Birth Pains.  Why Birth Pains?

It seems “birthing” new, saved, whole parts of us hurts, much like creation is pained until we become God’s sons and daughters.  What is God saving in you now?  That question may be the same as a doctor asking, “Tell me where it hurts.” 

This truth describes much of life!  Let’s scour the verses to see what God hints at.  These verses are thick, and … mystical. 

Before I get too mystical, trust this.  Some say they have a way to God’s glory sans suffering.  They lie.  See the truth in these verses.  Let’s map them.  The Greek words are highlighted identically with the English words. 

  Romans 8:17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him
sumpascho; sum & pasch; suffer with.  (One Word!)
 

in order that we may also be glorified with Him.
sundoxazo; sun & oxazo; to join in approving, hence to glorify together. Again (One Word!)

  ¹⁸For I consider that the sufferings
pathema; from pascho; that which befalls one, a suffering, a passion.
We get our word for paschal suffering or the “Passion” of Christ.
 

of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is
doxa; opinion (always good), hence praise, honor, glory.
God’s opinion is the truest and best opinion of us.  His is the most glorious of us.

  With the glory that is to be revealed to us.
apokalupto; from apo & kalupto; to uncover, reveal.  (Apocalypse, Revelation)

  ¹⁹For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of God’s daughters and sons.
apokaradokia; from apo & kara (the head) & dokeo; strained expectancy, earnest longing. 
We have thoughts about the way things should be. 
apokalupsis; from apo & kalupto; to uncover, reveal.  (Apocalypse, Revelation)

  ²²For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.
sustenazo; from sun & stenazo; to groan together.  .  (One Word!)
sunodino; from sun & odino; to be in travail or suffer childbirth pains together. .  (One Word!)

  ²³And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons,
stenazo; to groan within oneself, to complain, deep sigh, grief.
the redemption of our body.
apolutrosis; to release on payment of ransom; redemption. 
This is not the Body, the church.  It is me: my flesh.  It is my lusts, my angers, my humor, my soul. 

Now, read them again. 
Romans 8:17 We are heirs. We suffer with Him
that we may also be glorified with Him.
  ¹⁸For I consider that the sufferings
we endure now are nothing compared with the glory that is
to be revealed to us. 

 ¹⁹For the creation’s anxious longing waits eagerly for us to be revealed as God’s children! 
 ²²We know the whole creation groans and suffers childbirth pains together until now.
²³We also, having the Spirit’s fruits in us we groan within ourselves,
waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons and daughters
 — the redemption of our body.

First, these verses show God as Father (Abba).  They show our status as His children is unshakable. 

Now, from these thick, rich words, explore some depths.  A warning: this one may finish fuzzy.  Why? I don’t know these depths.  I am one swimming over the Marianas Trench.  I can say, “Tall waves!” when the powerful reality is I am seven miles above the ocean floor!

Start here: we suffer.  Paul takes it for granted: you suffer.  So see two parts of suffering.  (Part One) Life comes with suffering attached.  Ours is a fallen world.  Alcoholic parents, anger, abusive people, depravity, gossip, divorce, cancer, dying children, dying friends, dying parents, war, bigotry, sexual damages, dementia, child exploitation, porn, money troubles, anxiety, anorexia, allergies, cheating spouses, depression, new diseases teaching me their initials as they kill someone close, and accidental anything — all come as part of life.  Can you possibly be untouched?  Life comes with suffering.  We live in a fallen world.  Any Christian message not dealing honestly with suffering is faux, fraud, a lie, a scam. 

Any preacher saying God only gives the good drives a Mercedes.  Any message shouting all sickness comes from unconfessed sin is nuts.  Easy religion sells.  Beware of who says “There is no suffering!”  Yes, liars are bold, but see who is listening!  Hear their listeners!  They’re angry, broken, questioning, and suffering.  Paul wades saying, “Suffering surrounds us!”  We live in a fallen world. 

That is not all to this broken Paul with visions and spells befalling him.  It is not all he wants you to see on suffering.  (Part Two of Suffering) Paul suffers for Christ.  He catalogues his sufferings a couple of times, beaten, cold, stoned, cast adrift and in peril.  He suffered for Christ.

