It was 1983, and Nate was about to buy a special birthday gift for me. “Would you prefer silver or gold?” he asked.

“How ‘bout gold, to match my wedding rings?”

I didn’t know what I was asking, because he bought me a gold Rolex watch that cost over $5000. Silver was priced at half. When he gave it to me, I had no idea what it was worth, although I’d heard Rolex was a “good” brand of watches. I don’t think I loved it five thousand dollars worth, but I wore it often, enjoying Nate’s thoughtfulness.

Louisa came along in 1988, a dynamite child who kept us hopping. One Sunday morning as we struggled to get six children off to church, Weezi was getting into mischief in our bathroom. I lifted her to the sink top and sat her next to my make-up bag, trying to buy the few more minutes I needed. When she tired of that, I pulled off my Rolex and handed it to her. That did the trick, and once I was ready, I lifted her down and off we went.

Two days later, I opened the dresser drawer to get my watch, and it wasn’t there. Trying to think where it might be, I remembered the last time I’d seen it was in Louisa’s pudgy hands. Did I ever get it back from her? Had I worn it since then? Did she have it in her hands when we went to the car?

Nate and I hunted high and low for that watch, both inside and outside. We offered the kids a monetary reward for finding it, and they looked with passion, but it never surfaced.

Reconstructing the events of the last day, our conclusion was that little Louisa had accidentally dropped it. Standing next to her as she sat atop the sink, I didn’t hear it land on the sink or tile floor because most likely it went into the waste basket next to the sink cabinet, cushioned by facial tissues and other papers. The next time I tied up that plastic waste can liner, the watch must been inside and gone to the big garbage can in the garage, which subsequently went to the street for pick-up. The truck had come the day before we began our search.

Nate just shook his head. His disappointment made me feel badly about my irresponsible decision to hand it to a baby, but even then I didn’t know how much it was worth, so I didn’t feel five thousand dollars worth of bad.

We kept our eyes open for months, and finally Nate said, “Well, I think it’s really gone. I’m going to make a claim on our householders insurance.”

“For a watch?” I asked, thinking householders was for bigger items like roof leaks or basement floods.

“I took out an insurance rider,” Nate said, “just in case.”

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“No. That watch was worth $5000.”

Suddenly I felt five thousand dollars worth of ashamed. Maybe ten thousand. After interviews, statements and signatures, the insurance company made good on the rider and sent us a check for $5000. By this time it was 1990, and the seven years following his Rolex purchase had been tough ones at the office. Because of steadily declining business income, the insurance check meant a great deal to both of us. It provided family groceries for quite a while.

So, every cloud has a silver lining, or, in this case, a gold one. Although I lost my beautiful watch, we gained a boat load of food supplies and a valuable lesson: God moves down the road ahead of us and readies our provision before we get there. I felt at least five thousand dollars worth of gratitude.

”Great are the works of the Lord; they are pondered by all who delight in them. He has caused his wonders to be remembered; the Lord is gracious and compassionate. He provides food for those who fear him; he remembers his covenant forever.” (Psalm 111:2,4-5)

For several days now I haven’t had a Nate-Nonreality and hoped I was over the hump. I hadn’t “heard” his voice or thought he was driving in the driveway. I hadn’t planned to ask him “about that” when I saw him next and hadn’t dialed his office number to see how his day was going.

Then I drove past Walgreens.

It wasn’t just any Walgreens. It was “our” Walgreens, the one we passed driving home from every appointment, treatment and test during Nate’s weeks of cancer. We had to stop there often with our fistful of prescriptions, and our last visit was on Thursday, October 15. It had been an especially trying day for both of us, and Nate was at his limit. We needed to stop, though, to renew a prescription for pain meds, or he wouldn’t have made it through the night.

As we approached the drive-through pharmacy window, there was no one ahead of us, and the parking lot was nearly empty. The clock read 5:50 PM, and people were probably at dinner. Although Nate had lost his appetite, he was anxious to get home. His back was killing him, the cancer had delivered a raw belly ache and the day’s radiation had drained his last ounce of energy.

I handed our prescription to the pharmacist who said, “You can’t wait in this lane. Pull up into the lot.”

“Can’t I wait here?” I asked, hoping the visual of our car outside the window would make them hurry. “If someone drives up behind me, I’ll go around.”

“No,” she repeated. “You can’t wait here. Pull up.”

Nate sat with his passenger seat pushed all the way back in an effort to take weight off his spine, his face pulled into a pained expression. I drove forward, made four slow left turns around the building and arrived back at the pharmacy window.

“We’re calling your insurance company,” she said. “Pull away from the window.”

We went around a second time and were greeted with the news that our insurance company wouldn’t approve any more pain pills.

“Call the doctor,” I said, trying to keep my frustration from bubbling over. “He said if there was trouble, you should call him.”

