the sweetest victory

A few weeks back, the pastor of our congregation preached a sermon that got me to rethinking the whole death thing. You see, both my parents are gone now. Mom passed away two years ago on December 15^th. Dad died eight years ago this coming July. 

My parents died in very different ways. Dad’s was a sudden heart attack—an unexpected-out-of the-blue kind of death. Mom who had been sick virtually her whole life was told that her transplanted kidney was failing, put on hospice and died six months later. 

Neither was easy, as I’m sure you’re all aware of. It doesn’t matter how you lose a loved one, none of it is fun. Absolutely none.

I grieve over the loss of my parents for sure, but the sermon my pastor preached got me to rethinking who really has it the worst, my parents, or myself. As a person of faith, the answer is pretty obvious. I have it the worst. I do. My parents are done, they’ve lived their lives, they‘ve fought the good fight and finished their race. 

I’m not there. So I hurt, and cry and miss them. But in my faith I have to remember something; my parents are on the good side of heaven. You see, when my pastor mentioned that death is a victory for those who die in the faith, my ears and heart perked up a bit. I guess you could call it “a light bulb moment”—oh yea, they’re in a good place now. Somehow, thinking of my parent’s death as a victory lap makes missing them a little less painful.

A long, long time ago (I can say a long, long time ago now that I’m forty) I was a volunteer teacher in a Vacation Bible School class. One day, I was put in charge of teaching the lesson—a story from Acts Chapters 6-8. It’s the story of Stephen—the one who was stoned to death for telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but it. 

As I read the story aloud, three very simple words caught my attention; [Stephen] fell asleep. Take a look for yourself:

  ⁵⁹ While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” ⁶⁰ Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.

I think I’ve shared this verse and my thoughts about it before. In fact, I know I have, but luckily for me my failing memory doesn’t recall what I wrote. So if this is a rerun, bear with me.

The story doesn’t say that Stephen died. It says that he fell asleep.  And that’s what I like best about it; Stephen fell asleep. Because, of course, if he’s fallen asleep, he will wake up again.

But I think the story gets even better. Stephen is done. He has fought the good fight. He has finished the race. So too, have my parents. It’s a much lighter burden realizing that my parents are living the good life now, not in Nebraska, but in eternity.

It makes the sorrow a little bit easier to bear and gives me hope for the day I will get to see them again. Sometimes it even brings a smile to my face knowing that my victory lap is drawing nearer, too. 

Coming home to heaven is like crossing the finish line after a long, often painful and grueling run. For those who enter the pearly gates, death is a victory not a defeat. That makes the loss a little bit easier to bear knowing that someday I’ll reach the finish line as well. And I have to tell you—that’s one victory lap I’m really looking forward to taking.

crazy forty

Turning forty in T-minus eight days has me pondering death. I know that sounds melodramatic, but it’s true. Lately, I just can’t stop thinking about it. 

Someone once told me that turning forty is no biggie, that you’re only as old as you feel. Yea, I’m not buying that. Tell that to my cranky knees and failing eyesight. Tell that to the aches and pains in my joints. 

I hate that my body is changing. I hate that cold temps rock my body with pain I’ve never felt before. I used to love my birthday. Loved it. But that was before now. Forty, yea, I’m not so excited about this one.

Let’s face it, death is a bit scary. The unknown staring us down. Quite honestly, it’s the unfamiliar that makes it hard for me—what kind of mysteries await us? 

As a kid, I worried about dying, mostly because I didn’t want to go to heaven. Yup, you read it correctly; I didn’t want to go to heaven. For some reason, I pictured heaven as a place where we would all spend an eternity painting like Bob Ross. Forever and ever. Yikes! Did I mention that I hate to paint?

In fact, as a youngster I was so scared of dying that some nights I was reluctant to lay my head on my pillow. I would sit up in bed scared to death over, well, death. That’s when I decided it was time to take my worries to the only One who could help me get past these fears—God. 

And He did. 