A warning.  If you won’t embrace your suffering and trust God in it: if you won’t choose to suffer for the Lord — then the rest of Romans Chapter Eight belongs to someone else.  This is hard.  I repeat.  Paul builds the rest of this chapter on embracing this world’s suffering and trusting God in it, if you won’t suffer for Him any sacrifice or discomfort — then the rest of this chapter belongs to those trusting Christ here. 

What is built on this suffering and trusting?

You want intercession beyond words (26)?  You want all things working for good (28)?  Like being more than conquerors (37)?  DO YOU LOVE that nothing can separate us from God’s love (38-9)?  All these follow suffering.  You can’t reach the heights and bypass suffering.  Life brings suffering and God is in the middle of it.  You won’t follow Christ and NEVER suffer!  Jesus costs some fights … others hurt you.  Christ costs you gossip. Others hate that you don’t gossip.  He costs you anger.  Others see you as weak, and it all hurts!

You can’t reach the great stuff bypassing suffering.  See suffering sown among these great promises!  Great stuff is out there in Christ.  None comes before some suffering. 

We don’t like it.  We disagree.  Be careful.  With whom do you then agree?  “Buy this car, and drive happily ever after!”  “Wear these clothes, and be cool!”  “Use this skin care so your face looks happy!”  “If the going gets tough, the tough go shopping!”  Did you miss Jesus’ holes in His hands?  Paul has welts on his back. 

Paul says suffering happens…can it compare to the coming glory?  Hmm.  We go to doctors like other patients, but we don’t tell them, “If my suffering passes into death’s portal into heaven, that will be glorious!”  More doctors would be shaken and come to Christ. 

Popular theology turns and twists everything.  I am not out to guilt you, but this is true.  We assume quietly, “God never intended me to suffer.”  The result?  More born-again Christians divorce in America than atheists! 

Do you hunger for God’s opinion of you?  Do you thirst for God’s great opinion of your kids, of you to be true?  Do you believe God’s opinion of (glory in) you is more real than your feelings about you?  Paul thunders, “Glory is truer in you!”  Hold out for God’s opinion!  Endure suffering beautifully, gloriously my child!   Why?

Glory is revealed to & in us.  That word revealed is the mysterious, convoluted word for Apocalypse and Revelation!  John’s Revelation is off the charts deep and mysterious.  He sees beings covered in eyes, winged beasts, horrors ride up from hell, unimaginable cities of beauty descend from heaven, and a wounded-in-love Lamb!  Mystical.  Magical.  Wondrous. 

Suffering men, women and children across this globe serve God and see healings, miracles, visions, and hope, and more suffering.  This painful, crazy mystery is building to an Apocalypse — a revealing of God.  We hunger to know the Apocalypse of eternity and Paul screams, “Big deal.  It’s coming.  YOU are the major mystery!  Who will you become?!”

(22) God hears seal pups groan to death for fur. God hears species extinguished.  Do you hear creation groan for us?  God hears millions of rainforest acres groan with a melting Antarctic.  They suffer under our subjection.  Creation sighs and suffers awaiting our being birthed.  They trust their Creator to make it worthwhile as we are revealed as sons and daughters. 

Hear the groans of children dying early.  They are now birthed as God’s daughters and sons.  On dying their glory is finished in Father’s face.  Children start, suffer, and leave us.  Jesus wept.  Either they die and their glory is completed before Christ, Who suffered for them or we’re a joke.  Do you believe their glory lies beyond their suffering?  Do you trust Christ enough to suffer through to His revealing what is truest, most glorious of you? 

Why is suffering so important?  Why is it so important to us as Christians?  Look at 22 & 23. 

We make choices in suffering.  Suffering is neutral.  Some men lose wives, rail at God, and discard their faith.  Other men bury a wife and draw close to God.  Some die of cancer testifying of the Lord.  Others grow angry at God over disease and leave Him. 

Don’t miss this.  All Creation suffers along with us, birthing us! 

The ideas are indissoluble.  Groans together with, and endures birth pains together with cannot be reduced.  “With” is built into “groan” and into “birth pains”.  No whale chose to be hunted, but suffers in its Creator.  A rhino killed for its horn so a rich Japanese businessman powders and drinks it … groans.  They groan with us… as parts of the creation.  See the irony?  We are attached to them as well.  We groan at some level as they suffer. 

