Don't look at the wall!

I have been reading a great book by Joni Eareckson Tada entitled A Place for Healing. Joni had a diving accident as a teenager and has been paralyzed for over 40 years! Her faith is amazing! I have learned much from her trust in the Lord through all these years. She asked a race car driver friend to explain how they keep from running into the wall as they take the turns at such high rates of speed. As he was describing the danger, he said, "Guys in their cars get in a spin, get bumped, and they see that wall coming at them. But I'll tell you one thing they don't do, Joni. They don't look at that wall! Their natural instincts tell them to, but their training tells them to keep their eyes on the track and steer out of that spin. You see, if they look at the wall, they'll freeze. Your body just reacts; it can't help it. But if you look down the speedway and steer toward that open space, all your nerve endings are concentrating on that, not on bracing for an impact."

Joni goes on to say, "That's the way we are in our human nature. We fix our eyes on the trial that looms immediately before us, allowing ourselves to become gripped with fear. We say to ourselves, This is impossible! I'll never get through this. I'll never find a way through. I'll never recover. I'd better brace for an impact, because it's going to be a hard, hard hit! AHHHH...But after listening to Dan and his race car wisdom, I realize that the key is to take your eyes off the wall and start concentrating on the future and its opportunities (steer for the open space!), rather than on the present dilemmas that freeze us into impotence."

What a powerful message! It reminded me to keep my eyes on Jesus, not on the walls in my life! There are days when I want to turn inward and keep thinking about the sadness of losing Pete, but God is constantly reminding me to turn upward and concentrate on Him.

"Fix your eyes on Jesus" Hebrews 12:2

 

Two months ago...

Two months ago, God called Pete home….June 22^nd. Eight and a half weeks ago. Will there ever come a time when I don’t know exactly how long he has been gone? Two months of missing his smile, his hugs, and his laughter, two months of wanting to tell him everything that is going on, two months of wondering what he is seeing now while I go on seeing everything just as we have together all these years, two months of wondering what his life is like while we try to keep taking the next step down here, two months of waking up each morning and remembering all over again that he is not here. I have had widows and widowers who have told me recently that not a day goes by without them thinking of their loved one and all their memories. Right now, I am thinking of Pete constantly…He is always on my mind.

Our whole family is missing him. Between us, Pete and I have three very special children. They all have families of their own but they have always been “the kids” to us! The two older ones, Peter and Allison, are his by birth and the younger one, Brantley, is mine by birth but we both felt like they all three belonged to both of us! What a blessing God gave us in blending our two families. It is so funny but each one called Pete by a different name! To Peter, he was Pop; to Allison, he was Dad; to Brantley, he was Popsie! So when he would write all three of them an email, he would sign it Pop/Dad/Popsie! Allison is the only one so far who has had a birthday since Pete went home. It was a very hard day for her. Even though she did not always see her Dad on her birthday, he always called and talked to her. Each of them have had their moments when they are filled with the more than usual sadness about missing their dad/stepdad. Brantley told me the other day that even though we all know we have to go on and learn to live without Pete, she sometimes wanted to just cry out, “But I don’t want to learn to live without Popsie! I just wish he was still here!” We all feel that way! We are trying our best to be there for each other and encourage each other as we walk through this valley.

 

This new role of being a widow has made me think of things I haven’t ever had to think about before.  Some of these thoughts have been reinforced by other widows….some of them have just been new thoughts I now have to consider.

Ø  Please don’t stop talking about our spouses to us. I had one friend tell me that she was so surprised that some of her husband’s best friends quit talking to her about him after his death. It made her so sad.  I love when people share a memory of Pete or tell me something they were thinking about him. Sure, it might make me tear up sometimes but that is ok! I want to talk about him! The memories are very real and important…share them with us!

Ø   Thankfully, Pete and I had prepared our wills and our health care power of attorney (living wills) long, long ago. We had discussed what we wanted the other one to do in case of emergency and in case of a bad health situation. We had discussed whether we wanted to be buried or cremated. We had decided that we wanted the burial to just be for family and to be before the service in order for our family and friends to concentrate on celebrating our life, not dwelling on our death. We had even discussed that we didn’t want anyone but the family to view us in the casket. We had talked about having a Celebration Service and not a funeral! I cannot tell you how important it was to me that we had already had these talks when the time came for decisions to be made. It is such an emotional time when you lose your spouse and to already know his/her wishes helps make the decisions so much easier. I am sharing all this with the hope of motivating you if you have not done this with each other. It doesn’t matter how old you are…don’t wait…do it now!

