While Birgitta and I were on our college search trip, Jack became a city pooch, bunking in the girls’ Chicago apartment with Louisa and relishing a banquet of tantalizing doggie smells in a new neighborhood. When Louisa called us to say she saw blood in Jack’s stool, my heart clutched; “Oh no! Not Jack, too!”

It’s been six months since Nate died, two weeks since Val died and a week since Merrilyn. Would Jack die now, too? He’s in his canine prime, only seven years old. We’ve often referred to him as “Barrel Boy” because of his thick mid-section. If he was sick, wouldn’t he be losing weight?

Two days before we knew of Nate’s all-over cancer, a test revealed blood in his stool. The doctor asked, “Have you recently eaten a big slab of rare beef?” Although Nate hadn’t, I hoped Jack had.

“Let’s not panic,” I told the girls after I’d already leaped to the worst-case-scenario. Although I didn’t feel angry with God, I did point a giant question mark in his direction. Could he possibly have in mind to take Jack away from us right now? Wouldn’t that be asking us to cope with more than we could handle?

We decided to wait until Jack produced again before taking action. When he did, the whole mess looked unhealthy and was laced with bright pink blood. But it was Sunday, which meant we’d have to use a pricey animal emergency room to get a professional opinion.

“If he’s sick,” I said, “one more day won’t hurt. Let’s wait till tomorrow and see what happens.”

Birgitta and I monitored the situation from Iowa and western Illinois via Louisa’s poop-reports, hearing the good news on the third day that his movements were blood-free. Jack has been himself since then, so we’re chalking it up to something he ate, maybe a sharp fish bone on the beach. Time may tell a different story, but for now, all is well. 

How many crises are too many? Years ago our pastor’s wife said, “Tragedies usually come in sevens or threes.” I laughed, but she said, “No! I’m serious.” Since then I’ve noticed how misery often does arrive in clumps. People say, “Right now everything’s going wrong in my life!” That’s a clump.

I read yesterday of a woman who bargained with God. She prayed, “If you protect my children from all harm, I’ll be thankful every day for the other blessings in my life.” Her son got meningitis and had to be hospitalized, and she blamed God for failing to hold up his end of her bargain. When the infection caused more pain than the young boy could stand, doctors put him in a coma. When his body bruised all over as a result of broken blood vessels, they said he might die. When both of his legs had to be amputated to save his life, his mom railed against God in fury.

God is many things, but a bargainer he isn’t. There’s nothing we can offer him that he needs but doesn’t already have. My guess is that trying to manipulate him is a fast track to angry, because such arrogance is an assertion of power we don’t actually own. Bargaining assumes we are somehow on God’s level, a massive miscalculation.

I’m free to pour out my concerns to God, ask all the questions I want and express nervousness about clumped tragedies, but if I try to strike a deal, I’m in for a mess of trouble.

The bottom line is, if God chose to take Jack now, we could wonder why and feel sadness but would have to let God be God. He loves us, and I’m confident he wouldn’t let such a thing happen without an important reason. I also know that while we were going through it, we could count on him to share our sorrow. In any case, it’s his deal, not mine.

“The Lord helps the fallen and lifts those bent beneath their loads.” (Psalm 145:14)

The day Louisa was born was significant for Nate and me, because she came to us after a tubal ligation… and reversal. Shortly after Nate and I turned 40, we decided it would be wise not to have any more children.

We already had four sons and one daughter, ages 3 to 13, and were “over the hill” in terms of baby-bearing years. Our home was busy, and we were thankful for our big family. When a hernia necessitated surgery for me, we decided to have a tubal done simultaneously. The two surgeons worked in tandem, and when it was all over, life continued to rush forward at a happy pace.

A year or so later, however, I found myself unable to sleep, churning over our decision to become sterilized. Nate and I had recognized each of our children as a valuable gift from God, yet we’d said, by the tubal, “No more of these blessings, Lord. Thanks, but no thanks.”

After four months of thinking, praying and talking to doctors, we had the tubal reversed. The microsurgeon who did it couldn’t understand why we wanted more children, but we didn’t see it that way. All we were doing was putting the matter back into God’s hands after mistakenly taking it into our own. Whether or not we had more children would be up to him, not us. After all, he was the Author of life.