After my junior year in college, I spent the summer as a counselor at a bible camp called Outlaw Ranch. Every week, a team of us drove to a nearby small town to run a week-long day camp for kids.

After we’d gassed up our seventies van, we headed out to the interstate, little suspecting what was about to take place. A few minutes in to the trip, one of our tires blew. Our van went careening towards the exit. 

In that moment, I knew that I was going to die. The miraculous thing is, I wasn’t afraid, not one bit. I felt satisfied and at peace. If this was my last day on earth, I could handle it. I truly could. An answer to prayer for sure.

Skip ahead, oh, eighteen years or so to the present. Now that I’m an adult, I wonder about death more. Ponder it more. While I know that turning forty doesn’t mean my life is over, there is something sobering about having lived half of it, give or take.

And though I’m no longer afraid of spending an eternity painting, I do have other fears. Mostly, it’s over the unknown. What will heaven be like? Will we see our family, the ones who have gone before us? Will we ever get to sit on God’s lap? Questions like these swirl around inside my brain stirring up new fears—fears over the mystery that awaits us. 

A very wise pastor once told me, “I don’t know what heaven will be like, but I know I won’t be disappointed.” Isn’t that beautiful? His words that day calmed my fears. I figured if God can take a world racked with sin, grief, and pain and still manage to make it beautiful, how much better will it be in heaven where there will be no more pain, grief, sickness or, most importantly, death.

That kind of heaven I can handle. So even if I do have to paint like Bob Ross for an eternity (which I’m pretty sure I won’t) I’m suddenly not so scared. Though I don’t know what awaits me in heaven, I know I won’t be disappointed. And neither will you.

more than just a crazy dream

I have been thinking about Mom a lot today. We are approaching one year since she passed away. In the blog entry I wrote shortly after she died, I mentioned her words of love to me, “I’ll always love you. Never forget that.” When I want to call her to share something exciting, interesting, or difficult the part of me that so looked forward to those chats hurts. Today, I was running errands and at my daughter’s request popped in a Christmas CD. Listening to it, my mind traveled back to what was happening a year ago at this time when Mom was on hospice. And wham. The waterworks started. Losing Mom in the midst of the Christmas season was hard. No way around that.

And even though it hurts to write this entry, I’d like to share some valuable lessons that I’ve learned over the past year. A few months ago when the grief was still quite fresh, I found myself fixating on all the bad stuff. How much pain Mom had been in. How quickly she went downhill after we discovered her kidney was failing. The sadness I felt over all of her struggles was burdensome. It consumed me. I could, if I had let myself, wallow in the pain and misery that were mine throughout the last several months of Mom’s life.

But two things occurred to me. Number one, my mother would be so mad if she knew that I was dwelling on all the pain she endured. I can hear her tell me, “Now don’t be silly. I’m in heaven now. There’s nothing to cry about.” Mom never did like to draw attention to her pain, and I imagine she’d be less tolerant of it even now.

Number two, Mom’s experiencing the glories of heaven. All the pain she endured all those years is a blip on the radar screen in comparison with eternity. So now, I try to be happy and think about all the good memories we had as a family. I find that the grief that pierces my heart doesn’t cut quite as deeply when I let go of the pain and focus on the joy of life.

Thirdly, I was reminded that God did care about our pain - that his heart grieved for me and my family. Shortly before Mom died, God gave us a gift we could hold close to our hearts. A gift that would help ease our pain in the coming days, weeks, months and years. The gift He gave was a glimpse of the unseen realities happening all around us, the behind-the-scenes action, as He pulled back the curtains of Paradise and let us have a peek inside.

It happened in a dream that my sister-in-law, JoDee, had one night shortly before Mom passed away. Because we no longer left Mom alone at night, JoDee was spending the night in Mom’s apartment. In her dream my sister-in-law vividly remembers having a couple of “visitors”. The first “visitor” walked right through the front door. Being more surprised than alarmed, JoDee noticed that he was replacing a light bulb and asked, “What are you doing?” His response was straight and to the point, “I’m changing the light bulb. I need to light the way.”

