In this entry Nelson takes a backward look at the decisions they’ve made in the last few months since he became sick. As he says, it’s funny how things work out.

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September 25, 2022

It’s funny how different life can become and how fast. To think that Ralph and Astrid have an apartment rented across the hallway from us and we are closing on a house October 26 and planning on living here in Rochester, MN was unthinkable a year ago at this time. Why would we do that? Minnesota? Ralph and Astrid living there for 6 months?

That’s why it’s good God introduces stuff to us little by little. His dreams are bigger and much different from ours. And if we give him the chance, we usually like his dreams better than ours. Funny how that works.

And to think we might actually own a triplex right in town, 2 blocks from the Mayo Clinic. It’s not the nicest building in the world, but it’s something we can mess with and fix up without tons of pressure to make it perfect.

I’m thankful to be able to be practice being landlords on it. We already even have 2 tenants. How cool is that? Leases signed and everything.

You are so good to us Lord, and now give us a job and everything. I pray for wisdom to know if we should pursue the occupational therapy thing with Annso at the Mayo. They have jobs asking for three, 12 hour days and 1 weekend a month, which translates into full time with benefits and everything.

Should we go after that, Lord? Does that ask too much from us as a family? Could we still work with BBC like that? Could I be a part time pastor or something else ministry-related? Do we even need to worry about that? Thank you that my health is getting better and better, less sickness in my body.

There is nothing like being healthy and feeling that way. I can’t even describe how good it is to wake up without nausea in your stomach and to be able to enjoy a cup of coffee without feeling like you’re going to vomit.

Thank you for the docs and for the access to them you gave us, Lord. Thank you for getting us out of Kona so fast.

6 pm:

Mark and Brenda came by today. They were a blessing as always. They brought us gifts and gift cards, thinking of us in every way, even not wanting to overstay their welcome. We have such a rich heritage of people we know through YWAM and in other ways.

The church this morning met outside. We sat there a little chilly, but those good hard-working northern people dig right in and make it happen. I like it here. We know so many people and pouring ourselves into the church and YWAM has made that happen.

God you really make good on your promise that we receive many more times what we have given up in this life and the next—fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, houses, etc. You outdo yourself.

I would say that my health today is so-so. I can do most things, but I sat out the Mexican meal for lunch and took a nap instead. It was the right move.

Annso, Will, and I went for a walk in the cool of the evening, which was nice. It’s really turning to fall. I think the summer is over for sure now, but I’m happy for that. The leaves will start changing soon and we can enjoy what we’ve been missing for all these years in Hawaii.

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“Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father….” (James 1:17)

A note: I’m traveling again now, so we’ll be back with more of Nelson’s journal posts in about a week. 

While Nelson tries to assess his current situation, his mind is well focused and logical. But his dreams aren’t always as reliable and can be upsetting, as he describes in this entry.

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September 25, 2022

I had the same dream again last night. I was to preach but couldn’t find the notes and didn’t have the right clothes. Lots of people everywhere. I think it was one of the Johnson boys’ weddings [The Johnson boys are cousins.]

Then it changed to an Asian couple. They were dressed up like it was the hunger games… huge glasses, elaborate costumes, the works. Pastor Lutzer was there too. I came up with the wilderness and the trip through it when I couldn’t get it together.

The microphone didn’t work right, and once I started, they cut me off with a song. When I wanted to just sit down, they showed me notes people were taking and wanted me to finish. It was so stressful. I had no shirt for a while too. Couldn’t find one, no one would lend me one. Sort of like the story of the Bible where the guy climbs into the wedding by the wrong entrance and gets booted.

I’m so glad I don’t have any preaching gigs right now. In the dream it was so bizarre and was impossible to succeed. I’m still hung over from it, sitting here at the kitchen table trying to have my usual quiet time before Annso and baby Will get up.

Reading in Hebrews about unbelief. God was offended by the unbelief of Israel in the wilderness and told them they would not enter his rest because of their unbelief:

“See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today,’ so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.” (Hebrews 3:12-14)

It talks about falling away because of the deceitfulness of sin. I see that with money, with the content we put into our minds, with the things we go after. We are prone to wander, and but for the grace of God, we will drift away. I pray, Lord, you would help us to hold firm to our “original conviction” to the end. It’s hard to do it.