Ø  Invite us to sit with you and do things with you! One widow told me it is so hard to go somewhere when there are mostly couples present because she doesn’t know where to sit. Make that effort…reach out and invite a widow to join you. For me personally, I have found it makes me sad when I walk to my car alone after church is over! Church was always so important to Pete and me…we loved going, we loved being there and we loved coming home together! Pete would reach out and take my hand as we walked between the car and church…now it seems like that walk is a million miles long! So if you see me heading to my car after church alone – know that I would love for you to walk with me and keep me company! You don’t have to hold my hand (ha!) but it would help if you hold my heart while we walk!

Ø  Your notes and cards mean a lot! I love opening my mail or email and reading that someone was thinking about me and praying for me! Thank you! I am working on finishing up all the thank you notes to everyone who has given to Pete’s Mission Scholarship Fund as well as everyone who ministered to us during those weeks. I wanted to handwrite each note so it is taking a long time…but I will get it done because it is important to me for you to know how much we appreciate your love and your thoughtfulness! In the past when I have received a thank you note from a grieving spouse a long time after the service, I wondered why it took so long. Well, now I know! There is a lot we are having to process emotionally, physically, and mentally as we take care of all the things that have to be handled when a loved one passes away. So forgive the time it takes....and know those of us who grieve appreciate your love and we will get those thank you notes written! When God prompts you to pray for anyone in sorrow, take a moment to let us know…it means so much to us!

Jim Elliot was one of five missionary men who were killed by the Auca (Waodani) Indians in Ecuador in 1956. They were seeking to make first contact with them in hopes of telling them about God and Jesus. All of them were young married men with small children. The Edge of the Spear is a movie that was made about their lives. I recently reread Through Gates of Splendor  written by his wife, Elisabeth Elliott, right after it happened. It was an incredible story of the journey God led these couples on to reach this people group, and then how these widows trusted God in the midst of the storm. Elisabeth and another widow actually went back and continued to reach out to the same people who killed their husbands! They finally made contact and some of the killers not only became Christians, they became good friends! Elisabeth said, “God is God. If He is God, He is worthy of my worship and my service. I will find rest nowhere but in His will and that will is infinitely, immeasurable, unspeakable beyond my largest notions of what He is up to.”  Wow! That spoke volumes to me! It all goes back to whether we believe God is God no matter what. It is about yielding my will to His, about granting Him the freedom to teach me even when it hurts, to guide me through this valley, to show me how He can use me in the midst of this storm.

“Death has a way of causing us to face our absolute powerlessness. Humans would prefer to pretend that we are powerful. After all, we can send rockets to the moon…But the truth is, we have no more power over death than we do the wind. We are helpless in the face of death, and many of us rail against that helplessness. We want to do something. We want to make the pain stop. We want to make God answer the question, ‘Why?’…We are each called upon to come to peace with our own feelings of helplessness. No one can do it for us….It is a battle for peace that can only be fought on our knees.” (Grieving the Loss of Someone You Love by Mitsch and Brookside)

 Fighting the battle on my knees….

and believing that God is God no matter what!

The "Body of Christ" gets dirty!!

What a gift the Lord gave us when He taught His disciples to gather together as the Body of Christ…not just to worship but to care for each other. I was very cared for today….A large group of friends and family came over to work in our yard and woods all morning! The majority of the group was made up of young marrieds from the two classes Pete and I have invested in the past few years. How they honored Pete by taking care of me! They cut down trees, washed windows, pressure washed the deck, cut shrubbery, edged flower beds, weeded, got mulch, cleared woods, trimmed limbs, blew off the roof, cut up roots…and hauled about 20 loads of tree limbs and logs to the dump! The guys said my name was “mud” at the dump station near our house!

All was going well until I came around to the front of the house and saw one of our Clemson guys trying to shape one of our bushes into a tiger! I am sure Pete was up in Heaven trying his best to talk Jesus into letting him zap him with a lightning bolt! Ha!

