It should be no surprise to anyone who has read my blogs for the past year or more that I am lonely now, as it’s been just over 4 months since my amazing wife CJ, the love of my life, died of cancer. I’m not writing this to get any pity or sympathy from you, although I always covet your prayers for God to direct my future. The point is, at this season of my life, loneliness is the biggest challenge that I deal with, all day long. But ALL of us have challenges, trials, burdens, and anxieties that we face, and yours may be much harder and more difficult to deal with than my momentary battle with loneliness. So I hope you will tolerate my rambling for a few minutes, because the 2^nd part of my blog, “anticipation” is God’s answer to so many of our trials and challenges in life, and hopefully it will encourage you as well!

LONELINESS

Loneliness, for me at least, is no fun. I enjoyed immensely being married to CJ for 42 years, and in that time I came to think of myself as ½ of a couple in life, a very grateful and blessed couple. Most of our life was about “us”, our faith, our family, our careers, and how God was using “us” in his plan, and we had a wonderful 42 years in that mode! I saw my responsibility to care for, protect, and help CJ grow into the woman God meant for her to be. And she did the same for me (and undoubtedly did a better job!) But now, I’m no longer ½ of a couple, I’m single. (One of my grandsons asked me, “Grandad, are you a bachelor now?” I laughed, and realized I am.) On forms, I now check “not married” or “W” (which does not stand for winner!)

A dear friend sent me a very helpful book entitled “The Tender Scar” by Dr. Richard Mabry. He lost his wife about 15 years ago, and has some great insights. For example, in one chapter he said that in his prayers he realized that his wife was in the loving care of Jesus, and now he was to “resign my job of protector/caregiver/husband and let it go. I have to assume that God will keep his end of the bargain. I know that she more than kept hers”.  I am also trying to emotionally and mentally remember that CJ is with Jesus now, and to feel good about that. After all, she is now with a much better man than me, and I certainly can’t compete with Jesus! In a more challenging chapter, he reminds us that the culture we live in is set up for couples, and I am now single. He says our “couple” friends will invite us out for dinners and try to support us, but won’t often know what to say, and in many groups we will feel like the “5^th wheel”.  I have found that to be my feelings at times. My sister-in-law described how she felt when she lost her first husband to a tragic accident over 3 decades ago now. She said when she went out with her young friends, they acted like nothing had really changed, but she felt like screaming at them that she felt like half her body was gone!

If you are presently married, please realize that one of you is going to experience the loss of your spouse at some point in the future. We all know that, deep down, but we really can’t prepare for it very well. I think we guys mostly assume, and hope, that we will “go” before our wives! I used to tell CJ that I wish it was me who had cancer and not her. I would much rather have gone through the suffering than watch her go through it. And selfishly, I admit, if I would have died first I think she would have handled the grief and loneliness better than me!

But this experience is not all bad, either. I have reluctantly discovered that loneliness is not the same as being alone. Loneliness is a feeling of missing someone you loved very much and feeling a great emptiness, but being alone can be helpful. Many people who lose their spouse learn to enjoy being alone, and find it an opportunity to focus on their new life and perhaps do new things they could not do before.  Many people decide to never remarry, and find fulfillment and purpose in life as a single person.  For me, being alone has helped me re-focus my relationship with God and more intimately trust him with my future, and that has led to a strange yet welcome sense of peace and even anticipation about what God has for me in the future.

ANTICIPATION!!

For those of us who have put our future in Jesus’ hands, anticipation of what lies ahead will help  us overcome any challenge we face now, and give us joy and hope, knowing everything is going to made right some day!  Consider the following verses to give you hope for the future:

Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him for the help of his presence! – Psalm 42:5

His anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime! Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning… You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy!  – Psalm 30:5,11

For me, I know that this challenge of loneliness will only last for a season, and then it will end. I pray that God will help me to find the right Christian woman to be my companion for the rest of my time on earth, hopefully within this year! My part is to patiently listen to and wait on God’s guiding and not just take matters into my own hand. And if for some reason that is not his plan, I trust him to give me peace and fulfillment for my life in other ways. He has taken care of me my whole life; why wouldn’t he do it now? And the same is true for you! Whatever challenge you face today or in the future, it will not last forever. God will see you through it in time, and  at some point in the future you will experience deliverance and “joy in the morning”!

Paul says in II Corinthians 4:17, “Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all”.

When you can see your trials and challenges in the light of what God offers us for eternity, they suddenly get smaller. There’s an old saying that goes “Don’t be too Heavenly minded or you won’t be any earthly good”.  My friends, that is entirely false and backwards! The more we understand the future, the more we can see this present world the way God sees it, and we are no longer afraid of anything that can happen to us here.

What does this mean for us, if we trust our lives now and in the future to Jesus?

– We will never die! Yes, our physical bodies will die, but WE will live forever!

–  And someday we will, as believers, live on a New Earth and New Heaven combined, a place much like this, but with no sin. (See some of my previous blogs for more on this.)  We will have new bodies that never get sick or die, we will be in God’s presence, and we will enjoy life together forever. I will see CJ again, and you will see your Christian friends also. We will laugh, sing, rejoice, eat great food, talk with Jesus, and create, build, grow, explore, and enjoy life forever, the way it was meant to be originally for us!

Paul says in Romans Ch. 8: 31-32 35-39
³¹  What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³²  He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?  ³⁵  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? ³⁶  As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” ³⁷  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸  For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹  nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Whatever you and I are going through right now, it won’t last forever.

Trust God, and he will give you strength to get through it!

And if you remember the future He promises us, you will not fear the present, and you can look forward with great joy and anticipation to a new life forever, with God, on a New Earth and New Heaven combined!

One of my favorite verses through this long journey with CJ, and beyond, still holds true and brings me comfort, strength, and hope:

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my right righteous hand.

Isaiah 41:10

May you find this same comfort, hope, and strength for your journey as well. God bless you all!