240928

Forescript: I am posting this writing without passing it before an editor. I wanted it to be totally me, with my flaws. (Jan strongly insisted that I always use Grammarly, so I followed her advice.)

To organize all the ideas for my writing that surface in my pondering life, from their birth to the publication, I give each one a six-digit number. That number begins with the year, then the month, and finally, the day of the month. That format is one of the few remaining vestiges of my time in the US Army. In addition, for each year, I have three files: seeds, drafts, and edited. I tell you this tedious information to tell you the blog post’s title is that number. There is no other name for this pondering. The date is the seed, the ambition, and the destination of my musing today. The date is a significant marker of my life history.

240928 is September 28, 2024, the fiftieth anniversary of my committing my life to Janice Elaine Williams as her husband. No one is as aware of this as I am, and I don’t expect them to be. The truth is that I want this day to be a day of quiet reflection on the wonder of our union. This writing attempts to orderly assemble my wildly fluctuating emotions of our life together, the fantastical and the miserable.

Forty-nine years, seven months, and six days, we lived, worked, played, fought, built a family, and most of all, we learned to love. Not a Valentine’s Day kind of love, but a “help me to the bathroom” at three a.m. servant kind love. I am more like Jesus today because I spent the last fifty-two years hanging out with Jesus and Janice. I like the man they made me. Further, I like the anticipation of the man I will become because of their continued work in and on me. Jesus and Janice were and are a tremendous life-enhancing duo!

All that was on the foundation that we would build our love on no other foundation than absolute “togetherness.” Not simply “together” with each other but with a higher common desire to pursue our unique individual relationships with God. We were convinced that if we worked on our togetherness with Him, we would find our life together more enjoyable and profitable.

In the post-honeymoon years of our marriage, we managed to pray, with naive sincerity, the prayer instruction of Jesus (Matthew 5:9-13). Upon hearing and processing the news that Jan had pancreatic cancer almost eight years ago, we went back to those instructions from Jesus and, with desperation, prayed that prayer again. We focused on the part of the prayer, “Our Father who is in Heaven, hollowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, and Your will be done in our lives here on earth as it is in heaven.” That is not in quotations because it is from the Bible but because it is what we actually prayed for and expected to be our future.

Since Jan is no longer physically in my presence, I have been experiencing a mixed bag of emotions. That my selfish flaws no longer cause her consternation and agitation is a great relief to me. In the same way, her selfish flaws no longer cause my consternation and agitation. I have combated her absence by moving from my recliner to hers and from my side of the bed to hers. Her recliner will always be hers. Her choice of the side of the bed furthest from the room’s entrance will always be hers. (I still don’t know if I was a sacrifice or supposed protection from would-be intruders.) I sit and lie there because they are hers.

I miss her!

Even so, the joy of life has not diminished, the peace of life has not diminished, and the adventure of tomorrow’s Kingdom coming has not diminished. God used Jan to prepare me for the future coming of His kingdom; how can I be any other way than profoundly thankful for what He has given me and fully anticipating what is coming the rest of today and all my tomorrows?

My sinuses have begun to do something, and my vision is rapidly becoming blurry, so I think it must be time to stop pondering for a bit before my keyboard shorts out from my tears.

Over the past few months, I have grown an appreciation of the “First Nations Version” of the New Testament. Here is that translation.

O Great Spirit, our Father from above,

we honor your name as sacred and holy.

Bring your good road to us,

where the beauty of your ways in the spirit-world above

is reflected in the earth below.

Provide for us day by day–

the elk, the buffalo, and the salmon.

The corn, the squash, and the wild rice.

All the things we need for each day.

Release us from the things we have done wrong,

in the same way we release others for the things done wrong to us.

Guide us away from the things that tempt us to stray from your good road,

and set us free from the evil one and his worthless ways.

Postscript: I was just now working in my shop when my alarm went off. I had set the alarm to mark the moment of 2:21 p.m. According to my Uncle John Hertle, that was the exact time Dr. Tom Madden pronounced Jan and me “husband and wife.” What a fortunate man I am to have the joy of this sorrow!