there—now as a team.

But last March, Nelson began feeling poorly. Their baby boy, Will, had just been born, and he was overwhelmed with joy to have become a father. The day of his cancer diagnosis was a challenge beyond all others, a crushing disappointment invading the happiest time of his life. In May of this year they left Hawaii, landing at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for treatment. God chose a path for him that neither he, Ann Sophie, nor little Will would ever have chosen, but he decided not to ask “why” but to leave the reason with God. No doubt his new home in Paradise includes satisfying answers to many of his questions. His family will have to wait to hear them, but they are confident that one day they’ll all be together again. Their farewell wasn’t permanent….just “goodbye for now.”

Nelson is survived by his wife (Ann Sophie), his son (Willard Nelson), his mother (Margaret), six siblings( Lars, Linnea [m. Adam], Klaus, Hans [m. Katy], Louisa [m. Teddy] and Birgitta [m. Spencer]), 15 nieces and nephews, two uncles (Kenneth and Bervin), and 16 cousins.