Yearly Archives: 2010

Preparation Day

Posted on by

Yesterday was Labor Day, but today felt more like it as we labored to pack for a family vacation. Although I’ve put more than 16,000 miles on my Highlander in seven months, there’s been no restful retreat. Beginning tomorrow, however, we’ll start an official pleasure trip to the Wisconsin Northwoods, a week together after the most strenuous year of our lives.

Our destination is nearly 500 miles from the Michigan cottage, so perseverance will be tomorrow’s byword. We’ll be heading for Afterglow Lake Resort in Phelps, Wisconsin, a destination dear to all of us. Nate chose it 33 years ago when Nelson was four, Lars two and Linnea a newborn. We’d never been so far north and were astonished by the striking beauty of aspen forests full of wild blueberries and quiet lakes reflecting clean skies.

We loved our week “up north” so much, we returned for 25 summers in a row. Unlike the unpredictable waters of Lake Michigan, Afterglow never varied with its still surface, absent of motorboats and their noise. The lake was always stocked with fish, and each cabin came with a rowboat for young fishermen to try their luck. Nate taught all our kids to fish at Afterglow, spending as many hours in a boat with them as on terra firma.

The freedom that was afforded children at Afterglow was a big draw, since they could roam endless acreage in safety. We required life jackets until age 12, after which we knew they’d survive if they capsized a canoe, slipped off a Sunfish or fell from a boat.

Five of our grown children will be on this trip, each one keen to revisit Afterglow. Lars mentioned that he and Nelson used to hide trinkets in the woods before we left each year, eagerly running back to check for them the next summer. They’ll be checking again this year, although nine harsh, northern winters will have worked to dislodge whatever they last hid.

As we leave, all of us are hoping to meet with the fun of yesteryear, but we know we’re taking a chance. Without Nate leading our pack, we may be in for some tear-filled surprises. But I firmly believe it was God’s idea in the first place that we return to Afterglow. Last Christmas, with Nate’s November death still so fresh and painful, I didn’t have the heart for Christmas shopping. Our spirits were flagging, and the only thing any of us wanted for Christmas was to have Nate back.

So I cried out to the Lord and asked him what to do. The idea for coupons under the Christmas tree promising a week at Afterglow Lake in 2010 was God’s answer. (See “Lowering Expectations” Dec. 26, 2009) The kids had been thrilled at the time, and we all looked forward to that distant day, hoping we’d be well on the way to healing by then.

And here we are, departing in the morning. Healing has been checkered at best, and none of us is sure how this will work. Our expectation isn’t to cling to the past or reestablish Nate’s tradition without Nate. We’re just trying to put a period at the end of a long, happy vacation story.

Or… because we’ll have the effervescent Skylar along with us, instead of a period, it might just be an exclamation point!

“Then Jesus said, ‘Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile’.” (Mark 6:31)

Bye Bye Big Bed

Posted on by

Nate and I had the luxury of sleeping in a king size bed for four years. As all sixty-somethings age, we appreciate a good night’s sleep more and more, because it’s harder and harder to get.

Our king, purchased to celebrate our 60th birthdays, used to be in a downstairs bedroom and was available to more than just Nate and I. Volumes of girl-talk happened on that bed, as well as lounging amongst the giant pillows while watching TV. Sick kids spent their day in it, and Louisa slept there for a week after her painful tonsillectomy. Friends of our kids claimed it was “the world’s most comfy bed.”

Yesterday it got dismantled and moved from our cottage bedroom to the room next door, an Army-style barrack-bedroom decorated, coincidently, in olive drab. Beds fill the floor space for group sleeping when crowds come to town, and the addition of a California king will mean sleeping three more when everyone’s here.

Since Nate died, the big bed has been sleeping only one, and the mattress is beginning to have a Margaret-shaped divot in it.

So Klaus hauled our old double bed up from the basement, and I dug out the well-worn sheets. Once it was set up where the king had been, it seemed small in the room and shouted “Set-back!”

So last night at bedtime, always the low moment of every day, I had a conversation with myself. “If only I didn’t need sleep and could stay up though every night. Better yet, if only night wouldn’t come at all and the sun would never set…”

Today God comforted me with some fresh thoughts: I can look forward to that wish coming true one day, because Scripture describes heaven as having no night and says the Lord will be our light. That means Nate isn’t using a bed in his new home and doesn’t miss either our king size or the double. He gets to stay awake “around the clock” and never has to face a lonely night. All of that was good news to me today.

I’m still bound by day and night, work and sleep. But after I die, as Nate did, after all of us die, we’ll be free of this cycle, one of unnumbered heavenly blessings. Nate didn’t sleep well most nights, although it might have been those 30 cups of coffee he consumed each day. The fact that he’ll never face another night of tossing and turning is a great blessing for him.

But for the rest of us, night time can be riddled with problems: difficulty getting to sleep or staying that way, nightmares, fear of noises or break-ins, feelings of vulnerability and the chronic dilemma of every daytime predicament seeming greater during the night. When nighttime disappears, so will these problems.

I still dread nighttime, but the old double bed gave me a pretty good night’s sleep. And because Nate and I slept in it for 36 years, it felt familiar, like spending the night with an old friend again.

“Night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light.” (Revelation 22:5)

Welcome home!

Posted on by

Our family has looked forward to today for many months. Nelson was scheduled to arrive home after literally traveling to the other side of the globe and back, leading a Youth With a Mission team most of that time.

We practically had to draw straws to determine who would get to make the run to O’Hare Airport to collect him, each of us wanting that quiet car-time to talk with Nelson before rapid-paced group activities and conversations began. Klaus “won”, so he and his girlfriend, BrookeLyn, did the honors.

When Nelson finally walked in the door at 9:00 PM, we were so wound up, we didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so we did both. What joy there is in reuniting with a loved one who’s been gone a long time! When Nelson left, it was still 2009. Now the end of 2010 is coming into view. Much time has passed, all of our lives have continued to move along, and we’ve missed having Nelson sharing in it!

But that’s the fun part of reuniting, catching up on all that’s occurred during the separation. On our end, since Louisa has spent a week organizing a shopping bag full of photographs, we can “show” Nelson what’s happened in his absence. But tonight, over a late casserole dinner, we heard Chapter One of his story, part of which was a description of life in unsafe countries. When the leader of a mission trip thinks it’s important to Google “the five most dangerous countries in the world,” that journey is bound to have some harrowing moments. We were grateful to be sitting across the table from our Nelson.

In thinking about reunions, I’ve often put Nate’s face and voice into those thoughts. But tonight as I considered this phenomenon from God’s point of view, I couldn’t help but think of Jesus. The Father and the Son, mysteriously united from eternity past in a way we cannot fathom, were separated only once: when Jesus left glory to be confined to time and space in a human body on earth.

How difficult was that for both of them? What did they say to each other as Jesus left his Father’s presence to become the babe of Bethlehem? How frustrating was it for them to be limited to conversing only through traditional prayer for 33 years? And there was the all-inclusive, supernatural separation that occurred when Jesus became sin for us on the cross, indescribable anguish for them both!

But… then came their reunion. As joyful as it was for us to put our arms around Nelson today, it couldn’t possibly compare to what must have happened between the Father and the Son when Jesus returned to heaven, his work completed. Surely this reunion was accompanied by the music and worship of every angel and saint in paradise! He was home, and the rejoicing probably filled the universe!

I have a hunch, because we’ve become children of God through Jesus, that we’ll receive an unusual welcome in heaven, too. It will be unmerited and overwhelming, but when we finally get there, we too will be… home.

“I heard a loud shout from the throne saying, ‘Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them’.” (Revelation 21:3)