The holiday season is challenging, here in my fourth year without Nanci: first there’s Thanksgiving Day, quickly followed by Nanci’s birthday on November 30. Then there’s December 7, the anniversary of the day we met (on a blind date!) in 1968 as freshmen in high school, and after that, Christmas. There’s New Year’s Eve and then Valentine’s Day and then March 28, the day of Nanci’s homegoing. From then till the next Thanksgiving, the anniversary dates are piled on each other.
On Thanksgiving I will go to my youngest daughter Angie’s house. Her younger son Ty recently got engaged to Ava, whom I adore, and Ava’s family will be joining us too. So will grandson Jake and his wife Richie, whom I also adore! Jake and Ty are great—and so are Matt, Jack and David, my California grandsons. But I commend Jake and Ty for their excellent choices of Richie and Ava! I now have two wonderful granddaughters, who both call me Pops, and I know Nanci already loves the two of them from a distance. Of course, I look forward to possibly having more granddaughters in the future!
This Sunday, Angie’s husband Dan, recently installed as a lead pastor, will preach his first sermon as a pastor of Cornerstone Church in Gresham. (Am I the only person who thinks the term “installed” is weird when used of a pastor, but right on target when used of locks, apps, computer programs, smoke alarms, refrigerators, washers, and dryers?) I’ll join them at church, and since Sunday is Nanci’s birthday, afterwards we’ll have lunch to celebrate her. I love that Angie planned this time for us to be together in Nanci’s honor. I will greatly miss my daughter Karina, her Dan (also a pastor, and I assume he was once installed too), and their boys Matthew, Jack and David.
When people ask, I honestly say that I’m doing well. I miss Nanci, and some days are rough—especially when I’m with people we used to hang out with and laugh with, and Nanci‘s laugh was the loudest and most contagious and her absence is so conspicuous. Not that I don’t laugh anymore, because I do, with friends, people at church, my small men’s group, and our dog Gracie when she is being hilarious! (Such as when she looks the other way and pretends total disinterest in the food I put in her bowl, but when I leave the room and come back the food is gone, while she is on the couch with eyes shut, just as she was when I left.)
I feel profoundly sad sometimes, yet so deeply grateful for the life God gave Nanci and me together, and it is impossible to be this grateful without also being happy. This is 2 Corinthians 6:10, “we are sorrowful yet always rejoicing.”
I really miss our conversations, enjoying sports and movies together, etc. But the only way to avoid grief is to avoid love, and I’ll take the grief any day over having to give up my vivid memories of our beautiful life, flawed of course, but also wonderfully redemptive. Reunion awaits, and I think about it every day. Meanwhile, I want to serve our King faithfully and finish well.
Ephesians 5:18-20 says, “Be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Being Spirit-controlled is inseparable from giving thanks in everything.
Whether we find ourselves having reason to celebrate or to mourn, there’s never a time not to express our gratitude to God. Psalm 140:13 declares, “Surely the righteous shall give thanks to your name.” Giving thanks is what God’s people do.
If you also find yourself grieving this holiday season, I pray that God’s constant presence will comfort you. Whatever we face, we can always embrace gratitude for what Christ has done for us. That’s a choice we can consciously make, and one which I seek to do continuously.
May you have a Christ-centered, full-of-gratitude Thanksgiving with those you love, even if some you love are, for now, far away.