Do you see the view from here?  We’re on top of the world here, in Paul’s letter.  Seriously, this is a pinnacle.  All creation, all that became through I Am, all that is spoken by the Word of God, Jesus, is for this single purpose: birthing God’s daughters and sons.  This is the climax!

My wife’s exertion as she burst blood vessels in her eyes and sobbed: her trembling as she regrouped, sweated and her face burned red tell me we are birthed in pain: in another’s pain. 

I see three painful truths.  1) Did you arrive where you are in Christ, costing other souls much pain?  Did you thank them for what they endured for you?  We are self-absorbed, but can grow to see their pain, and thank God for them, and thank them for Christ in them. 

2) We make lousy midwives.  We allay others’ pain, when God intends the pain to birth a new thing new in her.  We prescribe for each other, substitute ourselves for the Comforter, and preclude what God was birthing in them.  Hear God.  Suffering and pain’s demise are promised only in heaven.  Down here, suffering and pain may be God’s midwives at the birthing of a child of the Living God. 

3) Why so much pain?  I’m attached to dead things in me, and He must tear them from my living soul! 

God is, in verse 23, redeeming even our bodies.  I saw one man’s addiction to pornography transform into his burning passion to tell others of the Lord.  It hurt.  Oh, he suffered, but God birthed something eternal that has saved others.  Don’t sin as a Gnostic thinking God saves my soul, but the body is a loss.  God is buying back even your body’s most painful parts! 

How precise is He in redeeming?  8:1 tells us He does not condemn us.  In 8:3 He condemns sin in us. That means the Physician’s scalpel cuts only necrosis.  It assures us that His laser comes for cancer cells only.  It assures that arthroscopy snakes in me for necrotic horrors only. 

Everest climbers say the height is dizzying, the air too thin and dry and hurts, the sun too bright, the cold too piercing to stay.  Maybe suffering is too wonderful for them to miss, as they express awe, ineffable wonder from the roof of the world. This chapter, these verses form the roof of our world.  How much will you endure to see the view from up there?

The Bible warns that others will not want you to be birthed, or to help birth others.  (John’s Apocalypse, the 12^th chapter).

BLESSING FOR YOU:  If you cry out to Him in pain.  Look out from that height to be astounded at how high He brought you in your suffering.  If you exclaim how beautiful it is, be not surprised if He smiles to say, “That beauty is nothing compared to what I’ve done in you, My child,” as He hands you a mirror.  Go in that great grace.  Amen. 

Live in the Spirit: There is Always More

I will ask how you know you are in the Spirit later. 

On our delayed honeymoon, Jill and I enjoyed upstate New York, Niagara Falls, Canada and drove across Michigan.  Driving in Michigan’s heartland, we crossed an invisible line.  Having passed hundreds of farms, suddenly all of them displayed beautiful order.  Trees lined up in rows.  Hay from mown pastures filled perfect barns beside perfect houses.  We both said, “We crossed into another world!”  We were correct.  These farms were settled by German immigrants.  It could not have been clearer if they had put up signs, “German Chamber of Commerce welcomes you!  Deutchsland loves America!” 

In New York City, the signs are unmistakable: if unreadable.  The Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Lebanese, and Puerto Rican shops and languages scream: you’re on our turf! 

I don’t know about you, but, when I heard that the Holy Spirit is in us along with this lower nature, this sarx, this squishy area, I got confused.  I wondered, “When am I working in the Spirit, and when in the flesh?”  How do I recognize these lands?

Let’s (re)examine some verses. 

Step One: God invites me to move from condemnation to being “in Christ.”  In Romans 8:1, God delivers astonishing news, there is now no condemnation to those who are IN Christ Jesus. 

Step Two: I see two powers (laws) in me.  I can choose the power God put in me to live for Him.

     He is the Power of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus (Verse 2).

     He is the Spirit (verse 5).

     The Spirit is life and peace (verse 6).

Step Three: In Texas they ask, “How ‘bout chew?” (How about you?)  Choose to live in the Spirit.  Either way, we ALL choose.  What we choose is the rest of our life.  You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, she does not belong to Christ Romans 8:9.

