Our Rescuer

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Nate’s family came from western Illinois, mine from the Chicago area. Once we had children, we made good use of route 80, our link between four loving grandparents.

I remember one summer when Nate and I took our then-five children to visit Grandma and Grandpa Nyman on a sweltering weekend. We were able to stay an extra night when Nate decided he could take the train directly to Chicago’s Loop early Monday morning. The five youngsters and I would follow on Monday afternoon in the family car, a robust Jeep Cherokee.

After waving goodbye, we started down route 80, the car windows wide open and the music playing loudly on the cassette player. Our children, ages 12, 10, 8, 4 and 2, were all enjoying the trip when we pulled off for gas and a bathroom break. But as the Jeep slowed, we heard a raucous banging coming from under the hood.

I pulled into a little country station at Rock Falls and left the motor running, hoping a mechanic would listen to the racket and tell me how to stop it. His news wasn’t good. “Lady,” he said, “when you turn that engine off, it’ll never start again.”

I thought he was exaggerating, but apparently the car had run out of oil. Parts had broken off inside the engine and were crashing against each other. I considered filling the gas tank without turning the car off, then resuming our trip. After all, the vehicle was still running.

While the kids ran around the gas station and the car continued to pound, I called Nate at the office. He squelched my idea to keep going and told me to park the car wherever the gas station guy directed, then turn it off.

“I’ll come and pick you up,” he said, as if we were just a hop, skip and a jump from where he was. Rock Falls was over 100 miles from his office, and coming to “pick us up” was going to ruin his business day and put him behind the wheel for four hours.

But this is what love does. It rescues.

I think of the Christmas season in that light. Jesus loved us so thoroughly, he made the ultimate sacrifice to rescue us. He laid down his life. But it was much more than that. He never did one thing wrong yet willingly took the blame for all of our wrongdoings. He could have said, “Human beings are a big disappointment and aren’t worth saving.” Yet he rescued us anyway.

On that summer day in Rock Falls, I’ll never forget the rush of joy we all felt when Nate’s black Lincoln came into view and turned into that little gas station. The seven of us, along with four suitcases, squeezed into his sedan with a spirit of celebration and gratitude.

Our rescuer had come. All was well.

This Christmas, may the rush of joy we feel over God’s Son coming to earth overwhelm us with a spirit of celebration and gratitude like no other.

Our Rescuer has come. All is well.

“Jesus gave his life for our sins, just as God our Father planned, in order to rescue us from this evil world.” (Galatians 1:4)

When Healing Comes

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After the death of a husband, how long does it take to heal? When is grieving finished?

I’ve looked back over recent weeks of blog posts and was surprised to realize not every one of them has been about Nate. At first I was appalled to see this, but after thinking it through, I think it’s as a sign of God’s kind mending of a broken heart. That’s not to say I don’t think about Nate daily, sometimes hourly. But the wrenching sadness happens less and less.

C. S. Lewis published a small book of journal entries penned during deep sorrow over losing his wife to cancer. A Grief Observed was so personal, he wouldn’t allow his name on the cover but instead ghost-published as N. W. Clerk. After Lewis died several years later, his stepson republished it with his true identity.

Lewis went through raw grief, doubting God’s love and availability to him, wondering whether there was an afterlife at all. But by the end of the book, his relationship with the Lord had been restored, and his grief was beginning to heal. In my own progress toward healing, I can relate well to this quote from A Grief Observed:

“There was no sudden, striking emotion. Like the warming of a room or the coming of daylight when you first notice them, they have already been going on for a long time.”

Today I was strongly encouraged by realizing my healing has already been going on for a long time. It’s not that I’m “finished”. I’ll still experience sad moments and occasional breakdowns, but just as Lewis learned, raw emotion  mellows, and we connect with our spouses in a new way. Instead of labeling Nate as “missing”, as having left a big, empty hole in our family, I think of him as our larger-than-life husband and father, the lively, loyal head of our family who was full of personality and loved each of us wholeheartedly.

As one of our kids said somewhere during this last year, “Papa was a legend.” He wasn’t the kind of legend that made the cover of TIME, but a Nyman-legend to be sure. Grief has a way of wrapping what’s good with a negative shroud, but as time passes and we heal, the layers peel away, and the positives come shining through.

God has helped me see more and more of these positives as the months have passed, and I credit him with every bit of my healing. He’s been my constant companion, my shield from despair and, as the biblical David put it, “the lifter of my head.”

Had we known Nate would die at 64, leaving us after only 42 days of warning, we’d have still chosen him for our husband and father. Grieving may not be finished, but he will always be our main man, the one we wanted then, the one we still love now, and the one for whom we thank God.

“You, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the One who lifts my head. I was crying to the Lord with my voice, and he answered me.” (Psalm 3:3-4)

Just you wait!

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A good friend died yesterday. John lived to the ripe old age of 89, a faithful example of Christianity to his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and all the rest of us. Although he was involved in the church in unnumbered ways, what I loved most about John was the way he frequently turned up in the middle of a crisis.

For example, he arrived at exactly the right moment to visit my dad in the hospital. None of us knew Dad was going to die that afternoon, but John’s presence stabilized this very emotional experience for my sister, brother and I. His prayer immediately after Dad’s passing is one I will never forget. This was John, always on hand to help with the needs of others.

Yesterday, I missed a call from John’s daughter Connie. Her message told of his death, which we’d known was coming soon. When I pushed the “redial” button, I thought I’d reach Connie’s cell but instead was ringing John’s home. But by this time, his apartment was empty, and I got his answering machine.

When I heard the just-deceased John’s strong voice come on the recording, I burst into tears:

“ I’m not able to come to the phone at this time…”

That sentence tore into my heart with its truth, reminding me again of the wrenching separation death creates between us and the ones we love. Death was Satan’s idea, and by our sin we fell into it.

I think often of the permanency of death’s separation, not throughout eternity but definitely in this life. The deceased are completely unreachable. This might be the core reason we grieve. As I’ve often said about Nate, if I knew I could have a few minutes with him, it’d be something to eagerly anticipate, to enjoy as it happened, and to savor afterwards. A mini-visit, even once a year, would mean so much.

But God has constructed a tantalizing plan whereby we can reconnect with our loved ones. There’s only one difficult hurdle: wait-time. The reunions of our dreams will occur with certainty, but they’ll be on God’s timetable, not ours.

I will be with Nate, and Connie will be with John, but that’ll be just the beginning. Reunions from all human history will happen, beyond our wildest imaginations. We’ll be on talking terms with Adam and Eve, Moses, Noah, Samuel, Jesus’ disciples, Paul and thousands of others.

But best of all, we’ll be in a face-to-face, one-on-one with Jesus Christ, who will be facilitating all the other get-togethers. We know it’ll be beyond our wildest imaginations, because the Bible says exactly that; if we can imagine it, that isn’t it.

The challenge is waiting with grace, staying involved in life until our number of days is completed, and looking forward to those phenomenal meetings with hope.

After that, no answering machine will have the power to make us cry.

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9)