Widower's Walk

Making new memories!

Therefore the Jews of the villages who dwelt in the unwalled towns celebrated the fourteenth day of the month of Adar with gladness and feasting, as a holiday, and for sending presents to one another. (Esther 9:19 NKJV)

Oh the holidays! Even after 2 years they are the hardest! On the advice of my counselor I took out my calendar 2 years ago and looked at when all the special events that Pat and I celebrated for the previous 40 years would happen. I began making plans on how I was going to make sure I was with friends or family during the holidays and special days. I believe that one bit of advice saved me a ton of misery!

I have taken road trips which helped a lot. I have been with other family members and very special friends. I have celebrated holidays in other people’s traditions as I look to make new traditions going forward and letting the memories of past traditions mingle with the new me. I am reminded of the children of Israel who over the centuries have held on to traditions even when they were not in Israel or under bondage. The story in Esther reminds me that I am in a new land without Pat but that it is okay to celebrate the holidays. After all, she gets to celebrate in front of the Lord forever! I really look forward to that day. But I digress…

I told you from the start I wanted to give you tips on how I have handled this journey. So, this year I decided to cook Thanksgiving dinner for my dear friends here in Granbury. Everything I did was a stretch, because even though I can cook, my choices this year stretched my abilities. Planning on how to smoke a turkey and to make a pecan pie that was not runny or to stiff (old joke in my family!!), and making sweet potato casserole and pie were on the menu for my contribution (as well as spicy baked new potatoes). Planning, executing and fellowshipping with my friends was wonderful.

Just like the children of Israel, I did not forget the past but I honored the present in beginning to make new memories. I also remember the things that I have always wanted to do and this year I have my own Christmas light display! I bought the equipment and programs over the past 2 years as well as lights and an incredible Nativity scene to celebrate the Birth of our Savior with my neighbors!

What these things are doing is to help me continue to establish my legacy and not let grief be my guide! I certainly miss Pat, but I know she wanted me to move on and to continue in my faith walk! She was always supportive of my creativity and I think sometimes about her smiling from heaven as she sees me standing on my own and making new memories and traditions.

LESSON LEARNED: Keep on using the calendar – even after 2 years holidays or special events can creep up on me and I get to have a day with the crashing waves of grief! Those days are now fewer and farther between, but i know they only serve to tell me to grieve greatly you must have loved greatly! Working on new traditions is drawing me closer to friends, family and most importantly, to God!

Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. (Philippians 3:12, NKJV)

Why do I still count the days?

The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. (Psalm 90:10, KJV)

Have you ever had one of those weeks that disappointment and discouragement just seem to pile up on you with no end in sight? Throughout my life I have had those seasons! It seems that whenever I would push myself to new limits that there was bound to be some sort of fall or crash landing to come! As a child and teenager, my mom was always there to pick me up and give me encouragement and a big hug. Things had a way of being alright after she comforted me.

For over 40 years, my dear sweet bride did the very same thing for me and I could always count on her support and comfort – even in the last days of her life here on earth. When she went to heaven 2 years, 3 months and 9 days and 2 1/2 hours ago I was all alone (yes God was there, but I did not immediately call out to him). The biggest disappointment in my life and I did not have momma’s arms or Pat’s arms to fall into.

I am closing in on 49 years, 3 months, 9 days and an hour since I asked Jesus to be Lord of my life. I remember that moment on Vesper Hill at Walden Creek Camp as if it were right now. Why do I count the days? Why do I not turn to the ultimate source of my comfort all the time? Quite honestly, I do not think the day is coming while I am on earth that I will not struggle with this.

As I have recounted in other blog posts, it did not take me days, weeks or months to cry out to God and to let him comfort me. The night when I went to bed after Pat went to heaven right before I went to sleep, I felt God’s unmistakable presence and His comfort. But why do I count the days?

I firmly believe that counting the days has given me more hope of the future glory and my home in heaven. You see, I am only 3 years and 3 months away from the 70 years he promised in Psalm 10, and only 10 years and 3 months away from the 80. I still believe God has something big to accomplish for His plan and His purpose in my life. I believe I count because I anxiously await His glory be revealed in me.

I started out this week with a big disappointment, but I praised God because I had asked His will be done in advance. Job said it best, “And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”(Job 1:21, KJV) Who am I to presume to do my will instead of God’s will? Smaller disappointments with people followed during the week and I remembered how I used to take those to Pat and how she would comfort me. And then I remembered Romans 8:18, “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” God has a plan and a purpose for me and He fully expects me to fall into His arms when I am disappointed so that I might see His glory, not mine!

Lesson Learned: There is nothing wrong in counting the days! If you use the counting to point you to God and His plan and His comfort you will be greatly blessed. I am not perfect! God is and He has a plan to reveal His glory in my life in the future!