Why is this Spirit so important?  As a Baptist I did think much about Him.  Religion, denominations politicize truth, and are poorer for it.  Hear Paul.  If you are not IN the Spirit, or He is not IN you then:

Romans 8:9b He or she does not belong to Christ. (NIV)
He or she is none of his. (KJV)
He or she does not belong to Him. (NASB)
He or she is not His. (NKJV)
He or she does not belong to him. (NRSV)
If you don’t have the Spirit of Christ living in you, you are not a Christian at all. (The Message)
[Without Him you] won’t know what you’re talking about. (Living)

What word means all of these possibilities?  The word is eimi; I exist, I am.  It is translated: am (142 times), been (45), being (26), belong (12), come (8), exist (8), or mean (11).  If you do not have the Spirit, God’s third person on planet earth today in you, then you do not exist in God.  You have never been in Christ.  You don’t belong to the Father.  If you think Christianity is exclusive because of Christ; THIS is the exclusive clause!

Paul throws us a sideways question: Where you at?  To help answer it, let’s see some signs to better help us see where we live. 

The way I tend to answer this question is how I was instructed to answer in my Ph.D. orals.  “If anyone asks you a question you do not know, reflect on how good a question it is, and answer another question you do know.”  Do you also do that with “the Spirit” question? 

Someone asks, “Is the Holy Spirit living in you?”  If we have no answer, we answer another question.  “Yes, I ‘got saved’ as a child, and was baptized at such-and-such a church.”  

Consider another question, “Are you alive?”

Now get this answer: “Of course, I’m alive.  My birth certificate’s on file in Garfield County.  I was born at Bass Hospital there.”  The answer does not touch the question. 

Consider yet another question. 

“Did you and your spouse have a wonderful time last night on your date?”

And see this answer: “Of course, we’re married.  We got married in St. Joseph’s Catholic Church 20 years ago!  We keep a copy of the marriage certificate in our safe deposit box!” 

These questions explore the nature of our lives.  The sad answers are book-keeping answers: I am legal in my life and marriage.  I am religious.  Who cares?  Are you ALIVE? God Spirit?  Feel any Power?  How about some joy?

The questions ask after hope, joy, or power and wonder in our relationship.  Our answers are theological and pasty. 

The question is, are you controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit?[1]

Whether you are legally married does not answer how you treat each other or if you’re happy.  Whether you have a birth certificate does not answer if you were thrilled to be alive this week. 

Whether you are saved is an interesting question.  The more important question today is, if saved, do you have power to live for God?  Are you alive in what Christ calls you to do?

Let’s have a grammar lesson.  Am I “in” Christ, or is the Holy Spirit “in” me?  Hmm.  I get confused with the prepositions.  Let’s look at God’s Word.

Jesus lived, died and came alive again “in” the Spirit. 
Luke 4:14 “Jesus returned to Galilee
in the power of the Spirit.”
1 Peter 3:18 “For Christ also died for sins once for all . . .
having been put to death in the flesh,
but made alive in the spirit.”

What about us?

Scripture talks about the Holy Spirit being IN us. 
1 Cor. 3:16 “You are a temple of God. 
The Spirit of God dwells in you!”
2 Tim. 1:14 “Guard the treasure which has been entrusted to you
through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us”
2 Cor. 1:22 “[God] also sealed us and
gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge.”

But Scripture equally talks about us being IN the Holy Spirit. 

Ephes. 1:13 “[Having believed],
you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit — ”
Ephes. 2:22 “In whom you also are being built together
into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”
Ephes. 6:18 “With all prayer and petition
pray at all times in the Spirit — ”

Both are true at the same time! 
I’m IN the Holy Spirit and He is in me! 
1 John 3:24 “You who keep His commandments abide in Him,
and He in you.”

1 John 4:13 “By this we know that we abide in Him and
He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.”
Romans 8:9 “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit,
if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.”

Paul, John, and Peter agree.  We are In the Spirit AND He is in us.”  God’s envoy, the Holy Spirit, invades us to seal us against all claims, and empower us to good works! 

Hear both parts.  When you ask God to save you in Jesus’ name, the Holy Spirit invades you, takes up residence, and never leaves.  He saves & keeps you.  Cool.  When you obey and accept God’s invitation, you step into God’s sphere, His world running on Holy Spirit laws.  Can the Spirit leave you?  No.  Can you act like stupidly rather than IN the Spirit?  Yes. 