As these guys were discussing whether or not to tie loads down and usually making an effort to do so, I could just "hear" Pete, my ultimate Boy Scout knot-tying man, saying, "Of course, you need to tie your load down! What kind of knot is that you are tying? That's the worst I have ever seen!" Ha!

Scripture tells us to “take care of the widows”. I am not liking thinking of myself as a widow….but this week, I actually had to fill out some paperwork and check “widow” for the first time. That brought another tear to my eye! Widows do need your help….so if there is one in your life, please minister to her as these folks ministered to me today. It isn’t always easy to admit when we need help and sometimes we need someone to say, “What can I do for you?” All of us have different needs….my need for help with the yard was met today by many hands, smiles and strong backs! Pete used to call days when we would work hard physically for ourselves or for someone else “4 Advil days”! This was definitely a 4 Advil day for me….and a heating pad night!

I don’t know what God allows our loved ones in Heaven to see but I do hope Pete was able to see all this taking place today. I know it would have put that huge grin of his on his face! Thank you, guys, for loving Pete and me today with your care!

Love!

I have been thinking a lot about love this week….both God’s love for us and our efforts to love Him and each other.

Pete and I met at Shandon. He was working with the youth, and I was working with the college department. Back then, Shandon was so small, we only had one minister for both Youth and College! Sometimes, he would have an activity for the older youth and the college so his time wouldn’t be so divided. Pete and I met while we were “chaperoning” these events! We dated quite a while and during that time, he talked me into moving down to the youth department to work with the kids. They were always asking us, “When are you going to get married?” Well, one Sunday, Pete (in cahoots with the Youth Minister) asked me to marry him in front of the whole youth department! Believe it or not, I was speechless!! He truly surprised me! Needless to say, it didn’t take long for the word to get around when about 100 youth went to church and told their parents what happened in Sunday School that day!!! Pete and I were singing in the choir, and I could see smiles and whispers being directed our way when we first came into the choir loft! That fun proposal was a good signal to me that life was never going to be dull with Pete Richards as my husband! :) We shared a sweet, deep love and appreciation for each other. That doesn’t mean that there weren’t times when I wanted to strangle him!!! I am sure he never felt that way about me! Ha! But we quickly learned that life was much better when we could figure things out together rather than fight about them, when we laughed instead of argued, when we hugged instead of giving each other a cold shoulder. Cherish your earthly love…don’t take it for granted! Work on it, make it better, enjoy it…trust me, life can change way too quickly! I miss the “love of my life” so much! I love thinking about Pete being in Heaven and enjoying what must be an incredible life there, but oh, my… I sure do miss him not being here to share love and life with me anymore!

                                          (Back in the day! Big hair and darker hair! Ha!)

Pete and I have been blessed with 5 precious grandchildren. I had the youngest one visiting me this past week. He is almost 2 and loves music! He is beginning to learn the song Jesus loves me. He likes to sing it over and over again so I have been singing the words to this song a LOT this past week! J One night after Luke went to bed, I was thinking about the words. We so seldom sing this song as adults…and I realized how important those words are to all of us no matter what age we are! Jesus loves me! That is so powerful! Jesus loves me! Don’t we all need to hear that and think about it every day? Jesus loves me! I know I need to hear that right now in my life! I changed the words to the song a bit. Read (or sing) these words and think about how much He loves you.

Jesus loves me this I know

For the Bible tells me so

Broken hearts to Him belong

I am weak but He is strong!

Yes, Jesus loves me!

Yes, Jesus loves me!

Yes, Jesus loves me!

For the Bible tells me so!

Jesus loves me…in my hurt, in my sorrow, in my pain, in my joy, in spite of my sins and worthlessness…Jesus loves me! I need to dwell in that love…maybe you do, too!

                                                         Jesus loves you and me!

Glass half full or half empty?

