Siamese Twin Separation!

Recently I've been pondering my Christian walk and how it is related to the grieving process. 

My relationship with Gary was very unique. Our marriage was the Girl With the Little Curl poem:

"There was a little girl,

            Who had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead.

            When she was good,

            She was very good indeed,

But when she was bad she was horrid."

"When Gary and I were good we were very very good and when we were bad we were horrid." Actually that may be a tad on the extreme side but I have always thought of that little poem in relation to my marriage. Gary and I both brought tons of baggage into our marriage. I grew up in a very dysfunctional home and he had come through a 13 year failed marriage. We were stubborn, opinionated, selfish, and broken. Yet, God in his grace worked mightily on those areas and brought immense healing and Godly change into our lives. 

Within our personalities we were extreme opposites and had very different interests. My idea of a fun outing was going on an adventurous mountain hike and Gary's idea of excitement was going  to a museum. Gary was well-read and very scholarly. He was the thinker and I was the feeler. He was the pessimist and I was the optimist. Planning an afternoon excursion was half the pleasure of the event for him. For me, a spontaneous adventure was the ultimate in enjoyment. It seemed that in every are of our lives we were opposites. 

In many of those areas we learned to grow and appreciate the other person's interest. We grew and expanded as people because of our marriage. Never-the-less, our default position in life was always to be completely opposite.

However, there was one area of our lives where we were 100% soul mate best friends and that was within our spiritual lives. Gary was the prophet and I was the one given to mercy. This displayed itself in our lives through my passion for intercessory worship and his prophetic teaching ministry. These giftings blended very well in our spiritual life together as well as within our ministry. I know this combination of spiritual gifts, which resulted in powerful ministry, is the eternal purpose in why God brought two such opposite people together and literally called us with his clear and unmistakable voice to get married. 

We were mutually passionate about the things of God. Neither one of us was came dragging our feet into marriage or trying to get the other person interested in the things of God. We were both head over heels in love with Jesus and extremely impassioned about serving him together in our daily life. 

Our hearts of faith were joined together in such a way that to pull them apart would mean certain death. We were joined together as if we were Siamese twins. After Gary's death I was like a co-joined twin without the excellence of modern medical science to be able to separate my heart of faith from Gary's. 

In my spiritual life, during these many months, I have been dragging around Gary's corpse. My heart of faith was unable to function properly. I wanted to live fully for Jesus and serve God with all of my life here on this earth but I didn't know how to do that because Gary's spiritual life was completely co-joined with mine. 

But God has had a plan. He is the great physician and has been doing His mighty work within my heart. In the past few weeks Jesus has separated my spiritual life from Gary's and the freedom in that has been incredible. 

Prior to God's mighty work in my heart, all I could see is what Gary and I were together. I could not see my own walk with God as an individual. Now I see how God has worked within me as an individual during these past 20 years of my life. I am now able to look back upon our marriage and see how God used me as a separate person within the bond of our incredible union in marriage. 

I have realized that the most important aspect of my life throughout these many years, has been to love Jesus with all my heart, soul, mind and body. Yes, I did that along side of my husband but I was still an individual woman seeking and loving my savior. 

I can look back at our life together and realize that in many ways Gary and I pulled each other closer to our savior. It wasn't Gary rushing ahead where I wouldn't know what to do spiritually without him, certainly not! Countless times, I was the one on my knees in deep intercession and worship. I was the one seeking God through hours of prayer and I was the one who seemed to dwell in the presence of God more deeply than anyone Gary had ever known or heard of. During the years of my marriage I knew my spiritual worth in our family. I understood how God was using me in my marriage, in our ministry, in Gary's life and in my children's lives. I could see the incredible fruit of my personal walk with God and my worship and intercession for my family and our ministry. However, these past many months since his death, all I have been able to see is Gary's walk with God and not my own. I felt like I had died along with him and I couldn't even picture who I was spiritually without Gary by my side. 

Since God released me from the bondage to being co-joined with someone who has died, I can see that I have been a mighty woman of God these many years and I CAN CONTINUE to be so! For so long I felt completely immobilized spiritually as if I could not walk with God as a single woman. And yet my heart's desire is nothing more than to sit at Jesus feet and love him with my whole heart. 

So I am praising Jesus tonight for his mighty work in my life and the continuing journey of grief that he is walking me through. He is healing me and delivering me each step of the way! 

From the Devistation of Flood Waters to New Life!