I must do two things. 

One: I hope to make you uncomfortable at the idea of living in the flesh.  I do so because living in the flesh kills you in pieces.  Always has, always will. 

Two: I want you to try all God has for you.  Why?  He placed His Spirit IN you so you can live life in the Spirit.  Chapter 8 spells out “in the Spirit” Nothing can conquer you!  Nothing can separate you from God’s love in Christ!  Nothing can steal your status as His child! … So… “Stay in the Spirit!”

IN the Spirit or IN the flesh?  See more markers to tell whose “hood” you’re in.  John: Those who obey Christ’s commands live in Him, and He in them.  And this is how we know He lives in us: We know it by the Spirit He gave us.[2]  How do I know I’m in a real surgical unit?  People dress and act like doctors and nurses, yes.  More importantly they operate on patients, who get better when they stay until healed. 

IN the Spirit or IN the flesh?  See more markers to tell whose “hood” you’re in.  If anyone obeys God’s word, God’s love is truly made complete in him or her.  This is how we know we are in Christ.[3]  Notice two terms blurring together.  Is it that I am in the Spirit, or is He in me?  Which is it?  The answer is “yes.” 

Paul paints the neighborhoods.  It’s common sense, but read So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.[4]

(19) The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.”  Paul warns, those who live like this will not inherit God’s kingdom.  Grace does not excuse these behaviors.  They lack love.  My horror if I see this garbage in you is if you feel comfortable with this because God’s Spirit hates it!

Can I tell if the Spirit is in me, and I am in Him?  The Spirit’s fruit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.[5]

James sketches in more of the landscape.  You can tell where you live by your mouth: The tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts.  Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.  The tongue also is a fire.  It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of a life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.[6]  James, John and Paul say, “Saved people are not comfortable with horrors.” 

I ask others how they know they quit depending on God to operate in their flesh.  They share these things.  “I have fear and anxiety in the night.  I stagnate.  I know I’m living by my own efforts — alone — so I get tired, defeated, broken easily.  My anxieties swarm.  My powerlessness hits me.”

What about in the Spirit?  What are your answers?

Can a church be “in” the Spirit? After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken.  They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly![7]  They spoke God’s Word boldly.  Wow.  Everyone. 

Jesus died and rose, and the twelve gathered the church to say, it will not be right for us to neglect the ministry of God’s word in order to wait on tables.[8]  They ordained seven deacons.  The deacons ministered, caring for those in Christ.  How well did they do?  So God’s word spread.  The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.[9]

Over and over you see a phrase in Acts.  “The Word of God continued to increase and spread! Those words whet a hunger in me!  Imagine: everywhere YOU go, the Word of God continues to spread! 

Are you in the Spirit, yet?  Is your small group in the Spirit yet?  This goes beyond a wonderful feeling.  We can know.  God meant for us to be able to tell if a place is filled with the Spirit: if we are. 

---

[1] Romans 8:9

[2] 1 John 3:24

[3] 1 John 2:5.

[4] Galatians 5:16ff

[5] in Galatians 5:22f

[6] James 3:5-6

[7] Acts 4:31

[8] Acts 6:2

[9] Acts 6:7

Seconds

I sat on the porch for just a few minutes, sun streaming through trees straining to bud so early, so early in spring.  I could barely sit still for five minutes.

I had already stormed in my head and heart at 2:25 p.m.  I stormed loudly making Jill endure me, because I was slow on the day, slow to meet deadlines, slow all week, the computer was refusing to let me do advanced things in a program, and today, these hours of time I might have purchased in the shop working on an armoire, or out biking, or working outside and breathing for the first time in a couple of weeks.  These hours.

Were evaporating.  Were evanescent reminders.  Someone is near death.  Other people accomplishing more than me in the same number of years; or less.  All of it stirring, turning inside to whisper that the time screams silently by, and it bears a new, unasked whisper, “You have not, and may not accomplish all you had hoped.”

On great days, that refrain comes and enriches my relationships with people I love, projects I have nurtured, and need to complete.  I pine for some folks, and play in my head with projects to complete them.  Today, it just churned.  It made of my soul a little foment.

