Hello friends and family! It's been almost a month since Calvin left our world and entered into eternity. The funeral is over and his earthly body rests quietly on a small hill near a lovely pond just south of Millington. I miss him terribly, but not despairingly. He is ever present with me in all he was before, but now I have his presence in the memory of his ways just as I have the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ through His ways.
I have always been an independent woman. I had to be! Calvin was in the Navy and sailed across the Atlantic many times leaving me alone in the beginning and then, later, with Michael and Sheri. We survived without him. We lived our lives alone for sometimes six months, but all that time Calvin was still covering us. He covered us with love, counsel, prayers and always with the bond of marriage and family. Now I miss him, yet he is very much with me. As I drive my car, I am reminded to never trust the other driver. Calvin taught me to drive when I was 17 and he taught what he had learned, defensive driving. So, when the light turns green I look both ways before entering the intersection - because that's the way he taught me to do it.
I ordered a new washer and dryer from the exchange yesterday and before I signed the order I thought long and hard, because Calvin taught me to be sure that I could afford to pay cash for something before I purchased it. No credit, I heard him say as I signed the papers and paid the necessary twenty percent down. "Will you have the money to pay it off when it comes in?" He always led me, but often with much resistance from me, to do what was right and that guidance keeps me still.
Pay the tithe this week Joney! Twice a month and some times more often Calvin would remind me to pay our tithe. Just when the collection plate was being circulated Calvin would nudge me and when I looked he would form his two fingers as if he was holding a pen and write something in the air. I learned years ago, that this was the signal to write the tithe check. He never forgot, he was always on time and not only with the tithe but he would often give money away secretly to those whom God had prompted him to help.. God's Spirit often prompted him, but I didn't always know about it. One week he felt God leading him to help a young man in our church go to seminary. I was unaware of it at the time, but God was working on him , and Calvin had given a little resistance. So, one Sunday morning God made his orders perfectly clear. The young man and his wife who every Sunday sat on the opposite side of the church, for no apparent reason sat directly in front of us. Calvin told me later that I needed to write a monthly check to the young couple for as long as he was in seminary.
I am not alone! Calvin's memory is always near. The things he taught me are still guiding me today. Jesus is my husband now and strangely enough He often guides me with a mental picture of what Calvin would have led me to do.
Michael, our son, and Sheri our daughter are strong reminders of him! They are both fantastic money managers. They have Calvin's guidance too. His spirit is never far away from any of us. I don't know how people who have no faith ever survive the death of a loved one. Maybe they don't survive. Maybe that explains why so many people are depressed, and lonely and even take their own lives. They are alone with no hope of ever filling that God shaped hole in their hearts. My space is filled with Jesus, but also with the one who led me for forty-eight years. I drove past his grave to day and felt no compulsion to stop and mourn. My Honey is not in that grave, no more than Jesus was in his grave. Calvin is resurrected and now lives in heaven with so many loved ones who have passed away, but I will see him again and the reunion will be sweet, but I am not without him now. He lives within my heart.
I'm planning a trip to visit my son and his family in northwest Arkansas the end of this week and on Wednesday I'll go have the tires rotated and the fluids checked! Calvin taught me to do that! I'll make sure I have enough money and that someone to watch over the house before I go. Calvin taught me to do that, too! I'll only go sixty-five mph as I drive, because Calvin said any speed higher than that and the car becomes harder to control.
In all these examples and so many more, Calvin was and is my covering. His job was to protect me and he did it well to the end. The last full sentence he said to me in the days before his death was this" Do you have enough money?" The Word of God gives some very clear instructions to men as to the way they are to treat their wives and Calvin fulfilled many of them, but the one he did the best was this: "25 And you husbands, show the same kind of love to your wives as Christ showed to the Church when he died for her, 26 to make her holy and clean, washed by baptism and God’s Word;[b] 27 so that he could give her to himself as a glorious Church without a single spot or wrinkle or any other blemish, being holy and without a single fault. 28 That is how husbands should treat their wives, loving them as parts of themselves. For since a man and his wife are now one, a man is really doing himself a favor and loving himself when he loves his wife!
I'll end this post with a word of encouragement for every woman who reads it. I realized in hind sight that Calvin was God's leader, friend, and lover in this earthly life. It was God who taught him to teach me. It was God loving me through Calvin; God protecting me; now that Calvin's physical presence is gone I know and understand God's presence and guidance. I may not always obey His promptings as I did not always obey Calvin, but I cannot complain that I do not have love and guidance because I learned what it looked like for forty-eight years. Please value that good man and learn how to hear from God through obeying him.
Bible Gateway
No comments:
Post a Comment