New Life.....What does that mean? It represents different things to various people: "If I get this dream job my wife and I will have a new life. If I move to a tropical island my husband and I will retire with a new life. If I stay sober for more than a year I will have a new life and so on and so forth. Most people view a new beginning, a new start, and a new life in a very positive sense.

I have come to realize that in this journey called grief there is no way around receiving a new life. It is up to me whether I embrace this new life in a positive way or reject it negatively. Either way, the reality is, when a spouse dies, we are faced with a completely new life and not necessarily of the desired above mentioned variety.

Some would call getting through the loss of a spouse as embracing your new normal. It's learning to cook dinner without your wife's expertise and loving cheerful hands. It's learning to sleep alone and be a single parent, It's learning to change the oil in the car, mow the lawn and do all those little fix-it jobs that your husband once did. In short, the belief is that grief is simply learning to live life in a slightly new way. However it is much deeper and MUCH more wide spread than simply a new normal. For all intents and purposes, the life as a missionary in Southern Mexico that I had been joyfully living with my husband, has been utterly and completely annihilated.

Not long ago I went to a women's retreat and met a very young and recent widow from our church. She and I exchanged hugs and tears and then she said, "I DON'T WANT A NEW LIFE!!! I WANT MY OLD LIFE BACK!!!!" I thought, "Welcome to widowhood my dear one" and we began to share deeply our mutual journeys. This is such a classic and true reaction. Our whole life has not only been changed and flipped upside down but quite frankly it is completely gone.

The recent floods in Northern Colorado have reminded me of a death of a spouse. A garden wasn't just destroyed or a fence ripped out, entire lives were ripped apart and forever altered by the raging flood waters. Catastrophic destruction is one way that I have heard this flood being described. I relate to that as our lives have experienced catastrophic destruction through the death of our beloved.

Our dear friends home backs to the Big Thompson River. Thankfully their house was spared but their precious gardens, flowers, and pasture land is all gone. It's not simply that it has been removed but the structure and layout of the land has been forever changed. I was talking with them one day and they were sharing that they don't know what they are going to do in the rebuilding process. They are thinking about doing something totally different with their land and gardens because what they had known has been totally destroyed.

This really reminded me of what we go through when we lose a spouse, a garden isn't just missing or a fence broken apart in our life but the entire layout of the land of our life has been totally and completely annihilated!

Within this total annihilation of our lives as we knew it, it is our choice whether we crawl into our houses and let the stinky mud, muck, and sewer filled river water continue to surround our home, or whether we plan an entirely new home and garden, one that we had never envisioned in our lives but one that can spring up from the ruins and destruction of the flood of death.

This is where I find myself. Many people marvel at how I've come through this. First and foremost it is the hand of God upon my life and his incredible and unexplainable grace. But on the human side, I had no choice really but to either sit in the muck of the destructive flood of death or clean up and build a new life. Sitting in the muck of a flood does NOTHING to bring the way things had been back into being. It doesn't help to cling to the photos, watch the old videos and dream of the good old days when my life wasn't flooded with mud and debris. It doesn't bring my beloved back if I do this! If it did, honey, bring on the mud because I'm going to be sitting in it waiting on my sweetie! But it doesn't do anything to sit there. He's gone, he really has gone to Heaven and is rejoicing with Jesus, our marriage is really over. This is reality. The house is gone in the flood, sitting in the stinkin mess doesn't bring it back!

So I shovel, work and sweat to clear the muck out of my life. I look at garden books, house building plans, and begin to pray about what God wants this catastrophic flood zone, called my life, to look like. The change does NOT come easy.

The memories of my old home can haunt me. I want to go back, I want to walk into the kitchen, kiss my husband, turn the worship music on and pick up life as it had been. But I must press on........

The builders are calling and asking me if I would like a front porch and would I like the house to be painted in butter yellow? Yes, I say, pondering the loveliness of newness and realizing that never in my wildest dreams did I think I would have a butter yellow Victorian home with a delightful white porch surrounded with red antique rose bushes! I say goodbye to the builder in a dream state of joy and wonder at all that "HE" is putting together. But then reality crashes around me because right now the Victorian home is just a vision that the builder has given me. I walk around my property and see the brown bottom of a river bed that has raped my life and stripped everything from me. As I walk and cry I trip over a dead fish and look into the bleak destruction that once held such beauty.

But the builder is persistent, he needs me to sign some papers to move on with the building plans, he needs answers now and tells me that I must stop spending so much time walking through the mud of my property. I need to be spending time with HIM in redesigning my home, my life and my gardens. I can't look back at what was but I must press on to what will be.