I have always been a “glass half full” kind of girl…but since all this has happened with Pete, I have been feeling more like a “glass half empty” girl! It is so easy to get down and feel so sad because I miss Pete so much!  I realize that part of my grieving process is that I need to “go there” and grieve when those times come…but I also realize I cannot stay there! If I stay there too long, it drags me down deeper. So in those times when I realize I am staying too long in the depths of despair, I have been stretching my hands out to God and asking for Him to pull me up and out of that pit! I have found what works best for me is to just start praising Him and thanking Him…even if I don’t feel like it! I praise Him for Who He is, for the gift of His love and forgiveness, for Jesus and His presence in my life, for “being enough” in the midst of hard times, for the joy I had with Pete for so many years, for family, for friends, for opportunities to live for Him.

I have always admired Corrie Ten Boom, a Christian who helped her family hide Jews in their home in Holland during WW II. She and her sister were in their 50s or 60s when they were thrown into a German prisoner of war camp for helping the Jews! What went on in those camps was horrendous! But through it all, Corrie said she learned that “no pit is so deep that my Lord is not deeper still”! Oh, how true! He is always there…we just have to reach out to Him!

When I shared with the ladies at the retreat in March, I challenged them to get a journal and write down a few thank yous/praises to the Lord every day. We were challenging each other to get to 1000! (Based on idea in One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp) I was doing great with my journal until all this started happening with Pete. I will be honest with you - the journal has not been touched since then. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been praising Him because even in the midst of my sorrow, I could recognize many thank yous and praises…but I haven’t stopped to write things down. Just this week, I decided I needed to get back to concentrating on praises in my life and writing them down. Somehow writing them down helps me to think about them more and it encourages me to go back and read them over and over. Today, a dear friend sent me a devotional written by Mary Southerland/Girlfriends in God. I think it was God’s way of saying, “Yes, girl, I want you to keep focusing on praising Me! That will help you.” I love how He reinforces His messages through friends sometimes!  So even though I know I will still have my moments of deep pain and sorrow, I am going to work on praising Him more every day. (devotional in red)

Today’s Truth
Sing to God, sing praises to His name; Cast up a highway for Him who rides through the deserts; whose name is the Lord, and exult before Him (Psalm 68:4).

Friend to Friend
I love the story of the woman who woke up one morning, looked in the mirror, and noticed she had only three hairs on her head. "Well," she said, "I think I'll braid my hair today. She did and she had a wonderful day. The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and saw that she had only two hairs on her head. "Hmm," she said, "I think I'll part my hair down the middle today." She did and she had a great day. The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that she had only one hair on her head. "Well," she said, "today I'm going to wear my hair in a ponytail." So she did and she had a fun day. The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that there wasn't a single hair on her head. "Yes!" she exclaimed, "I don't have to fix my hair today!" Now that’s what I call having a good attitude. (I LOVE this story!)

Attitude can transform anything and everything – thoughts, habits, and perspectives.  We can literally change our lives by changing the way we think. In Isaiah 26:3 (NLT), we find the promise, “You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, whose thoughts are fixed on you.” A mind filled with thoughts fixed on God will produce a heart filled with praise – and girlfriend, praise is a powerful tool in our spiritual arsenal. Praise brings healing to our spirit. When we honestly express our trust in God, then choose to give thanks, healing begins. Praise provides a highway upon which the Father conveys deliverance and blessing. Praise invites God to take up residence in the midst of our messy lives and becomes a free-flowing conduit of God’s very presence and power at work in us. God funnels infinite blessings into a life that praises Him. Stress and anxiety fade as peace floods the heart that is filled with praise… 

Don’t miss the life changing truth that we can enthrone God in every situation of our lives by praising Him. Praise converts our everyday surroundings into His dwelling place. It is from that throne of praise that God dispenses victory. Praise tunes us into His sovereignty and allows us to experience the reality and power of His presence. 

Praise strengthens our prayer life. Prayer is not only a remarkable privilege that we often fail to recognize or understand, it is also part of our worship to God. There is the asking side of prayer when we seek forgiveness, lay needs before God and intercede on behalf of others. Then there is the appreciating side of prayer when we offer praise and thanksgiving to God for who He is and what He has done. Our relationship with God is strengthened through prayer and praise. Now here is my favorite truth about praise. Are you ready? Praise devastates Satan and his forces. Yes! I love it! In fact, Psalm 20:5 (NIV) promises, “We will shout for joy when you are victorious and will lift up our banners in the name of our God.” Satan is well aware of just how powerful praise is and I suspect he absolutely hates it … which absolutely delights me! I can almost sense his fury when I choose to praise God instead of questioning Him. He hates it when I walk by faith, setting aside feelings and emotions while focusing on God’s Word and His faithfulness in my life.