A few moments later another “visitor” came in through a corner of the apartment. Again, JoDee was bemused by this visit thinking to herself, ‘I didn’t know there was a door in that corner of the apartment’. This visitor said nothing to JoDee, she simply gave a nod and a smile as she walked past her. Then the visitor walked up to gaze into my mothers’s room. JoDee watched this visitor smile as she looked at Mom, not saying a word. In that moment, JoDee woke up and heard Mom struggle and went quickly to her bedside.

Now, you could chalk this all up to a fluke, a simple dream and nothing more. But I’d like to believe that JoDee wasn’t just experiencing a dream that night but was permitted to see the unseen – what was happening all around her that couldn’t be observed with human eyes.

Several days later when I came into town, JoDee was compelled to share that dream with me. Later on, she shared with me that there are only three dreams she’s ever remembered and the two she had that night were part of those recollections. I think for my whole life I will remember these dreams. I will remember them as vividly as if they were my own. And even now, the recollection of them makes me smile; to know that someone was lighting the way for Mom, that they were preparing to bring her home.

I’ve only shared that dream with a handful of people. But the memory of it gives me such hope that I wanted to share it with all of you. Call it an early Christmas present, a gift or whatever you want. If you’re experiencing heartache like my family and I suffered last Christmas, I hope that in some small way this dream gives you comfort, hope and joy, too.

The Sun is Following Me

For the past week or so my daughter has been amazed and delighted by the fact that the sun is “following her”. At first I thought it was so cute and couldn’t help but smile at my amazingly, adorable daughter. Later on in the week I began to think about what she was saying and realized that my daughter could be a little philosopher. The sun is following her. Why, yes it is. And, come to think of it, the sun is following me, too.

I must confess something here. Sometimes I doubt. Yes, you read it correctly, I doubt. Lately, these doubts have centered around the idea of what eternity will be like. In the last year or so I’ve contemplated what it will be like to see God in heaven. After all, I’ll be only one of hundreds of thousands who may be entering the pearly gates on the exact same day, and possibly, well probably, some will be entering at the exact same time.

Sobering thought when those of us who are believers think about running to God’s throne and being greeted with the best bear hug ever. So, how exactly will that work? If there are thousands of us dying at the same time, how in the world are we all going to fit on his lap?

I’ve confessed before that I am no theologian. But, my tiny little theologian may be on to something. The sun follows her. Doesn’t matter who else it shines on, or even on how many billions of people it is shining on at the same moment. The sun shines on her. It follows her. It’s her sun. When I heard her make this comment for the third time in a week, it reminded me of a verse in Revelation.

Revelation 21:23 And the city has no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its light.  (NLT)

I’ve heard this verse in the past and felt perplexed. What did it mean  when it said the Lord will be its sun? I always thought it meant that God is so radiant we won’t need any other lights in heaven. But the profound statement from my daughter made me think about it a little differently. Maybe being in heaven is a little like being in the sun. It doesn’t matter how many billions of people are there. For each one, God shines on them, and it doesn’t in any way make it less true that he's shining on others at the same time.

Do you get what I’m saying? I guess it could be looked at a little differently. Have you ever wondered how God dwells in each of our hearts at the same time? How can God’s Spirit live inside of me and the millions of others who call Christ, Savior and Lord? While I can’t explain it, I can testify to it. I know that God’s Spirit lives in me and just because he dwells in others hearts at the same time doesn’t take away from the fact that he loves me, he fills me, he follows me.

So maybe heaven is like that in a sense but on a more physical level. If God can dwell in our hearts spiritually speaking in this world who’s to say that he can’t do something like that in a more “physical” way in heaven. Somehow God being God, I have to believe that he has no limits. So, maybe I don’t understand what it will be like to arrive in heaven, nor how I’m going to get “my turn” to sit on God’s lap. Guess some things have to be accepted by faith. But my little girl taught me something this week. When it comes to the sun, and to God, all things are possible.