Yes, God is our great architect and builds beauty from the ruins of our lives. The only thing he requires is that we embrace the change and embrace Him. We must welcome what he is doing in our lives. If we trust him, he will move us onward into our beautiful Victorian home where there once was only the muck and stench of a catastrophic flood.

Isaiah 43:18 &19
Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.
 See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland!"

Come Away My Beloved!

Song of Solomon 2:10

"My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away"

 

 

My heart has been longing to get away with my Jesus, just He and I without all the distractions of everyday life. I needed to be with Him, to soak in His presence, and to have my relationship with him fully restored in the intimacy that we have shared prior to Gary's death.

 

I knew what God was calling me to and that the purpose was to draw deeply into Him and to allow the crud from the grief to be washed away in his presence. Grief in itself is not a sinful process, it's actually a very Godly and emotionally healthy process. Yet, after 13 months of grieving there was a residue of muck in the depths of my heart. I realized that the only thing that would cleanse this from my very being was to spend a significant amount of time soaking in God's presence, yielding to him without reservation and seeking him with my whole heart.

 

I felt God calling me, "Come away my love, come away with me and dwell intimately with me."


The setting was Buena, Vista Colorado and the "event" was the Rocky Mountain Calvary women's retreat. I was incredibly blessed, not only with a full scholarship to this event but a beautiful and private room in the retreat centers mountain condo! I felt guilty with such luxurious accommodations but I knew the purpose that God had for me and I knew that the provision was from Him and that I was to dwell in his presence in the privacy of the sanctuary that he had provided for me.

Gary and I had learned, through ten years of intense suffering and loss, how to tuck deeply into God and seek him with our whole heart.This has been our family heritage and daily way of life. Yet, there are still times when we need a fresh filing of the Spirit and a deeper soaking to cleanse us from all that we've been through. This weekend was destined to be just that.

I don't have the freedom in this blog to write about all that was taught from the guest speaker at the retreat. Suffice it to say God had orchestrated this retreat to perfectly coincide with what he was doing in my own heart and the lives of the other women there. The theme was living without the masks in our lives and being authentic before our God and others. The message on Sunday morning was focused on how to seek God deeply and how to live for the Glory of God.

Those of you who know me well realize how passionately Gary and I taught intimacy with God, seeking him with our whole hearts, and living totally for the Glory of God. The message at the retreat hit me profoundly because it was the heart and soul of Gary's and my life together.

 On Saturday afternoon we had several hours of free time. I skipped lunch so as to increase the hours available and headed up into the mountains for a time of worship! What joy it was to drive up Cottonwood Pass to the Continental Divide and sing and worship the whole way up! After getting to the top (12,200 feet!) I turned around and headed back down still worshipping and signing God's praises. I pulled over a couple thousand feet down and found a little place to walk, pray and sit before the Lord on the softness of the wildflowers and mountain grasses.

Later I came back to the retreat center and tucked myself into my room to read my Bible and pray some more.

The cleansing presence of His Spirit was deeply tangible to me this weekend. And his word to me was fresh and profound. Some things I am to ponder in my heart. But one thing that I feel freedom to share is God's word to me about worship and intercession.

My calling and gifting is first and foremost worship but with a strong secondary calling of intercession. Typically they are so intertwined in my life that it is difficult to separate them. When I worship it is usually with a spiritual warfare focus, which then lends itself to intercession. And finally the spiritual warfare worship eventually leads me into the quiet and intimate places with God where I just sit in his presence without uttering a sound and just dwell with him in the holy of holies. To me, this is the greatest blessing and deepest joy of my life.

Since Gary's death worship has been tarnished and this was an area where the "muck" of grief had accumulated. Worship in my life had always been focused first and foremost on the Glory of God. Yet, the spiritual warfare aspect was always directed to what God was doing in Gary's ministry of the Word. As he would teach and preach, I would worship and intercede for the ministry of the Word that was going forth from Gary. We had VERY different gifting but they meshed together perfectly, like a completed puzzle.
Together Gary and I were "spirit and truth". He would proclaim the truth of scripture while I was tucked away in the background, in a private place worshipping and interceding to bring God's anointing down upon Gary's teaching.

Even when I was simply dwelling in the presence of God through worship and singing praises in my kitchen, I still felt a sense of being part of Gary and that the worship was a significant part of our family life and establishing our home  and ministry together.

Gary and I were so unified in the Spirit that since his death I haven't known how to worship without him. I know that sounds very confusing and I wouldn't have understood it prior to his death either.