It made me wonder if James, half brother of Jesus, was churning or pining when he penned, “your life is a vapor (I always think of it on a still lake) gone with the rising sun.”

Now, should I go to bed early or go out into the shop and do things to wood that I can see when I am finished?

Do I take my seconds to bed, or go serve myself a second helping of today?

 

And Pain to Go Around

That title statement is unclear.  It mean we all have pain we must navigate, we must “go around” and this will hold true in all seasons of my life.

It means there is so much pain to go around so we can all have plenty, that there will always be some unloading out of the back of a dump truck at my house.

Unasked.  Unsought.

Kimberly raced around as a child until a drunk hit her family’s car, and her child safety seat malfunctioned.  The family sued, so she always had a top of the line wheel chair, a nicer home to come home to, and had to trust some people to help her enjoy freedom and mobility.

Except for the last set who lived in her apartment, ate her food, and let her get down to 45 pounds.  When her parents found her in another state, the only medicine was palliative care.  She died yesterday.

That came to us Monday night.

I have looked for Mark off and on for three years.  I got lucky last night, and instead of googling his name, I googled his and Mackenzie’s together.  Bingo.  Found them.

Okay, found her obituary that enabled me to find him.  After her affair.  After they fought back and enjoyed ten years of marriage.  Before she succumbed to guilt or genes or whatever so Mark had to move out.  Six months before she died of cirrhosis of the liver while Mark and the two astonishing daughters, and Mark’s new wife held her hand.  Gone now.

If Jill and I knew and loved fewer people, we might know less pain.  If we held a smaller, tighter knit circle precious, we might be insulated from so much pain, which seems to abound so there is plenty to go around.

But as I sat in the living room, listening to our friend Don relate Kimberly’s sad trajectory after they moved and we lost track of them:  I also remembered firecrackers that rivaled small town celebrations, stunning meals, and small joys in their home.  And I shed deeper-than-tears joy.

And this afternoon as I commuted listening to Mark’s voice on the phone for the first time in 30 years, I wept when he did.  Luckily, I stopped at a light.  And then we shared incredible events bringing us together 30 years ago, and triumphs over those years, and how stunning his daughters truly are, and I touched hope.  We even laughed.

Yes, less exposure might lessen the amount of pain.  But the cost in lost joy is way, way, way too high.

Unthinkably high for any who have ever held Hope’s hand in pain.

Is. Not just ‘was’. Not ‘would have been’.

We betray our inmost thoughts, our truest beliefs sometimes to no one but ourselves, and we do so in the “trailers” those tiny tangents of thought trailing the Big thought(s).

I awoke in the night editing a thought from a few days ago.  I know, we all have things we wish we had said better, responded funnier, been more clever.

This was just a thought I thought while I walked our back fence, actually where a back fence will go when I finally put one in.  I thought about Nana’s funeral, and all the attention was focused on her.  She was in every slide in the slide show.  John Bugg and I talked about her first.  Doug and Karin’s reflection were tender and funny, but focused on Barbara K. Johnson unerringly.  The music was her music.  The packed out place was filled with people who were all there because she touched our lives.  The memory cards, every flower, every memorial was all because of her, and I laughed to think, “She would have been so embarrassed!”

“Would have been” because we were all feeling her absence.  She would have been mortified at people weeping because she was not there.  She would have cringed at every picture, and at her being the center of every story — she took most of the pictures and had to be dragged into any of them.  She told every story about those she cherished or worried over, most often the same thing.

I awoke in the night to edit, “Would have been” to “was”.  As believers in the resurrection of Christ, she had been promoted from worrier and intercessor to the cheering section in Heaven.  (The twelfth chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews in the Bible opens with that verse).  Since I believe that, I should have laughed because she WAS EMBARRASSED, from her new seat in the cheering section.

And I laughed all over again in bed in the middle of the night.  Then I awoke to blog this, and my wife, Jill, Nana’s daughter awoke with an ache, missing her mom, and had received the DVD of her memorial service, and was playing the celebration of her passing as I had begun blogging.

Funny isn’t it?  How married people have the same thoughts without talking.  It has been four months, and she IS delighted to see us living out the truest things we know, while failing them, but failing forward.

Is, not was, or would have been.  She is embarrassed that this blog celebrates her life.