My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up. (Psalm 5:3, KJV)

The number one fan of the man from Tennessee

Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13-14, NKJV)

My dear sweet bride travelled all her life. When she married me she was hoping to settle down in one place and not move any more. Her dad was in geophysics and as a child she travelled frequently as her dad was exploring for oil and gas all over Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. She went to 21 different schools in 3 different states from first grade through high school. The travel had made her independent, shy and very smart – reading was her companion and safe place. She had very few close friends as a result of her travel – her very best friend was her mom – they could talk about ANYTHING!!!

After I finished my Air Force duties, we moved to Arlington, Texas so I could finish school. She told me it was an investment in her future! The day after I graduated from UTA we moved to Knoxville, Tennessee on promise of a job. That job did not immediately pan out, but I got a job in Eden, North Carolina. I always thought that the IRS and the police were wondering what was going on with us because we lived in Texas, Tennessee North Carolina, Georgia in a period of 11 months!! Yes, Pat was back on the move again. Right after Katie was born, I was promoted and we moved again to Albany, Georgia. We lived there 6 years and then back to Arlington, where Pat said she wanted to stay! Three years later we were in Washington State. Over the 39+ years we were married, Pat and I owned 10 houses and travelled from coast to coast – Texas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Washington, Oklahoma, Washington, Oklahoma, California and Florida.

When we moved to Florida Pat told me she wanted to be buried in the back yard. That was her saying enough! In 1974 Dave Loggins wrote a song “Please Come to Boston,” which Pat completely identified! She told me once to sit down and she played the song for me. She told me 2 things – unlike the girl in the song she never said no, but like the girl in the song she was the number one fan of the man from Tennessee. Pat got very, very tired of traveling and uprooting from places she was hoping would be our forever home.

Now she is in her forever home and I have had to sit down and admit that I caused her a lot of pain by all the moves we made. I have apologized to her in heaven and look forward to the day that we will both be in heaven together forever!

It can be earthly too late to repent to your spouse, but you do not need to carry that burden with you forever. Journaling and blogging have opened up issues I still carry and must turn loose. This pain I caused Pat was one of the first I confronted 2 years ago – I had to let it go. So, I put a chair in my office and visualized Pat sitting in that chair. I apologized to her and asked her for forgiveness. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I released this burden. I truly believe she had already forgiven me.

WHAT I HAVE LEARNED: Do not hold on to the past and its burdens. Give them to the Lord and have a conversation with your loved ones in heaven. Press forward – I know I am not a citizen of this world but of heaven! 

Turn Yourself to me, and have mercy on me,
For I am desolate and afflicted.
17 The troubles of my heart have enlarged;
Bring me out of my distresses!
18 Look on my affliction and my pain,
And forgive all my sins. (Psalm 25:16-18, NKJV)

Loving life!

 

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. (Romans 8:18, NKJV)

This past long weekend my son Andy came down to Texas with his girlfriend Toni. I had the real pleasure of having both of my children, Katie and Andy, together for a fun time! We explored Granbury and we got out on the lake in my boat to see the beauty of the area. Andy wanted to learn to drive the boat so we got that accomplished as well! I don’t think any of us used enough sunscreen because we all looked like lobsters Saturday night!

Saturday night my friends Jim and Palma invited us for a family dinner and nighttime boat ride! This was just the icing on the top of the cake! It was such a God moment for me because this coming Sunday I am preaching on Romans 8:18-30. In Isaiah 53 we see the description of Jesus being a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. I am well acquainted with grief myself and these precious moments with my children point me to the future glory we will have in heaven!

I have learned over the last 2 years, in particular, that we do not know what tomorrow holds. James says it this way, “Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.” (James 4:12-14, NKJV) However, even as I live in the moment of today I know that I have hope: “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.” (Jeremiah 29:10-12)

So, I will continue to plan and do those things, Lord willing, that will help me to continue this journey, this Widower’s Walk, in a way that pleases God and keeps me vertical! I received the biggest bear hugs from my son the past few days – I so needed those and I know he did, too. And then my daughter wrote a testimony and shared on Facebook that made me understand God’s provision in the middle of grief:

“As I was sitting in church today listening to my dad preach he said something and it made me realize in the past on FB I had said a lot of negative things about my job and the reason was, that I was not being vertical and putting God first and letting him have control. If I had been vertical and let God be in control then those post would have probably never existed! I told myself that when I moved to Granbury TX this was a new start for me and that I was going to be more positive and happy. I have been living a vertical life and putting God in control and have had good days since June 3 2017. I thank God everyday for him and my dad making it possible for us to move here!” (Katie Guist, FB, 10/8/2017)

LESSON LEARNED: Keep up the good fight! As you get the opportunities make new memories with those you love. 

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28, NKJV)