I've felt lost and as if my calling as a worshipper and intercessor had no spiritual covering. I was naked, not just before my savior, which is the way it should be but I felt lost, naked, alone and without a spiritual purpose. To me, worship is about intimacy with God as well as bringing God's glory to the earth. Being a worshipper reveals God's glory where it would otherwise not be known. Yet, in what circumstance was I now to welcome God's presence and anointing through worship? Gary was no longer proclaiming the gospel. Gary was no longer teaching and preaching. Gary no longer needed me as a partner in ministry to intercede for the anointing of the Spirit to fall upon him and to bring others to Christ through the message of the Gospel. I felt lost, naked, and alone in my calling that I shared so profoundly with my husband.

So this weekend I was seeking God about the "what now????" aspect of my call to worship and intercession. God's word to me was profound.

In prayer I felt God telling me that my specific call as a missionary to Mexico was tied to Gary and me as a couple, as Swordmaster Ministries, and that it was a unique and specific call to us as a couple. I am still called to have a heart for missions but for right now I am not called as a single woman to go to the mission field. I had been wrestling with this because I wanted to be obedient to God's call upon my life and didn't want to run from the mission field simply because it was so difficult without Gary.

On the other hand, my call to worship and intercession is God's call upon MY life. Worship and intercession was intimately connected with Gary's call but is not ultimately dependent upon our marriage and life together.

I am to worship and bring God's glory into the areas where he wants to minister. It's as if before I was Gary's worshipper (not worshipping Gary but worshipping God on behalf of Gary's ministry) and now I am God's worshipper!

God was showing me how this transition is vital to the next step of my life in a new relationship. The picture I got was of a breezeway or an airlock in a house. These rooms or areas in a house are transition spaces to go from one section to a completely different area such as a garage. When we lived in Chan's home there was this type of "air lock" or "breezeway" room in-between the guest house kitchen and Chan's kitchen. It's a space that keeps the two spaces from combining, getting mixed up or becoming co mingled.

What I gleaned from this in prayer is that the gift of worship and intercession is very intense in my life and it was used mightily in Gary's and my ministry together. However, in order for me not to get into an unhealthy pattern of trying to re-create the past, I need to learn how to walk in my giftedness and for a season not have it be connected to another man's ministry. God wants me to have a "breezeway" experience with him and him alone! Through worship I am to welcome God's glory, purpose and presence into what he wants to accomplish on this earth.

In prayer God was showing me that in order to serve him in a new relationship I must go through this "breezeway" experience where I learn to walk in my gifting apart from what Gary and I had together. Otherwise, I would be trying to replicate what we had and that would be a completely unhealthy response. I kept getting the sense of how small a breezeway is but how it completely disconnects one life from another. God doesn't want me to travel through a great room or a formal banquet hall, he just wants me to go through the breezeway of walking in worship and intercession as the bride of Christ rather than the bride of Gary.

The fellowship with God was intense and I filled my journal with the things that I am pondering in my heart. This weekend was such a profound time of simply "being" and "soaking in God's presence. This is what I have been longing for since we returned from Mexico. I felt the muck of grief being cleansed out of my heart in profound ways and my passion and calling to worship being restored in the depths of intimacy with my savior.

So for me, this weekend wasn't about a specific speaker, although she was a tremendous gift from God! And it wasn't about having an incredible time with friends, although God blessed me on the drive to Buena Vista and back to Colorado Springs with a precious new friendship and the depths of the bonding of two hearts! Those things are priceless and deeply important but this weekend wasn't about those things.
This weekend God was calling his bride, his beloved and it was the delight of my heart to respond to him!

"My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away"














 











 

Goodbye my love

My Dear Husband,

 You have been gone from us for a year now. A whole year; it’s difficult to believe that it has been a full year and yet it often feels like it has been centuries and centuries since you last held me in your arms. Sometimes I try to picture you walking through the door. Everything has changed, not only are we not in Mexico but we are no longer in Loveland. The “door” that you would walk through goes into a house that you’ve never called home. So picturing you here with us is difficult and painful.
 

The kids and I are doing well. For awhile I didn’t think that I would survive. I almost lost my mind in a tsunami of grief. I honestly didn’t know if I would pull out of the depths of sorrow. I was trying so hard and yet sinking further down into despair. Yet, God is so faithful and so gracious. He rescued me and has given me the opportunity to joyfully thrive and move on in my life without you.
 