I was thinking about tithing. There is the temptation to back off or to hold back. I pray Lord, for the conviction in those things that are important to you. Help us not to major on the minors, to strain out a gnat and swallow a camel, but to follow your leading in everything we do, even if it hurts.

Thank you for the house, for the blessing it seems you are giving us, the project, the influence, the change of location so we are right by the Mayo, a place to live that’s just as cheap as where we are now and probably a whole lot safer.

Thank you that you trust us with it like you trusted us with the church and Hale Ola. Thank you for our church this morning and the people who are in it and for their help. Thank you that I’m not at the hospital today, that we can be together as a family and go to church.

I pray for our visit with Mark and Brenda, and we are grateful for friends like them who travel to see and encourage us. I pray for wisdom to know what to be involved in and what to sit out, so I am not sitting here regretting going too hard later on.

We are fragile and we need your wisdom, God, in what to do, in all sorts of areas. We think we know what to do and how to spend our money, but we don’t. You promise you are willing to give us that heavenly wisdom if we ask, believe, and don’t doubt, so I do that now. I ask for that heavenly wisdom. I pray the house can be a blessing and that we are not consumed by it, making it a hindrance. Amen.

(…to be continued)

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“He leads the humble in what is right.” (Psalm 25:9)

Nelson is feeling his humanity in new ways after waves of doubt sweep over him. He writes out Bible verses and also a paragraph from a Bible commentary as he tries to sort it out.

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September 24, 2022

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity, so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death— that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. (Hebrews 2:14-15)

Christ became man, and died, to deliver them from those perplexities of soul, by letting them know that death is not only a conquered enemy, but a reconciled friend, not sent to hurt the soul, or separate it from the love of God, but to put an end to all their grievances and complaints, and to give them a passage to eternal life and blessedness; so that to them death is not now in the hand of Satan, but in the hand of Christ—not Satan’s servant, but Christ’s servant—has not hell following it, but heaven to all who are in Christ. ~ Matthew Henry Commentary.

Held in slavery by their fear of death is something I have had for sure. And now, having been as close to death as ever in the ICU, I was shocked at how little peace I had, how much fear I had, even as a believer, that I didn’t feel all that ready.

I have wondered about that and lots of people have asked me about it. “How was that? How did you feel?” I don’t really have the answer. I’d love to say that I had all this peace and heard the angels singing “in the sweet by and by” and maybe they weren’t because I wasn’t actually dying, but I found it disturbing.

There is still doubt, still fear, still uncertainty about my eternal destination. I bet so many Christians think and feel that way. None of us wants to admit it, but faith is not easy to come by. You just live your life acting and speaking as if you know you will spend eternity with Jesus because you are forgiven. What else can you do?

If it’s sinful to be fearful of death, I wonder how any of us will do. We are just finite people who worry about stuff like that, depending on our personalities. There have been times when this disease of cancer has been such a burden and the disease of alcoholism too, that I have wanted death just to end and destroy the two of those.

I figure whether things go well after death or not, at least those will be over… more like in the commentary above.

Thank you Lord, for Annso who just came out with the little boy and reminded me not to think too heavy in the morning. Thank you for earthly things that can help me to forget about the spiritual things. Sometimes I wonder if all the worry about heaven and hell gave me cancer in the first place. I have been disturbed by that stuff all my life.

Lord, the only resolution I have found is to keep busy with other things. Just put my head down, work, and try to be a good husband and father. Obsessing on it doesn’t seem to get you anywhere. Maybe it drives you into a career of ministry. Maybe it drives you to more prayer. I don’t know.

Thank you for my good friends, Jeremy, Donavan, Ken, Brian, Rob, Derek, and others who “get me,” who don’t hold things against me.

Thank you for family and especially my siblings and how many of them there are. How cool is it that we are so many and have had relatively copacetic relationships over the years.

Thank you for Mom and the example she sets, that she is coming to stay here with me while Annso is going to Germany. I’m surprised how much I’m looking forward to that. Maybe just a break in the routine. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I never know how much time Mom and I will have. We didn’t get much when I was there over Labor Day.

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“The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me.” (Psalm 138:8)