Being Ready

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December 25th is less than two weeks away, and I’m not ready, so I thought I’d do some shopping this afternoon. We’ve scaled our Christmas down to very few gifts with the siblings drawing one name each and buying for that person only. It doesn’t make for a very big pile of presents under the tree, but that might not be a problem anyway. We haven’t got a Christmas tree.

I drove to the closest Wal-Mart, a 36 mile round trip. Despite the Salvation Army ringer at the door and lots of Christmasy stuff inside, I couldn’t get into the swing of it all. Wandering up and down the rows, I passed the men’s cologne and felt sad to know I wasn’t shopping for Nate this year. Most men are hard to buy for, and Nate was no exception, but I was wishing I could try one more time. I ended up buying a Christmas present for Jack (rawhide bones). Everything else in my basket was groceries. I suppose shopping will be fun again eventually.

Dingo 2

As I motored home on the expressway, the orchestra in my CD player was playing “O Holy Night”, and I enjoyed losing myself in thoughts of Jesus’ birth. How old was he when he realized he was going to have to die an excruciating death that required him to become the sins of all of us? Surely he was aware of it when he voluntarily left heaven (where he was 100% divine) to be changed into a human baby. Was he reduced down to the level of one cell? After all, he was human, and that’s how we all got started.

I hope somehow after Jesus had been born a baby and was a growing little guy that he’d “forgotten” about his eventual death for the souls of the world. To have such knowledge as a young child would have been a burden too great to bear. No doubt his Father gave information to him in bite sized pieces. Jesus’ Father used that same method with us. Our family had a death, too, and God showed us only what we needed to know for each day as it came, just one bite at a time. It was best that way and was probably done like that for Jesus, too.

Rounding the last bend on the highway before my exit, I had to stand on the brakes. Police cars were pulling up to an accident scene in the right lane, and one cop was using a flare to wave drivers into the far left, away from the newly-arrived emergency vehicle and fire truck. Flares were being lit and set down like construction cones to coax traffic away from the accident. As we drove by, I saw a paramedic standing next to a body on the road. It was covered with a sheet, all the way over the head.

crystal cross 2

As I’d driven along, I’d been thinking of Jesus’ death, Nate’s death, and now here was one more. It gave me a chill as I passed and looked at that lump on the road. Maybe that person had been Christmas shopping, too. The incident had just happened, and I wondered if the police had had a chance to call his or her next-of-kin yet. Maybe the family was making dinner, playing Christmas carols, planning to go out later this evening and have some fun. It made me shudder to think of the call they were about to receive, the shock they were going to have to bear.

In reality, none of us will leave this life any other way. As the world ponders the coming of the Christ child and the real reason he came to earth,which was to die for us, we can rejoice in knowing the cross he died on ended up empty, just like his tomb, because death was not the end of his story. Jesus lives today, which is the reason we can live after death, too, but we need to embrace him as our Savior. We need to be ready.

Tonight, rather than thinking of what gifts won’t be under what tree, it might be good to think about the person under the sheet. Was he ready? Are we?

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16-17)

A Call Back to Prayer

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I can’t remember exactly when I started to crave conversations with God, but it was somewhere in the late ‘70s. One Sunday morning our pastor challenged us to choose one hour during the week to spend in prayer. His sermon detailed prayer’s incredible advantages, and when he threw out his challenge, I decided to take it up.

But one whole hour? It sounded like something only a monk could do. I knew with three little children at home, I’d have to get a babysitter if I was going to do it. I picked a day, dropped the kids at the sitter’s and went home to pray. Because I was tired, I decided to write my prayers longhand, a surefire way to stay awake.praying man 2

Once I got started, there were so many people and topics to cover, I didn’t even finish before the hour was over. I’d failed at regular praying in the past yet knew it was the right thing to do, so tried to pray another hour the next week, too, and every week after that. Sudden obstacles often jumped in the way, and sometimes I’d have to stay up very late, but week to week, the prayer got done.

I began looking forward to our meeting times and had full confidence God would always be waiting for me. And amazingly, praying brought changes. I wanted more of that so thought I’d try to bump my weekly prayer hour to a daily 30 minutes, and it worked well. Often we’d talk for over an hour. God seemed to bring that time out of nowhere.

The two of us sailed along with our daily conversations for 11 years. Then Nate got sick, and everything about our lives changed overnight. The schedules filled with doctor appointments, and our empty nest filled with family. My passion to pray was suddenly overwhelmed with a desire to spend time with Nate and the rest of the family gathered from far and wide. I felt guilty ignoring my appointments with God but had to completely let go of organized prayer. That left us with an intense need for God’s steady counsel but a lack of time to seek it out. It was a dilemma I couldn’t fix, and I felt terrible about it.