But because I have been doing so well, I have been thinking of the scene in Family Man, the scene at the end that always made me cry softly in your arms as we held each other and watched that movie for the 80^th time. And I know that a tear would be glistening in your eye as well. It’s the scene where Jack decides to not give up in trying to win Kate back. He’s at the airport yelling to her across all the people about their children, about their love, and about their life together. He says, “I know we could both go on with our separate lives and we would be okay, but I know what we can be together. I know our love and I know how good we are together and I choose us”. Remember how we would always say that to each other? "I choose us!" I still remember you singing to me "la la la la means I love you". Recently I’ve been thinking so often of that scene in the airport. I finally can see that the kids and I are going to be alright, we’re going to go on with our life and be okay. BUT…..I know what the two of us can be together and Gary, I choose us! I want to scream at you to not get on that plane. Please Gary don’t go to Paris, not tonight”. But the snow never begins to fall, the glimpse never becomes reality, and you are gone.  And my life now is just a fading memory of what we had, the depth of love that we shared, and the passion with which we loved.

I lie in this big bed alone, I’ve taken your side because my side was too painful. As soon as I was on my side it seemed as though you should be lying there next to me. I couldn’t bare the pain. I have a new bed of course as I couldn’t move ours from Mexico. It’s really comfortable and beautiful, you would really enjoy it. I have girly bedding now though, which you would have only tolerated at best. I miss holding your hand as I fall asleep. How many countless years did we do that? Every single night we held hands and it was torture when you left me to have no warm hand to slip my fingers into when I crawled into bed at night. I miss making love to you and the depths and the joys of intimacy that we shared. More than anything, I miss sitting on the backyard swing with your arm around me as we would gently swing for hours. I miss your friendship and the fellowship in the things of God so very much. I make friends fairly easily but you and I shared a depth of spiritual intimacy that I’ve never had with anyone else. I want so badly to talk about the things of God with you, worship with you and to pray with you. We were truly one in the Spirit and I really miss having that unity with another person.

Nathaniel and Bethany are doing very well. They love you so much and miss you tremendously. We all miss your Bible teaching more than any other aspect of our life together. What a tremendous Godly legacy you have left with our children. We all have found Bible study difficult this year because when we pick up our Bibles all we “hear” throughout the pages is dad’s voice. “Is it Paul or is it Dad???” we jokingly say. It’s just been so very painful to read those words that you taught for so many years and yet you are not here with us. I had to buy a new Bible without your our bible study notes, in order to be able to freely read scripture again. I cherish your teaching but it was just too painful for me right now to be bombarded with such a deep loss every time I opened my Bible.

We unpacked all of your books and amazingly they all made the rough journey from Mexico without harm. I’ve organized them differently than you always did and they are in the living room now rather than the office. As I unpacked each commentary or study book your life and your fingerprints were upon everything as they are etched upon our hearts.

So tomorrow marks the end of the first year without you. My year of grief has ended and I am saying goodbye to you for the last time. You will always be a significant and beautiful part of my life but you will never be my husband ever again and I am allowing you to dwell in the joyful memories of my past as I press on to what God has for me in the future. I am so very grateful for the 18 wonderful years that we had together. I wouldn't trade a second of it for anything. I will cherish you and love you forever. Yet, with God's grace I am transferring my relationship with you and the intensity of my love for you to the past because that is when we were married. It is amazing to me to realize that I am the age now that you were when we got married on that warm November day so many years ago. This knowledge gives me hope. I realize that even though our life together was amazing and that our love was deep and tremendously intimate, that God is not finished with me yet and that he has a plan and purpose for me.

 

So honey, I am releasing you to your Heavenly home and saying goodbye one last time. Thank you for being the type of husband and father that it nearly killed us to walk through losing you! You were an incredible husband and father and we will cherish and love you always.

 

All my love for all time
remember la la la la la means I love you..............

Rachel

 

 

I

 

 

"For me to live is Christ and to die is gain!"

"Dust In The Wind"

I close my eyes, only for a moment, and the moment's gone
All my dreams, pass before my eyes, a curiosity
Dust in the wind, all they are is dust in the wind

Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do, crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see

Dust in the wind, All we are is dust in the wind

Don't hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky
It slips away, all your money won't another minute buy

Dust in the wind, All we are is dust in the wind

Kerry Livgren (Kansas) 1977

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
    says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
    Everything is meaningless.

 What do people gain from all their labors
    at which they toil under the sun?
 Generations come and generations go,
    but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises and the sun sets,
    and hurries back to where it rises.
The wind blows to the south
    and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
    ever returning on its course.
All streams flow into the sea,
    yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
    there they return again.
All things are wearisome,
    more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
    nor the ear its fill of hearing.
What has been will be again,
    what has been done will be done again;
    there is nothing new under the sun.
 Is there anything of which one can say,
    “Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
    it was here before our time.
 No one remembers the former generations,
    and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
    by those who follow them!"

