DEATH

When you have been married for 50 years you will experience the death of someone close. How you respond to the grief has everything to do with how you perceive death. Death is not the enemy if you have Jesus in your heart. For a Christian, physical death is absence from the body but being present with the Lord in heaven forever. Mercy Me’s song I Can Only Imagine gives us an emotional glimpse of what it might be like. Having no fear of death gives you a greater opportunity to enjoy life.

We were in our twenties when we were dealing with the everyday issues of a profoundly handicapped child who was often sick. It was a miracle that she lived to be five years old. We had less than a day to process the thought of her dying. This whole story is in my book Denine: One mother’s journey with a profoundly handicapped child (FriesenPress).

Ken and I had very different responses to this. He had shut up his pain and had no one to talk to all those years, not that he would have talked about it anyway.

The night she died, God had given me a vision of her dying in my arms. Asking me for a response. When I released her to God, I felt a great joy bubbling up inside. She died that very hour. I walked a foot above the ground in peace. I knew she was in heaven walking, no dancing, with Jesus. Ken did not have the same perception. Not until a year later when he was invited to surrender his heart and life to Jesus.

Years later, I was not prepared for how I would respond to the death of my father. He was 81 years old, unable to speak, sitting in a wheelchair in a London airport on Sept 11, 2001. He arrived home four days later to hear from me that his tests showed he had cancer in the larynx. Seven weeks later he died. I sat by his side as he took his last breath. I was unable to cry. There was so much stored up anger inside me about our father-daughter relationship and I was in the early part of my nightmare menopause journey. I was unable to articulate my thoughts and feelings with anyone. Ken was in his own world of anger and grief. Our life together then was not pretty.

However, one night we were driving home from a visit to his brother in New York. God had ministered to both of us that weekend. He was driving way too fast for my comfort on the expressway and saying very unkind things to me, which was not characteristic of him at all. He asked why I was crying. I responded with, “I don’t know why you are speaking to me like this, but I am committed to this marriage! I really want to open the car door and jump out to get away from your words.” He said nothing more for a couple of days, then announced that he recognized his problem with anger and went for counseling to get it under control. It took me a few more years to acknowledge mine and receive healing. We all grieve differently. 

So many  marriages do not survive the death of a child. So many marriages do not survive dealing with the daily demands of life with a special needs child. Today there are many support groups that have been created to come alongside parents. We did not have one of those. But we discovered that God knew what was going on in our lives. God had chosen us to be the parents of a special child. God had a plan for us. Keep reading and you may discover that God knows what is going on in your life and has a plan for you also. 

 "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." (Jer. 9:11 NIV)