Telephone Line to Heaven

When my husband Bill traveled on business, he called me every night, if it was at all possible to do so.  I have an internal clock that tells me it is time for his call.  He is, of course, currently on a very, very long business trip to a place without cell phone coverage…heaven.  Last night when my “alarm” went off and it was time for his call, I laughed out loud with the delightful imagination that he could call me from heaven and tell me about his day.

Our typical phone calls would include his recounting of visits he had made to farms using the company’s irrigation systems, or visits with dealers.  He would tell me about meetings he had attended or with whom he had eaten lunch and dinner.  Perhaps, he had met interesting people in his travels.  Sometimes he extended trips to get in some skiing or other physical activity.  Then I would hear which ski area he had gone to, how many runs he had taken, and about any characters he had ridden with on the lift.  Sometimes he would have participated in a race or climbed a mountain and would be excited to describe this in detail.

I would tell him what I had done that day and catch him up on family matters or other things that were new in the community.  It seemed that there were often issues for me to deal with, that he would have dealt with if he had been home.  Once the smoke detector in an apartment we owned went off in the middle of the night, and I had to get up, drag a ladder over to the apartment and change the battery.  Maybe we had a huge snowfall, and I had to shovel, or even more scary, use the plow.  It didn’t matter how mundane either of our activities had been, we listened eagerly.

We always ended our conversations by telling each other how much we loved and missed each other.

So, if there was phone service in heaven, I’m sure we would still talk daily.  I would give him the details on my days here, and I would be so eager to learn what he is doing there.  It is just not possible that he is sitting around idly.  God made him for active engagement, and surely that is still God’s intent.

Christ is quoted in the Bible saying that there is no marriage in heaven.  But, Bill and I had a love that transcended marriage.  We loved each other as people and as fellow believers in the goodness of God.  That will be eternal.  We will always be interested in each other’s activities and want to support each other in whatever tasks God has for us.

Oh, how I would love to talk to him tonight at 9 PM.

From Isaiah 25

 Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago.

You have been a refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy in their distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat.

On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples.

On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever.  The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces.

The Lord has spoken.

If the Lord has spoken, it must come to pass.  I look forward to the day when death is forever swallowed up and tears are wiped away!  Our sad and broken world sees too many tears and too much death.  Come, Lord Jesus.

Synergy

 Bill and I had a sort of synergy.  I would not have married him, if I had not believed that we could accomplish more together than the sum of what we could do singly.  Although we were very different in terms of our strengths, our gifts, we felt part of each other’s endeavors.  There were obvious practical ways in which we helped and supported each other, but there was more to it than that.  I think we both drew strength from a relationship of mutual trust and understanding, and a common faith.  Loss of that synergy is something I have felt keenly.

Several days ago, a huge weight of grief lifted from me.  Grief had been like a physical presence surrounding and filling me and causing me to cry multiple times a day.  When it first lifted, I wasn’t sure why, but then I realized that a specific thought had come to me.

It occurred to me that in the Lord’s prayer, we say “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.”  I realized that Bill is now in heaven doing God’s will.  I reasoned that if I am doing God’s will here on earth, then Bill and I are still a team.  There is a sense in which the synergy still exists.  We may not be in physical proximity to each other, but we still share the common goal of seeing God’s kingdom come.  I believe that God can orchestrate our activities to be complementary and to continue to accomplish His purposes.  This is a huge comfort to me.

I know there is not marriage in heaven, but I expect that Bill and I will have eternity to enjoy working together on whatever God has in mind for us to do.

I Didn't Want to Get Out of Bed

I didn’t want to get out of bed this morning.  It used to be that I didn’t want to get out because my husband was still sleeping, and I could snuggle up to him feeling all warm and cozy and secure.  Now I don’t want to get up, because it means facing another day without him.  So I stayed in bed crying and trying to wrap my mind around how he could be gone, and I could possibly be alone.

But, I got an early morning phone call to schedule a follow-up procedure, so I had to get out of bed and look at my calendar.  It brought my tears to an abrupt end too.  One can’t be blubbering over the phone to a complete stranger.  After the phone call, I knew there were 12 marigolds in the back of my car which I planned to put in the garden in places where the wildflower seed hadn’t germinated, so I ate breakfast and pulled on some grubby gardening clothes.

Somewhere in that process, I got another phone call.  The shepherding elder assigned to me by the church called and asked if I could meet him and his wife for lunch.  Ah….the day began to seem positive.  I had some human interaction to which I could look forward.

