Yearly Archives: 2010

The Key to Success

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My 16 month old grandson, Nicholas, has a love affair with keys. Before I came to England I asked Hans, “Would Nicholas like anything from the States?” He answered, “Keys.”

Every child watches his parents use keys to make the car move, open the front door and unlock special places. Nicholas, a quiet, thoughtful child, had been watching and becoming frustrated that no one would turn over their key ring to him.

More than 30 years ago I remember being at an Ace Hardware store near home where I noticed a basket full of keys on the counter. “Help yourself,” the key-maker said. “They’re all duds.” That day I made a key ring for our two year old, Nelson, and it was his favorite toy for weeks.

Last month, after visiting two hardware stores in Michigan and being told I’d have to buy blank keys, I passed an Ace, and sure enough. They were still saving dud keys. “Help yourself,” the key-man said.

I chose car keys, padlock keys, house keys and a motorcycle key. Back home I added a few small luggage keys, then a small silver wrench and put them all on a microphone key-ring in honor of Elvis, one of Nicholas’ daddy’s favorites. When the hefty key ring was finally put into this one year old’s pudgy hands, you’d think I’d given him the keys to a candy store. He lit up with glee and toddled off in search of something to open.

 

I love watching Nicholas work with his keys. His young mind is purring on discovery speed as he tries and tries again to succeed. When he finds a hole to shove one key into and when the heavy key ring stays in place after he lets go of it, he looks at us with his eyebrows raised as if to say, “Did you see that?!” Then he wrestles it out and repeats the process.

Nicholas isn’t even two yet but recognizes the importance of keys, and as adults, we know hanging onto ours is critical. We go to great lengths not to be without them, hiding an extra car key in a magnetic holder under the bumper and putting an extra house key under a rock.

Jesus also acknowledged the value of keys. He used the word picture of a key to talk with his disciples not too long before he was killed, as a way to explain the important plans he had for them. He would be giving them the “keys to his kingdom,” he said, by the power his Spirit would give to build his heavenly kingdom through believers on earth. I’m sure he used the image of a key knowing these men would appreciate its importance.

 

Today Jesus offers all of us an important key, the key to understanding. I’ve often asked the Lord to “open my spiritual eyes” so I can “see” what he’s trying to teach me. As I pray for the readers of this blog, I regularly ask God to open each one’s spiritual eyes to understand exactly what he has in mind to show them. And the beauty of his having the key to understanding is that he also has the ability to answer that prayer.

Nicholas has his own hook on which to hang his keys. The problem comes when we’re ready to hang them up, and they can’t be found. Thankfully, Jesus keeps careful track of his keys, and he doesn’t even need a spare.

”The Lord… will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge. The fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure.” (Isaiah 33:5-6)

Crossing Borders

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When we’re born, we all become citizens of someplace. I was born in Chicago, Illinois, USA, as were our seven children. Nate was born in Galesburg, also in Illinois, and the USA. These bits of information become an anchor throughout our lives, topping many a form and application.

Katy, Nicholas and the newborn twins were born into British citizenship and have many rights and privileges Hans doesn’t have in England, even after marrying a citizen of the UK. The locale of our birth matters, not just when you’re young but always, no matter where you live or what you do.

In recent months, Hans worked hard to “up” his status with the British government, a complicated, months-long procedure. His original birth certificate was important in the process as proof that he really was Hans Nyman, citizen of the USA. He chose to retain his American citizenship, which no doubt complicated the task. My question was, can someone be a citizen of two separate locations? After all, you can only be born in one place at one specific time.

Our British family has answered that for me. Little Nicholas, only 16 months old, is already a citizen in two places: the UK and the USA. Katy worked diligently on an inch-thick stack of forms to accomplish this before he was even three months old. So our little grandson is now an official citizen of both Britain and America. He has passports and citizenship papers in both countries.

As an adult, Nicholas will find it quite useful to be able to come and go as he pleases, out of and back into the two most powerful nations of the world. He’ll be able to own property, conduct business, have a bank account, vote and stay indefinitely without any rigmarole from authorities, both in England and America.