No matter where you are or what you are facing, God is with you. Choose to praise Him.

Praising Him while working on my hair and drinking from my half full glass!

He is worthy of all praise!

"Doing Missions" without Pete

Took another hard step this week. Pete and I always loved going on mission trips…some have been here in the United States and some have been overseas. Each trip has been special and each time we went, it strengthened our hearts even more to want to help by encouraging those we went to serve whether it was through teaching or construction with our main purpose being to share Christ. One of our favorite trips was about 16 years ago when Pete, Brantley and I went to Kenya for 2 weeks. Pete worked with some of our team alongside some of the Kenyan men to build a roof for churches in several locations. The churches there were literally mud hut structures with straw for roofs. Pete’s team would build the new roofs and the church would meet under the new roof until they could afford to add concrete block walls. Brantley and I spent our time sharing Christ through an interpreter as we walked from family community to family community. The families there lived in groups of several huts circled around together. When we would enter a family community area, we had to ask permission to speak from the head of the family. We could not share unless he granted us permission.  Graciously, we were always granted permission…I am sure it was part curiosity so they could hear the “funny way we talked”! But it worked! We would share about our relationship with Christ and invite them to the church.

This is my favorite picture from that trip! The morning this picture was made was the last Sunday we were there. Pete and his crew had built the roof structure for this church in the area where Brantley and I had been working. The church was a long way from the road. As we got out of the van that Sunday morning and started walking down a dirt path to get to the church, we could hear a lot of singing. We came around the corner and the church people had gathered under the roof singing praising to the Lord! It brought such joy to our hearts and you can see it in our faces! What a blessing to be a part of the growth of this church!

All the memories of past trips flooded back into my heart this week because I went on a mission trip to Chicago with a group from our church. You may remember from Pete’s Celebration Service that we were supposed to be in Nicaragua with a team that week. We would also have gone on this trip to Chicago together.  I knew I needed to go on and go to Chicago…but I will tell you, it was hard to do! I missed Pete tremendously not being beside me ministering together like we always did. Although I held it together during the days, the first two nights, I came back to the hotel and just cried! As I cried those two nights, He sweetly sent me prayer warriors and reminders of Who He is…I had been reading in a great book by Anne Graham Lotz titled Why? Trusting God when you don’t understand and He reminded me once again that I needed to “trust Him beyond today, beyond the physical, beyond the emotional, beyond the temporary, beyond the material, beyond the visible, beyond the grave! Trust Him when you can’t see the big picture or the end of the story. Trust Him when the worst happens and you just don’t understand why.” So once again, He pulled me up off of the floor and reminded me to “trust Him”! Things were much better the rest of the week. I was given an opportunity to develop new friendships with two women in particular who have lived hard inner city lives. I am looking forward to continuing my friendship with them through emails and am sure God will use us in each other’s lives. The best gift of all, though, was an opportunity that I had on Wednesday to share Christ with an 11 year old boy who asked Him into his heart! That was worth the trip and any amount of tears!! What I love the most was how God had been working in his life. Timothy was not a member of that church but had gone on a youth trip with them a few days prior to our arrival. Then some of our group poured into his life while we were there through some activities for his age group. Then I was given the blessing to share with him on Wednesday and his heart was so open and ready for Christ to walk right in! Such a sweet reminder of how God uses the body of Christ to plant, to water and to reap!

Pete and I had been planning on focusing on lots of mission opportunities stateside and overseas over the next few years. I am having to learn that I need to go on and complete our dreams without him even though it will be so hard to do. I must be obedient to God’s direction on our lives even when I don’t understand why He is having me do it alone instead of with Pete. It made perfect sense to us…God would use Pete’s construction knowledge and my education knowledge and we would have great ministry opportunities together around the world! However, our Sovereign God had another plan…and so I will just keep holding on tightly to His hand and seeking His will…even through tears along the way!

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not depend on your own understanding. Seek His will in all you do, and He will show you which path to take.” Proverbs 3:5 - 6