I hustled over to the garden and planted my marigolds.  Folks were walking by, and I had several brief conversations.  I picked some radishes, did a bit of weeding and watered the garden.  As I was finishing up, a lady who was riding her bike stopped to talk.  I don’t know what possessed her to stop….most people on bikes don’t.  It turns out she lost her husband unexpectedly about 3 years ago.  We talked long enough that she felt comfortable telling me that her husband had committed suicide, and that she had lost friends because they felt awkward around her afterward.  I wish I could have on-going contact with her, but she is moving away in the next week.  She is not a Shell Point resident, and she owns one of the homes nearby.  She is selling and moving in with a family member.  I felt as though we met by “appointment.”

As I was getting dressed and put together after a shower, I had another phone call.  That conversation allowed me to share a way in which I felt God had used me over the summer to do something I would not have been in a position to do if I still had my Dear Bill in my life.  I talked about the strange way in which I understand God had a plan and accept it in my mind, and yet grieve greatly about Bill’s absence.  I’m not sure how these seemingly conflicting feelings coexist.

I had a delightful lunch with the elder and his wife, walked back to my apartment across the Island, ate two pieces of chocolate and fell asleep sitting up on the couch.

The sun is shining, the last load of laundry is in the washer, and I am not crying.  I do wonder what my darling is doing in heaven.  I would like to tell him about my day, and how the garden is coming along. 

If he was here, the box of chocolates would be gone by now.

The Tangled Skein

As I knit and pull the yarn from the skein,

Sometimes I discover a terrible tangle.

The yarn should pull out easily from

The center of the skein…and does not.

 

My husband was expert at undoing tangles.

He did not knit, but he unknotted,

Untwisted and straightened out,

Allowing me to move forward.

 

I went to him with things other than knitting.

We talked about my life tangles.

What should have been easy to resolve,

Sometimes was not.

 

He was expert at listening, questioning.

He was my sounding board,

Giving clarity in the convoluted maze.

His insights helped me to move forward.

 

Now as I pull on the yarn of my life.

The skein looks good on the surface.

The knots and tangles are inside,

And I miss my expert untangler.

 

My helper himself turned to an Almighty God,

Omniscient and aware of all the knots.

It has always been the divine Hand,

Straightening the tangled skein of my life.

 

My dearest love’s hand is no longer with me,

But the divine Hand can never be lost.

 

Here I Am

Here I am alone in the darkness,

No hand near mine to hold,

No embrace wards off the cold.

 

Here I am alone with my questions,

No answer to my “why?”

No one to hear me cry.

 

Here I am struggling painfully forward,

Is there a path ahead for me,

A future yet to be?

 

Here I am so weak, flawed and broken,

Will my wounded heart be mended,

God’s healing power extended?

 

Here I am….

In the Bag Check LIne

As I write this, I am flying between San Jose and Atlanta.  Both the bag check and security check lines were unusually long this morning, providing me with ample time for people watching.  So many different people exist in this world, and each one has his own story.  As I stood there, I had no idea what anyone was thinking…what his/her current joys or sorrows might be.  Unless, of course, someone was to engage me in conversation.

The man in front of me in the bag check line appeared to be sixty-ish.  He was neatly dressed and had a mustache that twirled up on the ends into a point. He had a couple of pieces of luggage and a brown paper sack.  As I entered the line and stood behind him, he said, “Do you fly much?”

I told him that I flew 3-4 times a year, although I was thinking that the number of times I fly could now be different with my husband gone.  Will I fly more or less?  I didn’t say all that.  It just passed quickly through my thoughts.

He said that I at least flew more than he did.  He wondered if I could tell him if he was in the correct line.  Did he have to go to the counter, even though he had checked in online?  Well, yes, he did, since he needed to drop off the bags he was planning to check.

Thus began an interesting chat during which I discovered he had lost his wife about a month before I lost Bill.  She had had breast cancer four years earlier, but then learned it had spread.  She was in pain and had difficulty breathing.  Eventually, she had hospice care.  He had not understood that meant there was nothing more that could be done.  Her loss has caused him much grief.  He had to move her picture from the hall.  He couldn’t bear to look at it as frequently as he passed it.

He talked about the happiness she brought into his life.  There were ways in which they were very different and other ways in which they shared interests for the 36 years of their marriage and the two years before that when they knew each other.

I totally understood.

By this time, we were called to the counter and I could not delve any further into whether he or she knew Jesus or had the comfort He provides.  I looked for him in the TSA line and later at the gate.  I didn’t see him until we were in the boarding process, and then it was at a distance.  Perhaps, all I was assigned to do was to offer my sympathy and understanding.

I don’t know his name, but I pray the man with the twirly mustache I met in the bag check line will come to know the peace only God can give.

Later….in my second flight of the day, I sat next to a young woman who was not very communicative.  She dozed or listened to music, so conversation was non-existent…. except as we landed.  It turned out she was a widow with young children.  She lost her husband 8 years ago when the kids were 2 and 4.  Her mother-in-law is an enormous help.

So much pain and loss in this world, and I understand it so deeply.