Today Katy began the same process toward dual-citizenship for the twins, making a trip into town to officially register their births. Arriving home with several copies of their freshly minted birth certificates, she has started the ball rolling. And the whole thing is predicated on the fact that the babies’ parents were born in different countries with certification to prove it. As a matter of fact, the British-born twins have their father’s Chicago, Illinois, USA birth locale printed on the new birth certificates secured today.

Ultimately, however, these powerful credentials will become null and void. In the end, birth locations won’t matter. Nate is a case in point. He left his entire file cabinet behind when he died, birth certificate, social security number and all, taking up residency in a brand new locale on a permanent basis. Those critical citzenship papers mean nothing to him now and have no power over him. 

Although he didn’t need documentation to safely cross the border into paradise, he did need one important reference, something far superior to an earthly birth certificate or passport. He needed the sanction of Jesus Christ, the creator and controller of both heaven and earth. And if Nate was quizzed about his qualifications to cross over, the only thing he needed was his belief in Jesus as the Son of God, the Savior of his soul. With that, the Lord swung wide the gates to welcome him home.

“Our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” (Philippians 3:20-21)

A Painful Assignment

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Each evening, after a busy day of baby care, Katy, Hans and I have enjoyed meaningful conversation in the sitting room. Nate’s absence has been keenly felt, especially by me, knowing how he loved to chat. He had been thrilled with our two visits to England in 2007 and 2009, reveling in the lengthy history of the country (which he’d studied) and delighting in the happiness of his fifth-born, who’d married well and loved living here. Coming without Nate this year is bittersweet. Had he lived (without cancer), we’d have been on this trip together.

A year ago, when we came for the christening of Nicholas Carl, Nate’s back was at its peak of pain. The medicine we’d brought along wasn’t holding him, and Katy’s mother, a nurse, had worked hard to secure something stronger. I look back and admire him for bearing up as he did under such incredible pain.

He participated 100% in the many family activities of that visit, sightseeing excursions, group meals, parties, hikes in the country, film-watching and Easter services. He never once voiced a complaint.

What do people do who must live with serious pain every day? I understand that the medical specialty of “pain management” has sprung up in recent years as a result of so many living open-endingly with unresolved pain.

Nate was in a small group at church years ago with a friend who’d been in a near-fatal car accident. Although he didn’t die that day, in the ensuing years he wished he had. After his doctors told him they’d done all they could, he was left with pain so overwhelming that even under the tutelage of pain management experts, he couldn’t manage. Eventually he ended the pain by ending his life.

My dear friend’s adult daughter also suffers from severe, never-ending pain after a car crash, having tried every trick in every book for relief. As I read her blog (www.NourishingCourage.com) I get a small glimpse of life with excruciating physical pain. Just absorbing her words makes my head begin to hurt. What must it be like for her?

All of us can bear pain if we know it has an end. We endure childbirth, injury, chemotherapy or surgery because eventually we know we’ll get past them. If any one of them lasted open-endedly, bearing up under such pain would be unthinkable.

The misery of pain is compounded by our unanswered questions to God: Why must I suffer? Why won’t you end it? Why does it have to be me?

Nate’s multiple spine problems (arthritis, stenosis, multiple bulging disks, bone spurs, sciatica) could never have been fully corrected by surgery. Before being told he had cancer, he was scheduled for micro-surgery that would provide some relief…”for now,” as the doctor put it. Fairly quickly the pain would have resumed. No surgeon could tell him otherwise.

Once he learned of the fatal cancer, his back surgery was cancelled. Although he had fast-growing tumors in his pancreas, lung, liver, joints, bones, blood and throughout his abdomen, his spinal pain overwhelmed all of that until the very end.

Nate was plucked from this world and released from his chronic suffering through death. In one sense, then, his terminal cancer was God’s loving gift. But surely God has a significant purpose for the pain he suffered and for that of those who must live without knowing the end it. Not understanding that purpose can be as debilitating as the pain itself.

Just as God has a specific purpose in mind for someone’s ongoing pain, he has a good reason for keeping that purpose from being known. He also has the power to heal the whole mess. After that happens, the reason for it all might become clear. But even if not, there is no doubt that human agony is important to God, a mystery to our understanding, but never to his.

“The riches and glory of Christ are for you… And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory.” (Colossians 1:27)