When Nate and I met, I was 5’ 5” and weighed 187 pounds, too much for me. But I was a college senior in charge of my own menu for the first time,  happily living on the “Three C’s” (Cake, Cookies and Candy).

There was only one problem. I was picking up weight like a snowman being rolled on a good packing day. Nothing fit right, and I felt like an inflated balloon.

It was the sixties, and a brand new dieting idea had just arrived: Metrecal, a flavored liquid touted as “a meal in a can.” A little bit of will power and lots of Metrecal, and they said the weight would fall away like fur off a shedding dog. So several friends and I suffered through multiple cans of Metrecal every day while studying and attending classes, then spent our evenings rewarding our self-control by driving the neon lights: McDonalds, Mister Donut, 31 Flavors and Burger King.

Then I met Nate, and as fate would have it, he liked chubby! Although Twiggy was the reed-thin beauty standard of the day, Nate was more of a Rembrandt man. He believed women should be soft and round, everything the late sixties world said was unattractive. I was a blessed woman, probably the only bride in the country who didn’t go on a diet before her wedding.

Throughout our marriage Nate held true to his position. Because I moved through seven pregnancies, I was fat a great deal of the time. He liked that. When I’d work hard to slim down afterwards he’d say, “Aren’t you getting too thin? Why don’t you put on a few pounds?”

What’s the proper attitude toward weight gain and loss? After a lifetime of yo-yo dieting, I can honestly say the only wise goal is to eat healthy. For me that doesn’t taste as good as the Three C’s. The fact that “healthy” is always the right choice is pretty hard to swallow.

Last week I went to the doctor for an annual physical. After listening to a reprimand (“You’re 14 years late on your colonoscopy”), I successfully opted out of an EKG and several other routine tests but agreed to a blood draw for a general health panel. Friday the doctor called with results. Everything was fine except my cholesterol count, much too high.

“This could get serious,” he warned. “Plaque causes strokes or heart attacks.” He quizzed me about any changes I’d made in my eating habits over the last two years, since my count had been good back then. I couldn’t think of a thing.

Then it hit me: rice cakes and peanut butter. In the last two years I’ve become an addict, enjoying four or five of them for every breakfast, occasional lunches and sporadic dinners. There’s nothing wrong with rice cakes. Its the multiple tablespoons of PB that have done me in.

So here I am, once again faced with that biblical principle of doing the right dietary thing. “Three months,” the doctor said. “Drop ten points each month, and we’ll re-test you in June. If you’re not down by 30, it’s medicine for you.”

So today’s been rough. Breaking a bad habit isn’t easy. What do they say… six weeks? Ouch. But our girls made a good point over the weekend. “Mom, if something happened to you so soon after Papa, that would be really bad.”

And of course they’re right. They did their part to help me get started by carting off the two giant jars of Jif I’d just purchased. I do want to act wisely and eat healthy, and I’m determined to drop 30 cholesterol points by June. More importantly, I want to live according to scriptural principles, in this case, moderation.

”If you find honey, eat just enough— too much of it, and you will vomit.” (Proverbs 25:16)

(Would honey on a rice cake be bad for cholesterol?)

This afternoon, I sat down to do what I do every January but hadn’t gotten around to doing yet this year. Like many people, I transfer birthdays year to year with a colored marker.

As I paged through the months of 2010 writing 89 names on their special squares, I came to Nate’s birthday in August.

Thankfully Louisa and Birgitta were sitting nearby to keep me from slipping, and I wrote his name down as if he would be with us: “Nate – 65”

After our Chicago-based children had departed, I returned to the calendar to finish. Splashed all over the month of October was the green script detailing Nate’s rapid decline. When I got to November 3^rd, the day he died, I wished the girls were still nearby. But tears are cleansing, and eleven tissues later, I felt much better. I wrote “Nate gone: 1 year.”

Nate’s cancer and death was a test God permitted, but the test didn’t end on November 3^rd. It’s still ongoing for each of us. I think of it like the grueling ACT, SAT and GRE tests of school days where one subject would end and another would begin. Not until every section had been completed were we allowed to consider it done.

Nate’s cancer diagnosis was Part I of this test. His 42 day battle was Part II. His death was Part III. The many changes and continuing sorrow are Part IV. As with the ACT, SAT and GRE, we may get breaks between testing sections, but sure-as-we’re born, another test will follow. The only one of us completely exempt from testing is Nate.

This afternoon I sat for a long time thinking about life’s tests. Unlike in school testing, we aren’t being asked for facts. Rather each test is to prove our allegiance. What or who do we live for? Where do we get the strength to keep going?

And another important question, who’s grading the tests?

The score-keeper is God, of course. Those of us who know him personally want to pass his tests with flying colors for one reason: we love him. But I’m fairly sure the greatest benefit of God’s testing program is not for him at all but for us.

