I was reflecting just yesterday on all the people who have touched my life in both big and small ways and how their coming into my life has blessed my life. Each one of you, many who may not remember where or when we met or maybe whether or not we have met, have touched my life in some way and now you are forever a part of the tapestry of who I have become. Thank you!
I am thankful that God loved me and that He loved me enough to give His son for me. I am thankful that He called me to salvation and then placed in my heart not only the call to preach but the desire to preach the unsearchable riches of God's love and grace in Christ Jesus.
I am thankful that God put a young woman in my life who was the perfect pastor’s wife. We were not the same in so many ways. But we both Loved the Lord. When our hands touched and our lips met as teenagers, I only thought I had won her heart and she only thought she had captured mine. As time passed, we came to see that the reason we had the lifetime love affair with each other is because God was our matchmaker. We didn’t choose each other . . . no indeed. God gave us to each other as a part of His purposes..
This year I want to add to my “Thank you.” I say, "Thank You, Lord" for allowing Susan and I to have a life together here in this world that spanned more than 60 years . . . . 54-1/2 of those as husband and wife. I cannot remember a time in our life together that the Lord did not supply our needs - both great and small. By His grace we achieved what so few couples obtain . . . we literally became one flesh in the fullest sense of that terminology. Somewhere along the journey we ceased to be two travelers on the same road and became a single traveler that embodied the two of us.
Thanksgiving 2021 was the hardest of my life. Susan and I as we became one flesh ceased to experience the same things separately. Somewhere along the way we began to share them singularly. Now I face life without a part of who I am. It is not a matter of discovering the new me . . . the one without Susan because that person does not exist. I still experience life as if she were present . . . . and, in some way she is and always will be.
Our relationship never was superficial but over a lifetime our union became stronger and deeper spiritually. Somewhere along life's journey she got into my heart and into my soul and I did the same with her. This is why when someone asked me about her passing, I responded with, “It feels like someone has ripped out a large part of my soul.” And that my friend is something only God can do. Our spiritual DNA is the same.
As mentioned above, this is the first Thanksgiving in over 60 years when we did not celebrate the blessings of God together and I must tell you it seems so strange and wrongheaded to me right now. But I know God did not make a mistake when he brought us together as a couple back in the 1960's and He did not make a mistake when he led us into becoming one flesh and while I don’t understand all that He is doing right now He did not make a mistake when He called Susan home.
Let me be clear . . . . Susan and my life together are a reflection of what God is doing in bring redemption to mankind. I now know something of how Jesus felt when at about the ninth hour He cried out with a loud voice, saying, 'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?' that is, 'My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?' The separation I felt at Susan’s home-going is reflective of the separation Jesus felt that day. To be sure, what I have experienced is not the same as to the reason for the separation or the degree and depth that it was felt but it gives me a deeper understanding and a greater appreciation for what He endured for me.
Now for some speculative thanksgiving. I have every reason to believe that just as the separation of Jesus from the Father because Jesus became sin was but for a short time so the separation that death (the first cousin of sin) brought to Susan and myself will also be short lived. I fully expect to join her in Paradise either through passing through my own death experience or when I experience the transformation from the physical to the spiritual realm when Jesus returns for His own.
Now here is something glorious about that One Flesh thing I mentioned earlier . . . all that death is capable of doing is separating the body from the spirit and soul. We often speak of Christ in us as the hope of glory and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Hence, we are connected to God the Father through Jesus His son and the Holy Spirit (Spirit of God) who abides within us (in our soul and spirit).
Well, something similar, though not the same, takes place in the becoming one flesh process. Without spelling out all the theology of “One Flesh” suffice it to say it involves all aspects of our person . . . . body soul and spirit. There is a song that has the lines . . . “I said I'm wrapped up, tied up, tangled up in Jesus, He's all I need.”
Becoming one flesh is being wrapped up, tied up, tangled up body and spirit with each other. It is two people, a man and a woman, becoming something new, something that did not exist before, in both time and kind. It is something that God enables and something that cannot be undone. It is becoming one as Jesus and the Father are one. Small wonder that Paul would use this oneness of marriage to help us understand the nature of the church and the church's relationship to Jesus.
I cannot reach out and touch her and I cannot sit and hold her hand because she has at God’s bidding laid down the body that constrained her. When she laid that body aside, she flew away to Jesus and Paradise where she now awaits the day I take my flight and join her in paradise. But in the meanwhile, our love goes on . . . love never fails . . . love never ends.
So, Lord, I just want to say, "Thank You!" Thank You for being so good to me . . . Thank you for letting Susan love me and I her. Because you did, I better understand your love for us . . . . for me.
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