One day, a couple of weeks into our 42 day tornado of disease, my mind flooded with God’s solution to the problem. “I’ve appointed others to stand in the gap for you and yours,” he assured me. “Down the road, we’ll pick up where we left off.”

Then he proved it to me. Day after day we opened stacks of mail from precious friends and even strangers. Nearly every card included the words, “We are praying for you.” Some detailed exact requests they were taking to God on our behalf, and others cited specific Scripture passages they were claiming. An astonishing number said, “We’re bringing you to God every single day.” I will never get over such devotion and love.

And here we are, five weeks after Nate’s death. Monday morning it was as if I heard the Lord say, “How about getting together today?”

We’ve been meeting ever since. When I stopped praying those 30-plus minutes each day, unwelcome circumstances had rushed in to fill the time. But this week, the time came back to me. After relocating my prayer clipboard with its lists, notebook paper and pen, I could sit down and heave a deep sigh of contentment, thankful to once again partner with God in this unique way, because I need our conversations now more than ever.

“If we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” (Romans 8:25-26)

Satisfying a Longing

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The minute Nate and I learned of his cancer diagnosis, I wanted to talk to Mom, but she died in 2005. I knew she would have delivered wise counsel as our feet left the edge of the cliff we’d just been pushed from. She didn’t mince words or say flowery things that would perfume over the truth. And at that moment, I wanted the truth, raw as it might be. I craved her empathy and wanted to ask what I should do next.

As Nate and I sat looking out the van windshield on our drive back to Michigan that day, stunned by what we’d just heard, I needed someone who’d already traveled through hardship to come alongside and whisper wisdom into my ear. The unsatisfied longing to talk to Mom popped up again and again during the six tumultuous weeks of Nate’s illness. Oh how I yearned for her advice, her leveling. But as the old proverb says, “Wishing doesn’t make it so.”

Today, however, I heard from Mom. It happened in a most unlikely way, and I view it as God’s gentle plan to fill up the pothole of longing in my heart.

Mom in red coat

A friend from childhood named Al who often comments on my blog, mentioned the close relationship our two mothers had had. These women raised their children together so closely, the kids grew up thinking they were all cousins. When Al’s father died, his mother, Ione, received a long letter from my mother, written four days after the death. The letter was meaningful enough to save for 43 years and was re-read again and again.

Today both of those women are gone, but the letter isn’t. Al thought it would hearten me now, in my new life-assignment without Nate, so he mailed me a copy. When I opened his envelope this morning, the first thing I saw was Mom’s familiar handwriting on four pages of stationary. That alone made me smile.

I set aside the letter for a quiet moment later on, eventually sitting down with a mug of cranberry tea and an eagerness to hear from Mom. I read it twice, thinking of the sweet relationship between these two women. Then it occurred to me that since I believe God put the letter into my hands to help me, too, I would read it one more time as if Mom had written it directly to me, a new widow just like Ione had been. And from the letter, here is the gist of her counsel after she began with, “Dear, always-brave [Margaret]” :

  • Think back at least three generations and count your blessings. Thank God for “stoic, loyal, living examples of the Scriptures – steadfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Bless the memory of those who lived long, long ago.”
  • Cherish your women friends. Receive their comfort. They are “…golden threads of friendship which, through the years, have knit [you] together in a near-holy bond of fellowship. Who would have dreamed [your] socializing could have become such a blessing?”Ione's letter 2
  • Never doubt that God took [Nate] home for important reasons. “Perhaps the bodily affliction that laid him aside was for his grooming in the hand of God.”
  • Be grateful for the family you still have on this earth, even though your husband, the family leader, is gone. And remember with fondness that Nate loved each family member and the warm home you made for him. “A man could ask for no more, earth-wise.”
  • “The greatest of your blessings is – as you well know – the presence of Christ in your lives and your home. Herein is Love.”
  • As for [Nate], “he is very alive in the presence of the Lord… with the very Lord who gave him you, [Margaret], and the children [and grandchildren].”
  • Now, “work harder than ever for the Lord, because of your [Nate]. I commend you to the God of all comfort.”

Only God could have orchestrated such a creative way to not only help me during a time of need and encourage me for weeks to come, but also to do it in a way that filled the longing in my heart to hear directly from Mom.

“‘All this,’ David said, ‘I have in writing from the hand of the Lord upon me, and he gave me understanding in all the details of the plan.’ David also said to Solomon, his son, ‘Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work … is finished.’” (1 Chronicles 28:19-20)