Monthly Archives: May 2013

Heartache Headquarters

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Yesterday we left the biblical Peter on an all-night fishing trip aching to be with Jesus, not sure it would ever happen again. After a miserable night of fishing failure (and probably confusion over what he would do with his future), all of a sudden his greatest longing materialized on the beach – a wonderfully familiar voice calling across the water to him!

Jesus calls to the men

Could it be? Did he dare hope? When their fishing net miraculously filled with fish, he knew, and from the core of his heart the ache exploded into fervent glee. It was so overpowering he threw himself into the sea, swimming wildly toward shore and his beloved Friend. Peter no longer cared about the monster-sized catch of fish, his boat, the other men, or anything other than the Person on the beach.

This is one of those scriptural moments when I envision Jesus throwing his head back and laughing as he watched Peter thrash through the water toward him. Did they embrace when he got there, wet man and dry man?

Jesus had been almost playful the way he’d surprised the men with that net of fish. And it wasn’t lost on them that he worked a second wonder when the strained net didn’t rip.

The whole scene must have been punctuated with shouts of happiness as the men encircled Jesus and reveled in the rich satisfaction of being with him again. Proverbs 13:19 says, “The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul,” a truth written all over these disciples on that day.

As I studied this passage, God asked me a question: “Margaret, do you long to see Jesus as much as Peter did?”

“Sure!” my heart answered. “Of course!”

Missing Nate

But then came his second question: “As much as you long to see Nate?”

“Well,” I thought, avoiding the answer, “when my heart aches to see Nate again, the longing will never be satisfied on earth as it was for those disciples. So of course I’m excited about seeing him in heaven.”

On and on my mental reasoning went. “I miss the daily companionship of my husband, the one I knew so well. I miss our conversations and his counsel. I miss him coming home at night, and I miss our I-love-you’s. The thought of one day having him back in all those ways sometimes makes me ache to see him.”

The more I thought about it, though, the more I knew something was amiss in my heartache-headquarters. That’s when God asked his last question: “Do you think you could get to know Jesus even better than you knew Nate?”

It was important to think about that, and in my deepest heart, even deeper-down than my sometimes-ache for Nate, I knew that if I made an effort to get to know Jesus better than ever before, the end-result would be a Peter-esque longing for him that would be unmatched by any other… even my longing for Nate.

“Grow in the…. knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 3:18)

A Beach Party Lesson

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Many people say the Bible is hard to read. It’s a big book for sure; my copy has 2067 pages. But a good place to start is with the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They read like storybooks about Jesus, detailing the things he said and did.

One of my favorite Bible stories is told in John, and maybe the reason I like it so much is because it describes a beach party. Jesus hosts it for some of his disciples, and since the anguish of the cross is over, these men now know him as their risen Savior.

But things between them have changed. Where formerly they’d literally hung out with Jesus night and day, since the resurrection they’d only seen him twice, and then only briefly. No doubt they had questions. “Is Jesus out of the picture now? What does that mean for us? Should we go back to our old professions?”

Fishing boat

In the biblical beach story, Peter seems to be moving in that direction. “I’m going fishing,” he says. “Do any of you want to come?”

Some did, and surely as they bobbed along on the Sea of Galilee that night, they conversed about the radical changes for all of them since Jesus’ death and resurrection. Their understanding of what was going to happen next, either to Jesus or themselves, was minimal.

Talking on the boat, most likely they expressed a longing to be with Jesus “full time” as they had been such a short time before. By dawn, exhausted, hungry, and discouraged, the fishermen head for shore. Across the water about a length of a football field away, they spot a man on the beach who shouts to them, questioning them about their catch (or rather the lack thereof).

Jesus calls to the disciples

When their net miraculously fills with big fish, they recognize the man as Jesus and are thrilled! Even so, John writes, “None of them dared ask him, ‘Who are you?’ ” Their relationships with Jesus had somehow changed, and most likely this was painful for each of them.

My guess is they’d been missing Jesus so much that they literally ached to be with him. In many ways, I understand what they were going through, but not in relation to missing Jesus. My missing has been all about Nate.

When I thought about the disciples and especially the demonstrative Peter, who leapt into the water and swam toward Jesus the instant he recognized him, my heart jabbed me. “If only I could have that kind of one-more-meeting with my husband. Just one breakfast like the disciples got with the person they’d been longing for.” But the impossibility of that made Nate’s absence seem worse.

As I studied the beach Bible story, I sensed God was about to teach me something new. And it turned out to be something pretty important.

(Continued tomorrow…)

Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught…. Come and have breakfast.” (John 21:10,12)

Life – Ongoing

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One thing about us widows is that we stick together, and the question all new widows ask each other is, “How long before I feel better?”

Meanwhile, life keeps happening, and a widow’s first hurdle is to accept the shock that when her husband died, the rest of the world kept going. Such a discovery makes her feel isolated, but the fact that life goes on can also be a motivator, preventing her from believing that there’s nothing more to live for.

Prints from Nicholas

One month before my husband Nate and I heard the words “pancreatic cancer,” we had our annual double-birthday party. By then we were grandparents to 18 month old Skylar and 7 month old Nicholas. Since both lived far from our Michigan home (Florida and England), it was wonderful to receive birthday greetings and photographs from both that year.

Prints from Nicholas.

Nicholas’ parents had made ceramic mugs for Nate and I with his baby handprints and footprints on them. This grandchild is 4 years old now, and when he was last here at Christmas time, I showed him the mugs. He matched his much larger hand to his baby handprint and enjoyed seeing how much he’d grown.

As I continue to use those two mugs, I can’t help but think how much has happened since Nate left us. And of course there’s more “happenings” to come. Klaus reminded me today that his fiancée Brooke never met her future father-in-law, since she came into Klaus’ life a few weeks after Nate died.

Klaus and Brooke.

But what he said immediately after that warmed me. “After all I’ve told her about Papa, she feels like she knows him.” Because Nate was important to Klaus, he frequently and freely talks about him. And because he’s been important to Klaus, he’s becoming important to Brooke.

Our loved ones may die, but as life moves away from their death dates, the influence they’ve had on other people hasn’t died. Sometimes it’s even expanded.

I love talking about Nate and the experiences I’ve had with him, and as I thought about this, I asked myself if I do as well talking about Jesus and the experiences I’ve had with him. Are the people around me, especially those who haven’t met him personally, coming to know him through my steady references to him? Do they “feel like they know him” as Brooke feels about Nate?

Life is moving forward. Birthdays are accumulating. Small hands and feet are growing bigger. Some people are dying while others are being born. But Jesus stays the same through every change and has promised to stick with widows (and anyone else who so desires) as they go through them. He’s just hoping those of us who already know him will faithfully make him known.

The Apostle Paul said, “I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me — the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.” (Acts 20:24)