Closure | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Closure | Previous Challenge Entry
By Frances Seymour
09/12/14
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I ventured out on a mission trip with a group of Baptist Men and Women from our area. My late husband, David and I loved to work alongside this group of guys and gals.

We arrived in York, Pa. around 5 pm on Saturday; exactly one year from the date of my dear husband's departure. Since it was late and we had no food to prepare, the pastor invited us to go out with him and his wife.
I'm a third, fifth, seventh or whatever wheel at the dinner table these days and so I wound up sitting beside the pastor and across from his wife. The pastor chatted with our leading pastor for awhile, then turned his attention to me. "What brought you on this mission trip?" he asked. My immediate response was simply, "my husband and I used to go on these trips together. As a matter of fact, he and I led a couple of long term projects on the east coast. It's been exactly one year since he departed for glory and this trip is my way of commemorating his departure.”

Then the way he died suddenly came spilling out of me--the hurt; the anxieties, the questions all rushed out as tears streamed down my cheeks. The pastor began to share with me that he was a R.N. before becoming a pastor He too, had experienced a heart attack. He told with me that he asked his wife to call 911. He was carried to the hospital, received a stent and the rest is history.

That was one of my most daunting questions. If my husband was able to say, "I love you" moments earlier, why couldn't he tell me to call 911? Why didn't I see the need to call? Those questions have bothered me for a year! The pastor's response was, "I don't know. I can't answer those questions. Maybe he was ready but you were not." he said.

That very night I was awakened with those same questions running through my mind, only this time I heard the spirit of God speak these words to me. "Because that's what David wanted. He didn't want to live with disease in his body. He didn't want to be in and out of the hospital. He wanted to go just like that."

Then I recalled the many times my husband spoke those very words just weeks before he passed. His exact words, "Honey, when it comes my time to go, I want to go just like that," and he'd snap his fingers. He also said, "I'm a Vietnam Veteran and Vietnam Vets don't usually live out of their 60's." I would brush those comments off saying, "Honey, you're going to beat those odds."

Well, guess what? He went home exactly the way he wanted to go whether I was ready or not. God was ready to take him. The Lord gifted me with an awesome sense of peace and comfort concerning those troubling questions and what I'd perceived to be my husband's untimely death. The most amazing thing is that this gift of love and grace arrived exactly one year later and on the exact date of his departure.

As my pastor would comment, "Only God!"

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