Ecclesiastes 1-King Solomon (the Bible)
 

"For me to live is Christ and to Die is gain" the apostle Paul (the Bible)

Growing up in the 70s and 80s my generation grappled with the futility of life more than previous generations. In the 60s there was rebellion against the wisdom of age and the "establishment". There was the idea that if the younger generation only rebelled against the older generation that there would be meaning to life and the world would be a better place. "Don't trust anyone over 30" was the cry of the 60s. When in reality that generation only escalated the crisis that the world was in.

In my high school, in the early 80s, there were hard drugs openly bought and sold in class and the school motto was "party hearty, die high!" The idea was that life was just a joke anyway so we may as well enjoy it while we can. Although I never bought into this partying mentality, the hopelessness of the generation that I grew up in effected me none-the-less. I remember movies such as "The Day After" and others like it, which portrayed the complete desolation and destruction after a nuclear war.

So what did my generation do with this hopeless attitude after graduation and college? Well, the "party hearty, die high" motto gets a little old when pursuing a career, spouse and family. So we all settled down into modern American life but we still held onto the same hopeless world view. It simply transformed from partying to purchasing. "He who dies with the most toys wins!" became the new mantra of my generation. Bow down to the God of luxury because nothing matters anyway.

But what does scripture say about eternity???
One of Gary's strongest approaches to life was, "What does the Bible say?" He didn't take kindly to the modern idea of, "what it means to me is......" Gary wanted to know what scripture meant to God and those to whom the word of God was revealed. What does this scripture mean to the Holy Spirit, was a lot more important to Gary, than what does this verse mean to the guy next to him in church. Gary wanted to know God's truth and heart in the Bible, which would then determine how he and the guy next to him should respond to the absolute truth of the Word of God.

So, what does our mortality mean to God? What does scripture say about everything being meaningless? What do we do with this thing called Death when we are face to face with it's harsh realities?

These are the questions that I have been wrestling with during the past year since Gary died. In that year I have been surrounded by the aftermath of death on all sides. Being part of a very precious and Godly group of widows from across the country, I have been encompassed by people who have experienced the loss of their beloved. I have also become acutely and suddenly aware of the many other deaths around me. A friend loses a wife, a young brother is diagnosed with cancer, a child drowns, a sister innocently gets killed by a drunk driver and the list goes on and on.

In the years previous to Gary dying I did not think much about death. I went from one life and ministry adventure to another and pictured Gary being carried peacefully to his heavenly home when he was in his mid to late 90s and I was in my 80s. We even joked about the possibility of my dying first and upsetting the apple cart of expectations of him getting to go to Heaven before me because of our 18 year age difference. In these comradare filled moments, never in our wildest imaginations did we envision that death would hit our family so horrifically and so early.

In this past year I've grappled with a lot of hard questions. The human emotional response to death seems to be to just luuv everyone and express that luuv openly, "Hug your child", "kiss your spouse", "don't go to bed angry", and so on and so forth. Another response to the hopelessness of death that I mentioned earlier, whether it's to "party heart and die high" or "the one with the most toys wins"  says, "I MUST live every moment to the fullest and grab everything in sight because life is meaningless anyway.

What I have been wrestling with is: What is God's attitude towards death? What in our life would compel an almighty God to welcome us to Heaven and say, "Well done my good and faithful servant?" What is the meaning of life as a realtor? Doctor? Or clerk at Walmart? What is my purpose in life now that I am no longer a missionary, no longer a wife, and no longer able to be a stay at home mom?

The bottom line of it all is, what does "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." really mean? What did Paul mean when he wrote it and what did the Holy Spirit intend to teach us by including this excerpt of Paul's life into Holy Scripture? And so I would wrestle.

I certainly do not understand everything about the meaning of life and our calling from God to live on this planet for a few short years. But I am here to share with you a little of my journey and the path of understanding that God has led me on.

About three years before going on the mission field the Holy Spirit began to do a work in Gary's and my heart. God began to overwhelm us with a desire to live our lives totally and completely for the glory of God. We began to desire to go to Mexico and minister the Gospel of grace, not "for" the Mexican people but "for" the Glory of God. In this call to the Glory of God we saw how human compassion would never cut it on the mission field. And having lived as a missionary I can say, that human compassion absolutely would NOT have gotten us through. When the earthquakes hit, the scorpions crawled into bed with us, and we were faced with every hardship and struggle imaginable, had it not been for the call to the Glory of God, we would never have stayed in Mexico more than the excitement and duration of a vacation.

