“To live, I have to have God, and I would really like to have my wife. After that, everything is negotiable,” said Calvin Miller, in a revival at the church I served as pastor. I felt like he was talking to me, giving me a hint about the future. His words echo in my mind. They seem, somehow, more real to me today.
Isaac was thirty-seven when his mom Sarah died. She lived to be 127 years old. Abraham mourned and wept over his wife at Kiriath Arba, in Canaan. When God called Abraham, Sarah went with him to the land God promised. There she would be buried. Abraham still had God, but his wife was gone.
In the last several months, wives of two of my pastor friends have gone home to be with the Lord. Their grief is profound and real. It is hard to imagine, really. All across our congregation are widows and widowers. 276 of them in our larger church family, I am told. Many listen to me teach the Bible every week. But their spouses are gone. This is sobering, to me. We mourn with those who mourn.
Across the room on a shelf in my office is a picture of my friend Calvin Miller. His words echo across three decades, “To live, I have to have God, and I would really like to have my wife. After that, everything is negotiable.” In almost every family, one spouse dies first. We lose the most precious ones in this life, but we will never, we can never lose God. Because we still have God, we live and find strength for each new day.