“Pull forward,” she said again. “You can’t wait here.”

Our ordeal turned into a battle of two hours and twenty minutes, accompanied by unnumbered left turns around the building and repeated commands to “Pull forward.” By this time Nate was groaning in pain, not a shred of medication left in him. Since the only two pain pills we owned were 27 miles away at home, it became urgent to secure the new prescription. In the end, three pharmacists and an insurance phoner were all on the project. Eventaully we had the meds in hand, but not before I’d written a check for over $700.00 for pain pills that would last just one week.

As the pharmacist handed me the bag she said, “This is the last. They said absolutely no more, even if you pay full price again.”

Thankfully, Hospice arrived the next afternoon, medical angels with sign-up forms and a hospital bed. Nate never even used all the Walgreens pills, because our at-home nurses initiated a parade of daily FedEx drug deliveries without us even lifting a finger.

Today as I passed that Walgreens, I felt a chill. If I ponder how much pain Nate felt, I cry hard, anytime, anywhere. So today I asked the Lord to replace sadness with gratitude. Before the Walgreens had disappeared in the rear view mirror, he gave me five reasons to be thankful:

1. I’m glad Hospice removed the need to fight any more pill battles.
2. I’m glad there actually are medicines that can overwhelm severe pain.
3. I’m glad that all pain is ancient history for Nate.
4. I’m glad we don’t need a pharmacy for any reason today.
5. I’m glad Nate accepted his incurable cancer and finished well.

I still like Walgreens, but I sure hate cancer.

“I know, O Lord, that a man’s life is not his own. It is not for man to direct his steps. Woe to me because of my injury! My wound is incurable! Yet I said to myself, ‘This is my sickness, and I must endure it’.” (Jeremiah 10:23,19)

We’ve all heard preachers tell us we ought not to use the word “awesome” about anything but God. We ought not to be “in awe of” or “awe stricken by” anything but him. That’s because the accurate definition of awe is “reverent wonder, tinged with fear, inspired by deity.”

Nate had a strong reverence for God, but I don’t think I ever heard him use the word “awesome”, not in any sentence about anything or anyone. He wasn’t an emotionally expressive guy; he was a lawyer, and for lawyers, it’s all about facts.

What would it look like to “stand in awe” of someone or something? It might mean gazing with the mouth hanging open, trance-like, speechless, amazed, maybe followed by an immediate crumple to the ground, being overwhelmed. When does any of us look like that? If we ever do, what is it we’re looking at? And that’s the point. Not much in our experience can elicit that response.

Not much unless it would be a brush with deity. I felt a blip of awe today, and it was definitely linked with God, and also with Nate. I think often about both of them, dwelling near each other in paradise. My touch of awe was realizing that now Nate knows true awe.

He may never have used the word on earth, but surely he’s using it now on a frequent, if not constant, basis. He’s adoring, worshiping, possibly standing with his mouth hanging open and maybe falling in a heap after gazing at the only real definition of awesome, the Lord himself. And the minute I thought of it, I shouted, “Awesome!”

For having such a lofty definition, the word “awe” doesn’t sound very inspiring. It’s more like a random sound than a real word. “Awe” is only a hair away from “oh” or “ah” or “uh”, a few almost-words meaning next-to-nothing. A better word for “awe” might be “whamaz” or “bazang”, words with sparkle and flash. Or we could use supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

My thoughts wandered to Nate and the amazing life he’s now leading in the breathtaking presence of God. I’m wondering if heaven doesn’t have an entirely new word for awe, which led me to think about the language we’ll all speak there. Each of us will belong to the family of God, so surely we’ll understand one another. My guess is we’ll speak a language no one on earth knows.

Scripture says the citizens of heaven will come from every nation, tribe, people and tongue, but it doesn’t say we’ll actually speak our native tongues. But God is an expert at making old things new, or in this case maybe changing the newer languages back into the old original.  Or maybe there will be a brand new language altogether. No classes or language labs will be necessary, since he’ll just plunk it into our brains, and we’ll know it. Personally, I hope it involves clicks and clucks, because then our conversation will sparkle like glitter on a greeting card.

Whatever the new word for “awesome” is, I know we’ll be using it constantly in reference to God. “I’m in awe! You are awesome! I’m awe struck! You’re awe inspiring!”

When Nate left his cancer-battered body and went to be with God, he was physically changed. We know that for sure, because we buried his physical body while the living part of him went elsewhere. And it’s no wonder he had to be changed. The continuous-awesome that is his new life would have overwhelmed him completely on earth.

We all have such wonder to look forward to, provided we believe in Jesus as our way to God the Father. Nate believed, and found the way there, and now Nate knows true awe. And that’s a lawyer-approved fact.

“A great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, [stood] before the throne and before the Lamb… and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God.” (Revelation 7:9a, 11b)