It's been about five years now where the call and passion to do all things for the Glory of God has consumed Gary's and my life and now my life as a single woman. Yet, what does this mean in the nuts and bolts of waking up each morning? I think what God has shown me is that the verse where Paul says, "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain" comes together perfectly with a call and a passion to do all things for the Glory of God.

How do we live for eternity when our life can be so ordinary? It was much easier for this to make sense though on the mission field and a lot more difficult to picture what it will look like as I obtain my realtor's license. What does buying and selling houses have to do with the Glory of God??? How does being a realtor support the Biblical call to have our minds and hearts focused on eternity? And so I have wrestled......And through this wrestling I believe that God has shown me something profound.

 

The beach from our resort hotel

Two weeks after Gary died, several friends of ours treated our family to a vacation in Zihuatenejo Mexico. It is a beautiful beach resort town many many kilometers from our mountainous home in Taxco. We spent an incredible week at a very expensive resort hotel, eating the finest foods, and playing in the ocean with abandon. We even had a souvenir budget as we toured this beach town and my children discovered and shared my passion for the ocean.

Nathaniel Jet skiing in Zihuatenejo

Yet, no matter what we did in Zihuatenejo we were still in our hearts and in our actions citizens of Taxco, Guerrero. Taxco was home and no matter how wonderful the ocean was we all knew that we were just there for a brief time. When Bethany and I bought our hammocks, Nathaniel's big question was where and how would we hang them in our home in Taxco? Everything we did, even all of the crazy fun stuff that we experienced, such as jet skiing and chartering a fishing boat and eating our fresh caught fish on a neighboring beach, everything was focused on building our life as a family of missionaries to Taxco. Being missionaries to Taxco was our focus even while we were on vacation in Zihuatenejo. yet. we didn't sit forlorn in our hotel room pining for Taxco. We enjoyed Zihuatenejo to the fullest. We went to neighboring beaches and got plummeted to the depths of the ocean by the largest waves I had ever seen. We swam in the hotel pool, we jumped the ocean waves for endless hours, we built sandcastles, watched the beautiful sunsets, and walked the endless expanse of sand. We laughed, we talked, we loved and we built incredible memories in Zihuatenejo Mexico! Despite all the intense experiences, our heart was still focused on Taxco and home. For us to live was Taxco and to go home was gain!

Taxco-HOME

This revelation has changed my thinking. It was a spiritual revelation, which is difficult to communicate effectively in human terms. The Holy Spirit has totally changed my thinking about this short vacation we call life on planet earth. I now realize that we're all in Zihuatenejo if you will, and we are all heading home to Taxco, sooner than any of us may realize! The difficulty in this journey home to heaven is that we are all on different buses and different schedules. I probably won't journey home with Nathaniel and Bethany. Our travel home to Heaven is a solo journey as we fall into the arms of our savior. Of course this brings pain to those left to build sand castles alone on the beach of Zihuatenejo but when we see this life as just a short vacation at the ocean, we realize how brief it all is and that our focus during this vacation called life should be our home not our hotel!

"For me to live is Christ and to die is gain!" We're goin home folks! While we're here it's okay to go para sailing but as we're flying in the sky having fun on our vacation our heart is still wrapped around Taxco and home. Some days are mundane such as grocery shopping for supplies at our hotel suite and yet there are other times when this vacation gets serious and deep as we share with a chef and restaurant owner our passions for our home in Taxco. This vacation called "life" is a mixture of sorrow, tears, joys and triumphs but when our heart is so tied up in our savior and the Glory of God, we will always be thinking about home and sharing it with those around us. This is living the Christian life with a passion for the glory of God and a heart for our eternal home.


 As God prepared Gary's heart to journey home to heaven, Gary's spirit was enthralled with praise and worship to his savior. One of the last songs we sang at our family Bible study before Gary died was this old hymn called, "This World is Not My Home!"


THIS WORLD IS NOT MY HOME

Verse 1:
This world is not my home, I'm just a passing thru,
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue;
The angels beckon me from Heaven's open door,
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.

Chorus:
O Lord, you know I have no friend like you,
If Heaven's not my home, then Lord what will I do?
The angels beckon me from Heaven's open door,
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.

Verse 2:
They're all expecting me, and that's one thing I know.
My Savior pardoned me and now I onward go;
I know He'll take me thru tho I am weak and poor,
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.

