Home Again

Posted on September 15, 2010 by Margaret

It’s always a delight to go away, and always a joy to return home. Our family ranks have thinned after driving most of the day in three vehicles to leave vacation-mentality behind and get back to the routine.

Our England family will spend tonight flying over the Atlantic, crossing back over six time zones to undo what they worked so hard to do last week. Birgitta is back at her university, and our Florida family will leave Friday to fly south. The rest of them will be back at their jobs tomorrow morning, and our vacation will officially be over. All good things must come to an end.

Tonight everyone is tired. Sitting in a car all day (and stopping for greasy meals) brings a feeling of sluggishness. But of course there was unloading, sorting through debris, and the inevitable questions: “Did we unpack the coffee yet? Has anyone seen my camera cord? Where are my keys?”

But extraordinary memories have been made… lots of them. At dinner last night, still in the Northwoods, we recounted a few highlights of our week together. Lots of fishing, including a couple of big ones that got away. Beautiful scenery outside every window. A mirror-like lake, reflecting colorful leaves. Babies, babies, babies! Laughter galore. Simple meals. Good golf. Stimulating conversation. And my favorite, family harmony.

I am bowled over by my children and their winsome ways with each other. What a pleasure to see each tending to the needs of the others. Tasks were shared, and I didn’t witness one incident of friction. How is this possible with 15 people living in close quarters for seven days?

I give the credit to Nate. (1) He originally found Afterglow Lake and established the annual tradition of vacationing in northern Wisconsin. (2) Being there this week evolved only as a result of his death. (3) He was a tireless promoter of family togetherness. (4) His provision for us paid this week’s bills. (5) We “heard” him frequently as we quoted him, retold his stories and shared favorite memories.

As the week went by, over and over again the kids said, “Thanks, Mom, for providing this trip for all of us.”

But the accurate response was, “Papa provided it, not me.”

This week I gave each of the kids a copy of Randy Alcorn’s book HEAVEN, and their readings from it prompted interesting and inviting discussion about Nate’s “vacation” to paradise. Knowing God had that joyous “trip” ready for Nate exactly when he needed it and also has it prepared for the rest of us gets us excited to go.

Heaven will be superior to any earthly vacation imaginable, and we won’t even have to pack for it. Better than that is we won’t have to unpack or do piles of laundry or wonder where everything is at the end of the journey, because there will be no end.

This trip will last forever!

“You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Psalm 16:11)

A Healthy, Happy Husband

Posted on September 15, 2010 by Margaret

As we’ve moved through our last vacation day at Afterglow, I’ve missed my husband. When our family used to travel from home in years past, Nate wasn’t just my spouse. He was my same-age buddy, a pal, someone I could talk to and share with, knowing he’d see things from my same-age perspective.

Today for example, our last chance to pursue Northwoods activities, my vote was to travel 20 minutes into Upper Michigan to revisit the spectacular Bond Falls, but with the complication of baby naps and the guys wanting to fish, there were no takers. But if Nate had been here, he’d have gone with me.

This week of family time has brought several unexpected jolts related to the problem of not having Nate with me as a vacationing peer. Last night as we finished a late dinner, I watched and listened to our adult kids talking, laughing, moving in and out of topics, and suddenly I felt like a fifth wheel. It was a quick flash of, “I’m the odd-man-out here.”

I know the kids weren’t thinking like that, but as I looked around the table, my mental status made a major shift from co-parent to single mom, something that hadn’t occurred to me yet. And it felt awkward. Although the label “single mom” is accurate, it doesn’t dictate I’m now a fifth wheel around my children.

I miss my partner a great deal, especially at our shared vacation place. But would I have wanted him here this past week with piercing back pain, struggling to maintain his composure with crying babies and crazy schedules?

Would Nate have been able to cope with sleeping in a set of bunk beds as I have this week? Would he have been ok with the two young families using the two bigger bedrooms?

Would I have been glad he was with us if he’d had the cancer death sentence hanging over his head and ours?

“No” to all of the above.

The Nate I’ve been missing was the one who stacked all our vacation debris on a makeshift trailer and towed it behind a station wagon for 350 miles each summer. I missed the guy who taught the kids to bait a hook, cast a line, reel in a fish and fry it in a pound of butter. I longed for the man who’d been happy to ride double on a horse with a toddler, triple on a motorcycle with two pre-schoolers and who’d run off the high dive like he was a kid himself.

But that man, that pal, that father… can’t be here.

The bottom line, as always, is that our family scenario worked out this way because God orchestrated it as such. But I trusted him back when Nate was healthy and happy at Afterglow, and I’m trusting him now.

After all, Nate is, indeed, healthy and happy again. He’s just not at Afterglow Lake.

“Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)

It’s crying time.

Posted on September 14, 2010 by Margaret

Other resort guests walking past our cabin here at Afterglow Lake have heard a good deal of crying coming through our screens. Most of it has been from little children, but that’s because adult crying isn’t usually done in the same all-out, open-mouthed way.

There’s a fascinating verse in Psalms that speaks of God collecting our tears in a bottle. During the 42 days when Nate had cancer, quite a few of the letters and cards we received quoted this passage.

I’m a visual person who appreciates the thousands of word pictures God tucked into the Bible. A bottle full of tears is a potent image of several things: God’s nearness to anyone who’s upset to the point of tears, and his mysterious ability that can somehow collect literal tears.

I’ve thought about this bottle in reference to all our family crying as we’ve grieved for Nate during these last ten months, wondering if this verse could possibly be literal. Many would say, “Nonsense.” Of course God can do anything he wants, because he knows no bounds. Even the tears that slide down our cheeks and are whisked away by a tissue or an available sleeve could easily reappear in God’s bottle if that was his intent.

If it is a literal statement, what might that bottle look like? Because the scriptural word for it is singular, it would have to be one giant bottle! What could God possibly want with those tears? They’re salty, as all of us can testify, having caught them with our tongues as they’ve run past our mouths. They are also clear.

According to Revelation (22:1), heaven will have a “river of life” running from the throne of God, “as clear as crystal.” Is it possible God plans to use our tears to create this supernatural river? Could it be a “salt water river?”

Just when we become completely speechless over such a possibility, we get another inexplicable fact from the same verse. It says God records each tear in a book. Such detailed record-keeping is imponderable, but we’ve always known the Lord was good with detail. He keeps track of all our sorrows (same verse) and cares deeply about our suffering.

Today several of us spent eight hours with grandbabies, much of it trying to soothe tearful crying. Mid-afternoon I grabbed 30 minutes alone to sit among the tall pines next to Afterglow’s small beach. I brought my Bible, wanting to listen to God through its pages, and part of what he asked me to think about was the bottled-tears verse.

Recently a widow friend said, “No one likes a weeping widow.”

I understand her point. As we get close to the one year anniversary of Nate’s death, people expect grieving to conclude. Today God was saying, “Don’t worry. I don’t see your tears that way but will continue to take them from you and ‘own them’ myself.” I appreciated this tender word from my loving God, especially this week as I’m missing Nate at Afterglow Lake.