The Priceless Friendship of Jesus
God used my wife to meet deep needs in me, and He used me to meet deep needs in her, but He was our greatest source of happiness and contentment. That’s why both of us could live without the other when He chose to take one of us home to Heaven first. And He has truly been my best friend.
The friendship of Jesus He promised in John 15 has been my daily reality. I tell myself that Nanci is literally living in the presence of her best friend, and I am experiencing and sensing His presence with me every day. So at her death, neither of us lost our best friend. He is still with both of us, even though we are not yet reunited.
Nanci is at a higher level of relationship with Him than she has ever been, and I believe in a lesser way, so am I. This is the proof that our marriage was not our idol. We didn’t worship it or each other; we worshiped Him, the only One worthy of worship.
When a spouse dies, it’s normal for grief to be intense, because the only way to avoid grief is to avoid love, and the greater the love, the greater the grief. However, when grief remains inconsolable over a period of time, it’s a sign that quite possibly you are looking to your partner, even after their death, as your primary need-meeter. In other words, this exposes your idolatry. How much better to reach that conclusion and express that to each other in your lifetime. Nanci and I did, and I am profoundly grateful. (However, it’s never too late to come to the right conclusion, and to ask the Lord to help you make Him first! Every day we walk with Jesus is a second chance.)
Sorrowful, Yet Always Rejoicing
I can’t live without Jesus, and while I don’t want to live without Nanci, that is the way it is, and for now I must. I am sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6:10. I love that we are to be always rejoicing, instead of always sorrowful—the joy eclipses the sorrow.
When I remember Nanci, which I still do daily two years after her homegoing (which was on the other side a homecoming), it’s true I experience a certain amount of loneliness for her. What I tell people is: I am not lonely in general; I am lonely for Nanci in particular. That delivers me from having to search for a new primary need-meeter, since while she was chief of the secondary, she was not the primary.
The memories are so good and so precious that they make me smile and fill my heart. At first after her death, it was nine parts sorrow for every one part joy. A year later, it was five parts of each, and now it is nine parts happiness and one part sorrow. I look forward to seeing her again. I have wept often, but I experience more joy in reflecting upon her than I do sorrow. There is no despair, only gratitude.
I can’t tell you how thankful I am for those last four years of being her primary caregiver, and seeing the power of God in her life. My second best friend led me daily to the feet of my best friend Jesus, and I will be eternally grateful to both Him and her. Had she or our marriage been my idol, my present grief would be a profoundly different experience, and much less healthy than it has been. It’s been hard, but still healthy.
Traveling Heavenward Together
I still find immense happiness in reading Nanci’s journals she kept during her cancer years, and pondering the quotes she wrote out by hand from Charles Spurgeon, John Piper, Paul David Tripp, Andrew Murray, and many others (I smile when I see a quote that sounds familiar, and then under it she has written “Randy” 😂). There is such delight in remembering the things we did together all over the world with each other and our children, including the wonderful vacations and the ways we served the Lord, gave to God’s kingdom, and invested in eternity together. Knowing her death was coming soon, we could honestly say to each other, with all our imperfections and because of His forgiving grace: we had no regrets.
A couple of weeks before she died, Nanci was sitting up in bed, and I was holding her hand and she said, smiling but in tears, “Randy, thank you for my life.” I said in tears, “Nanci, thank YOU for MY life.” I thought it was so beautiful that we saw our lives as so intertwined, we really had become one. God had used us in each other’s lives to grow us spiritually, and to make us better lovers and followers of Jesus.
More Resources for Further Reflection
Here are some resources I hope might be helpful:
