Tag: christianity

3 Truths: Living with Purpose

This is the one-year anniversary of my wife’s homegoing to heaven, 8/5/25-8/5/26. I am learning 3 truths. I already posted T1 & T2.

T3: Living with Purpose Heals Grief: What has kept me from despair and paralysis has been living with purpose. I have something to live for. I was involved in two ministries while taking care of Sandie during her at-home hospice time. I could work as a PRN chaplain at night while she slept. I could temporarily get away from caretaker stress and serve as a visiting preacher to a west TX church while Sandie went to a medical lodge. (Hospice care allowed 5 days of caretaker respite every 30 days.) I still serve as a part-time chaplain and pastor since she has gone to heaven, her homegoing. While most widows and widowers would probably say the main motive to keep living is their children and grandchildren, that’s not true for me. (Currently I only have a relationship with 2 of my 4 children.) So, the main motive for me to keep living is purposeful ministry. It’s BEING a chaplain and pastor. (“Being” is identity and serving is the action that flows from being. I am a belove child of God with a purpose, a mission, an assignment to serve. That’s my main motive.)  Serving as a chaplain and pastor I can forget about myself while helping other people. Being the Lord’s son and serving Him is healing.

Sorrow turned to joy: John 16:20-22. Jesus told the disciples they would grieve His death, but then their sorrow would be turned to joy. Jesus compared it to a woman giving birth. The disciples felt sorrow and grief at Jesus’ death but then joy at His resurrection. After Jesus’ resurrection they were given a new purpose and the HS (Matthew 28:18-20). The resurrection, a new purpose, and the HS healed their grief. After the death of a spouse, you will have a season of sorrow and grief, but you have hope and know your spouse is in heaven. If the Lord took your spouse to be with Him, and left you in this world, then He has a purpose for you, a mission, an assignment. Seek Him to know it. Living with His purpose will heal your grief.

Hebrews 12:1-2 challenges us to run with endurance the race, the mission, the assignment set before us while keeping our eyes on Jesus. Jesus endured the cross for the joy that was set before Him. What was the joy placed before Him? What did Jesus see beyond the pain of the cross? He saw His purpose. I believe He saw a sanctified bride, millions of people in love with Him, the Father, and the Spirit (Revelation 19:7-8). We can endure the grief of the loss of a spouse, a child, a parent, when we see His purpose for us to remain. The pain will lessen, the grief will subside, joy will return as we live in His purpose.

There are times life is hard, and I would rather be with my wife in heaven, but then I confess I have His purpose to remain, to be His and serve Him until He calls me home and says “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter the eternal joy of My kingdom.”   

3 Truths: Love Again

One year anniversary of my wife’s homegoing to heaven, 8/5/25-8/5/26.

T2: Yes, You Can Love Again.

Three months after Sandie’s homegoing, I made a profile on a Christian dating website. Was it too soon after Sandie’s homegoing? Not really. She had been declining for 3 years and the final 15 months I was her hospice caretaker at home. I traveled through the stages of grief several times. So, I was emotionally prepared for her departure. She couldn’t eat, she couldn’t speak, she had lost half her body weight. I knew she was ready to be with her Savior. I saw it in her eyes. No fear. I prayed for the Lord to take her to heaven. The morning of 8/5/2025, I heard the “death rattle” and was with her when she took her last breath. I felt pain and relief. She experienced freedom!

A few days after posting my profile, I was messaged by a lady on my wife’s birthday (12/11). Coincidence? The dating website relationship lasted 6 months.  Why was the relationship important? It’s the capacity to love again, but with some struggles. My lady friend allowed me to talk about Sandie. It was healing for me. I allowed her to talk about the loss of her sister. We had both experienced loss and grief. In my relationship with her I felt I could love again. My heart was healing and able to love a new “soul mate”.

1 John 4:7-10: Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Yes, you can love again because God is love. We don’t lose the ability to love because God is love. We can pollute the capacity to love with selfishness, bitterness, resentment, and unforgiveness. I struggled with bitterness, resentment, and anger toward God, not the hospice care people or anybody else. When the poison was removed from my spirit, the Spirit produced the fruit of love in my life. Galatians 5:22-23: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 

Yes, I can love again, because God is love. Now, I feel pulled in two directions. I would like to meet a new “body and soul mate” and remarry, IF it’s the Lord’s will. I don’t fear the covenant. However, I also enjoy the freedom of being single! I know it is possible to have both. I enjoyed a marriage covenant with Sandie and the freedom to travel and enjoy days of “singleness”. I think the security of the covenant enabled me to do mission work for the Lord and enjoy times of singleness. So, I will let the Lord decide. “The LORD God brought her to the man.” (Genesis 2:22)

PS: I still have an active profile on the dating website. The Lord can use it if it’s His will.

3 Truths: Release the Past

One-year anniversary of my wife’s homegoing to heaven 8/5/25-8/5/26.

T1: Release the past and move forward.

The Scripture for Truth 1: Philippians 3:13-14: I take Paul out of context and use this as a principle: Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. If we want to move forward toward the goal (perfection or completeness in Christ) then we need to forget what lies behind in the past.

“Forget the past and move forward” meant moving out of the house and neighborhood where I took care of Sandie for 3 years. I call it “moving out and moving on”. When she crashed our car into her doctor’s Porsche, I knew she couldn’t drive anymore. We moved from Memphis to Dallas to be close to our son. During those 3 years I took her to Rock Steady Boxing, church, doctors, neurologists, healing services, and hospice care. For the last year of her life she was in hospice care, lying in a hospital bed next to me. (The Lord forced to move out and on when the owner of the house decided to sell it.) Why was moving out important? It was separation from the past and a move forward into a new life. I needed to move out and move on into a new life without her.

“Forget the past” really means release it. At the hospice memorial service for all the patients who died in 2025, we released butterflies. My butterfly had difficulty flying when it was released. It fell; it did not fly up and away. After some help it fluttered away, free at last. Moving beyond loss and grief is like that.

Don’t hold on so tightly that you cannot move forward. Don’t let the past hold you back. I will never forget Sandie. I look at our pictures together and say, “I wish you were here with me, or I was there with you,” but feel only slight pain of loss and a whisper of grief. Then I give thanks she is safe in heaven. However, I am reducing photo albums. I keep only a few photos and three albums. I have pictures and videos on my phone I should delete so I can move forward. (I have a video of All Texas Cremation taking her body away. Delete it?) I have a VHS video of our wedding in 8/15/1987. I may digitize it, but I like the scratchy VHS quality because it looks old and reminds me we were married a long time ago before cell phones existed. I only watch it once a year on our anniversary.

“Forget the past” means I will not allow bitterness, resentment, fear, or unfulfilled dreams of growing old together keep me from experiencing the new life the Lord has for me. I’m still in this world. The Lord has a purpose for me. I will live it for His glory.

Hebrews 12:1-2: Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with patient endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Cut loose the weight of the past and run with patient endurance the race Jesus has set before you. The “weight of the past” is any burden or impediment that would keep you from moving forward in the Lord’s plan: grief, guilt, anger, resentment, bitterness, unforgiveness, or any sinful attitude or behavior. I was bitter and angry toward God who controls life and death, who took my “soul mate” and crushed the dream of growing old together and having “mom” involved in the lives of our children. She was the key relational link with our children. She did not get to see her grandchild.

Cutting loose the weight of the past releases the freedom of the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:17: Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Hernia Surgery Recovery

Value of Waiting

It reveals my sin nature. I don’t like it, but I need it. Impatience is built into my sin nature. I see it in myself when confronted with waiting, like waiting in line at Costco or waiting in traffic. I see it with others every day I drive a TX highway. Drive the speed limit and you will feel like you’re standing still as cars and trucks zoom around you like water around a rock in the middle of a stream. I felt my impatient sin nature many times during my wife’s hospice care. I have a keloid scar that reminds me. I had to help her to the bathroom at night. I was impatient and angry and dropped her on the toilet. The bowl broke and flooded the bathroom. I sliced my palm open on a sharp edge of the ceramic bowl… water and blood. I went to the ED of the hospital where I work. No stiches. I have a keloid scar to remind me.

It makes me trust in the LORD and not my own efforts. Proverbs 3:5-8. As I wait and trust there will be post-op healing to my flesh and refreshment to my bones and joints. That’s a promise.

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
    and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him,
    and he will make straight your paths.
7 Be not wise in your own eyes;
    fear the Lord and turn away from evil.
8 It will be healing to your flesh
    and refreshment to your bones.

It keeps me from getting ahead of God’s plan and timing. If I get ahead of God’s plan then I will mess it up. God is orchestrating other necessary alignments while I wait. Psalm 37:1-7: Be still before the lord and wait patiently for him. Waiting is not wasted time.

It is preparation time for my character and skills to develop. Abraham & Sarah, Moses, Joseph, David waited. Waiting formed the character and skills the LORD required so they were prepared for their holy assignments in His history of redemption. The disciples waited 50 days for the HS (Acts 1:4; 2:1) not knowing when or how HS would come. The wait was worth it, followed by boldness and power.

It renews purpose and strength: Isaiah 40:30-31. I feel like an agave century plant. This is my favorite plant when hiking around Big Bend mountains and deserts. It’s silent for many years and then grows a tall flower stalk that feeds insects, hummingbirds, and bats; then it dies.

LOVE AGAIN?