As each set of challenges comes, in our case Nate’s death, we have two choices. 1) We can look to God for “tutoring” to get us through it, or 2) we can shake a fist at him screaming “How dare you!”

Both responses involve deep pain, but the first also includes encouragement and hope from the Tutor, while the second brings dissatisfaction and bitterness from the student. One proves we have a strong faith in God. The other should make us wonder.

Jesus offers a great example. When facing death for millions of sins he never committed, he pleaded with God to exempt him. Unlike the life-tests we experience, this was a torment beyond our comprehension. But when God didn’t change the plan, Jesus willingly changed everything about his own point of view. His trust in God held him, and he came through with a perfect score.

Our family’s test, losing Nate “early” to a disease we couldn’t stop, is insignificant compared to the test Jesus had to take. How could we shake a fist at God after watching his Son experience the cross?

Through Nate’s death we were all given a chance to see what’s buried deep within us. Is our faith real or is it all talk? Just as the ACT, SAT and GRE score sheets tell us where we stand academically, our response to a life-test indicates where we stand with God. Personally, I want to be sure of what’s on my score sheet.

Hanging my calendar back on its nail tonight, I knew that some day, when my name and death are written on a specific calendar square, the only test that will matter at all will be the one Jesus passed. Because of that, I’ll be able to join Nate and all the others who will never have to take another test again.

“The Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. It is the Lord your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him.” (Deuteronomy 13:3b-4)

Our son Klaus is very good at making plans. Maybe that’s why he’s never lacked for friends. I’ve overheard many conversations among his pals that have gone like this.

Person #1: “So, what should we do tonight?”

Person #2: “Oh, I don’t know. Whatever you want.”

Person #3: “It doesn’t matter to me.”

Person #4:  “I’m easy. Whatever the rest of you want.”

Finally Klaus would say, “How ‘bout if I call and make a reservation at ________ and then we’ll text so-and-so to see if he wants to meet us there at 8:00. After we eat, we can go bowling at ________. They’re open till midnight. Let’s take so-and-so’s car, and we can all chip in five bucks for gas.”

Everyone would jump up and follow that lead. It’s enjoyable to be around someone who’s good at making plans and setting them in motion.

The ultimate Plan-Maker is God, of course. He was making and activating plans long before the earth existed. Although we’re drawn to him when his plans for us turn out well, we often turn away when his plans cause us pain.

A few days after Nate and I found out about his cancer, we talked about the great Plan-Maker’s plans for him, for us. In those early days of shock and disbelief, it was too hard to look forward into the storm of disease and death. Instead we looked backward to study the plans God had made for us, to see whether or not they had worked out well.

For example, it had taken four and a half years to sell our old farmhouse in Illinois, despite houses around us selling like hot cakes. While we waited, we’d had to lower the price six times, bringing it down to nearly half of where it started.

We’d made a plan, our own plan, to buy a townhouse with cash from the house sale and stay in the area until Birgitta graduated from high school. But real estate took its now-famous dive, along with a simultaneous dip in Nate’s law practice. The Michigan cottage was on the market, too, but nothing was moving.

Finally we decided to let God make the plan, and his idea was to move us full time into the Michigan house, an idea we hadn’t seriously considered. Right then our old farmhouse sold, and shortly thereafter, we moved. This was at the beginning of last summer.

Once we were settled in Michigan, pursuing permanent residency status, Nate clipped unnumbered articles about the glut of townhouses on the market and how it would be nearly impossible to sell one, once we owned it, with all the new town homes being offered at “used” prices.

It took all summer for me to unpack the boxes, fitting two homes worth of stuff into one. Nate commuted to his job in Chicago’s Loop by way of a train, enjoying the new variety of passengers. By the time we were acclimated to our new environs and fully settled, cancer had arrived. Was all this God’s plan? And the bigger question was, could it possibly be good?

The day Nate and I looked back, we saw the reasons behind some of those plans. First, by causing time to pass before the old house sold, he saw to it that Birgitta graduated from high school, so there was no longer a need for us to remain in the area. Had we purchased a townhouse, we would have been stuck with it.

Secondly, by having the summer to unpack and get settled, everything was in order just before our cancer news arrived, and we were set up to receive our crowd of children for the duration. Thirdly, after Nate died, the cottage was the perfect place for a grieving widow to cocoon with the Lord through a snowy winter.

I see all of those things now, plans God put into motion for our good. I still don’t understand why Nate’s death had to be part of his plan, and it sure doesn’t seem good. But because God planned it, and because I believe God took him to paradise with intention, I accept it. Maybe down the road I’ll look back and see the reason. But if I don’t, I’ll continue to believe God doesn’t make mistakes, and that he is still the best Plan-Maker in the world.

^“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)