Verse 3:
I have a loving mother up in gloryland.
I don't expect to stop until I shake her hand;
She's waiting now for me in Heaven's open door,
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.

Verse 4:
Just up in gloryland we'll live eternally.
The saints on ev'ry hand are shouting victory.
Their songs of sweetest praise drift back from Heaven's shore.
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.

Our new home in Colorado Springs!

As some of you all know we found a house yesterday in the Springs! God certainly covered our backs in this series of events. First of all, it is amazing that I even found this house as I wasn’t officially looking but just sat down to relax in between our church service and a graduation party. We were planning on beginning our housing search next week and then we would set up appointments and spend 2-3 days in Colorado Springs looking at houses and trying to lock something down. Scanning the on-line postings prior to our ability to plan a visit in the Springs was somewhat counterproductive but I simply wanted to relax and see what was out there for early July.

As I was sitting on Chan’s comfy recliner with my laptop surfing through house listings one home in particular caught my eye. It advertised 1/3 acre with fruit trees and garden space! Given our family history of flower and vegetable gardening I was instantly thrilled at the description of this home! I looked through the photos and description and was delighted that they allowed pets but not only pets but specifically cats! Having Sally in our family has been a very difficult aspect of our finding a rental home. Most places do NOT allow pets at all and when a property manager does allow pets it is typically only one dog. Poor Sally has been rejected by home owners countless times despite her sweet disposition and very clean toilet habits. When I saw that this home actually welcomed cats it was a huge plus in my mind.

I sent a quick e-mail inquiry regarding the house, closed my laptop and got ready for Hannah’s graduation. Yet, I couldn’t get this house off of my mind. When we got home in the evening, I had a response from the home owner. Monday morning I called him and set up and appointment in Colorado Springs for Tuesday at 11:00 am.

We got to the Springs early so that we could drive by the house prior to the showing. I tend to get distracted when someone is showing me a house. So it was helpful to get a good feel for the home before I was involved in a conversation with the landlord. We instantly loved the neighborhood, the yard, and the trees in the back. When Morty, the home owner arrived we quickly connected very pleasantly with him.

The house is a split entry, which in itself would NOT be something that we would choose. Yet, it is a beautiful house that will make a good home for our family despite the weird 70s split entry design. There are 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and an office! It is perfect!!! The kitchen is a nice size with beautiful marble counters and brand new appliances. And of course the land is perfect for us. It is so peaceful and private.

Morty walked by the resident cat of the current tenants and said, “We love cats!” This was pleasantly shocking to me as finding a rental with a cat has been nearly impossible. I even had one property manager say, “I HATE cats!” and then he corrected himself and tried to cover over what he just said but needless to say that our little Sally has complicated this house hunting process!

Nathaniel, Bethany and I had a few seconds to talk privately and all said that we loved it. So I approached Morty and told him that we were very interested, what should we do next? He got me a lease application and then called his wife to set up a lunch appointment to get to know her. This all suits Nathaniel, Bethany and me so much more than the impersonal aspect of a property management company. I filled out the application and then we followed Morty to the west side of town where we were meeting his wife Diane for lunch. We all ate lunch together and got to know one another. They are a very friendly couple who is easy to talk with and a joy to get to know. By the time lunch was finished we were signing a lease and paying for the deposit without any mention of references (our rental references are in Mexico which has made this whole process very difficult!) credit checks (my credit is lousy because of our short sale and my limited credit as a single person.) or calling our character references. (Which would be great but time consuming).

 

God really orchestrated the open doors of this meeting from start to finish. Everything went so smoothly and it was clearly God’s timing and God’s choice for a house for our family. Morty and Diane also shared that they typically wait for a tenant to move out of a property before advertising it. Diane wanted to wait until the beginning of July to advertise the house but Morty said, “Why don’t we list it now, you never know when someone might rent it even when it is occupied with someone else’s belongings.” If they had waited we never would have found it! Also, it is amazing that I was even looking for a house on Sunday afternoon. It just wasn’t the “right” time for me to be doing this. Had I not looked it would have been rented as they had many calls and inquiries about it.

We will be moving in on July 1st which is less than three weeks from the one year anniversary of Gary's death. God has been so faithful to carry us through this very tragic and difficult time.

God’s fingerprints were all over finding this house and we are eternally grateful for his provision.

Isaiah 43:18-19

 “Remember not the former things,
    nor consider the things of old.
 Behold, I am doing a new thing;
    now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
    and rivers in the desert."