Love Again: I miss Sandie body and soul. I feel like my body and soul need another tangible soulmate, another intimate connection. Thirty-eight years of intimate connection with a soulmate doesn’t just disappear when she’s gone. (Here’s a terrible analogy: maybe it’s like a soldier who has his legs blown off by an IED. He may feel his legs are still there and wonder if he could ever walk again. Eventually he will learn to walk with prosthetic legs.)  A well-intentioned Christian may say, “You have the Holy Spirit as your Helper. So why do you desire a tangible soulmate?” Why? Because the Holy Spirit is a spirit and I am a spirit in a body; I am a “living soul”. The HS can heal my spirit but my body needs physical touch to heal.

So, I wonder if I could ever love again, learn to love another woman as a soulmate, a wife. Would I need to forget about Sandie to love another woman? I cannot do that. But another soulmate would make life better: Ecclesiastes 4:9-12: 9 Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. 10 For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! 11 Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? 12 And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken. A threefold cord includes the LORD as the central cord.

I see advantages to remaining single for the remainder of my life and I see advantages to living with another soulmate, if it’s the LORD’s will and He provides. So, I’ll wait and see. (Every time I sit next to an attractive mature woman at church I feel something and look to see if she’s wearing a wedding ring. Can’t fight the temptation!) Anyway… I’m 69! I don’t want to live past 80… unless I can still hike, ride my ADV bike, have enough money to cover basic expenses, and serve the LORD.

The Lord’s Mercy at Death: August 5, 2025

I have been praying for several weeks for God to be merciful and take Sandie to heaven: “If it isn’t Your will to heal her, then have mercy and take her to be with You.” The Lord answered my prayer. The Lord has been merciful. She was never in pain throughout the three-year course of this disease, the gradual loss of movement, and then 24/7 confinement to a hospital bed at home. I had hoped she would make it to our 38th wedding anniversary 8/15 (8/15/1987) and then go to heaven. The Lord had other plans.  

I see Jesus’ mercy in her last days and moments in this world. The past couple nights we have watched several videos from Imagine Heaven Podcast with John Burke and some videos from AI Bible “Biblically Accurate Heaven” to prepare her for heaven. I even told her “You’ll be going there soon.”

I came awake around 5am and was conscious of a sound. I remember thinking, “What’s that sound?” It was different from the low humming of the pressure mattress of the hospital bed. I went back to sleep. I woke up at 7am and realized Sandie was making the sound. Her breathing was shallow, and her eyes were open. I looked into her eyes and for a moment she looked into my eyes. I think the Spirit of God put in my mind, “It’s the death rattle.” I called hospice care. She had a blank stare but was looking at something. I think she was getting a glimpse of eternity. I notified our children, and they joined a WhatsApp video call. They told their mom they loved her. She heard them. A few minutes later her spirit left her body. There was no breath, no pulse, dilated pupils without flinching, and her lips and arms were cold. I put my ear to her chest and heard no beat. Her spirit left her body while we all watched.

About 20 minutes later the hospice nurse arrived and pronounced her dead. (She helped with contacting All Texas Cremation and American Forensics. A sample of Sandie’s brain tissue will be sent to Mayo Clinic studying her specific neurological disorder – CBD & PSP).

Here’s how I see Jesus’ mercy. She could’ve passed away during the night and I would never have known. We would never have had a last moment with her. But the Lord waited until I woke up (a second time) and contacted our children so they could be with her at the last moment.

I can only imagine what she’s experiencing now!     

Suffering God

I’m tempted to quit my faith in God. Why does God allow my wife to die a slow death by an incurable disease? Why did God allow a river in the hill country of Texas to flood and drown 27 girls in a Christian camp? As the flood waters raged and swept away the terrified girls and many others, did Jesus command the angels not to interfere and save anyone and let them die horrible deaths by drowning? What about all the broken-hearted parents? What’s the difference between God doing something or allowing it to happen? Aren’t the results the same? There’s still suffering and death. Well, of course, our theology says God cannot do evil because that would make God evil. If God permits evil to happen, then we can say God isn’t evil. It’s convenient theology that allows us to believe God may achieve some greater good.

Yes, I’m tempted to quit my faith in God. I’m hanging on by a thread. That thread is NOT that faith is tested by trials and grows stronger, although I believe this to be true. That faith is NOT that God works all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to His purpose, although I believe this to be true. That thread is that God has suffered. God allowed Himself to feel physical and emotional pain. God allowed Himself to suffer loss and death. Jesus suffered an excruciatingly painful death at the hands of evil people. (Read Isaiah 53.) Jesus’ suffering actually began when he became incarnate and entered this world under the curse of sin. (Read Philippians 2:3-9) My faith is in a God who has suffered. So, I’m not really hanging on to my faith by a thread. I’m hanging on hooked to a steel cable. Jesus Christ has felt suffering and pain and because He has suffered, He is able to intercede for us in our suffering. (Read Hebrews 4:14-16.) I worship the God who has suffered.