The day Louisa was born, one family member was especially elated. Linnea, sandwiched between four brothers, had prayed for a sister every night for eight years. At age 11, she was close to giving up, but that’s when Louisa came along, the fulfillment of a little girl’s dream.

The day of the birth, Nate wanted to tell the kids of her arrival one-on-one. He especially hoped to see Linnea’s reaction to getting a sister. He drove from the Chicago hospital to her school in Arlington Heights where she and her pals were on the playground after lunch. Since we’d left for the hospital before school, the children all knew our new baby would arrive before the end of that day. Linnea took one look at Nate walking onto the playground and raced over to hear the news.

When he said, “You have a sister!” she and all her friends began screaming and jumping up and down as a unit, rejoicing over her good fortune. As Proverbs says, “The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul.” (13:19) Louisa’s arrival was sweet to all of us. Best of all, she was God’s response to putting our family size back into his capable hands. During the time when I was sterile, we often wondered whether or not God wanted to send us another little somebody to raise. When Louisa was born, we got our answer.

Today she turned 22, and I can’t imagine life without her. She’s a family-loyal person, deeply appreciative of each relationship, working to keep them current. And it’s my great joy to watch her relationship with the Lord deepen as the days pass. Although she’s been hit with numerous physical and emotional traumas in the last few years and might have railed against God because of them, she’s chosen to draw closer to him instead. In turn, her faith has deepened. For me, there is no greater pleasure than watching this unfold.

God truly was good to us on April 28, 1988.

“Who is like the Lord our God? He settles the barren woman in her home as a happy mother of children. Praise the Lord.” (Psalm 113:5, 9)

As Birgitta and I entered the cottage under the weight of our traveling burdens tonight, I set mine down near the fireplace. My eyes fell on Nate’s wooden cane in the corner there, standing just where he left it nearly six months ago. Although Hospice had provided a wheeled walker and a wheelchair for his use and safety, he preferred the cane.

I remember the day Nate received that cane from the University of Illinois in the fall of 1969, when he was a second year law student. My memory is muddy as to the reason some of the students got canes and white straw hats to go with them, but the day he brought them home to our little apartment, his mood was upbeat and silly.

The two of us had fun with his cane and hat that night, laughing at each other as we attempted stunts and dressed up to snap photos. (Poverty stricken grad students have to find fun wherever they can.)

Tonight the cane represented something entirely different: cancer and weakness. As the days of last October went by, Nate’s ability to support his own weight waned, and he needed assistance to walk and stand. Even then, he pushed himself to take short trips outdoors, several each day. When he first started using the cane, he felt fresh confidence and refused other assistance. But gradually he needed a hand, then two helpers, one on each side, and finally couldn’t continue at all.

Despite the difficulties of these walks, they offered several things to Nate. The weather last fall was spectacular, and the entire neighborhood glowed gold with its backdrop of yellow maples. The exercise did Nate good, helping to keep him relaxed with so much lazy-boy time and no other outlet for his nervous energy. And it was a sweet time of conversation and companionship for whomever was assisting him.

Several of us went on his last walk, which occurred four days before he died. We slowly walked down our narrow lane to the corner, and I was the one holding his hand. He gripped the cane in his other hand and tapped acorns along the way, sometimes using it to bang them open with a sharp blow. We came to the turn in the road, and I suggested we go back, since he was getting wobbly. “We’re not quite at the end yet,” he said. “I’ll tell you when.”

We paced four more steps to a crack that ran across the asphalt. “There,” he said. “Now we turn around.” He wanted to do it “all the way,” just as he’d done before. I had to admire that spunk.

His cane, now resting in the corner gathering dust, was put to good use, both in 1969 and 2009. Once in a while we all need to lean on something when we’re feeling weak. When a hand isn’t enough, we need a cane. When that, too, is insufficient, we climb in a wheelchair, and after that, a bed. And in the end, when nothing at all but weakness remains, we lean, at long last, on God alone.

“Even to your old age I am He, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.” (Isaiah 46:4)