How Could I Call Him Back?

By Fang Ren-nian

Following a beautiful item by the children's choir, Lucy stepped onto the stage. Her firm quiet voice came across with a power that greatly attracted me. Lucy was superintendent of the Sunday School and well known to every parent and child in this New Jersey church. In my heart the Holy Spirit told me that here was one of God's children who had known the richness of His blessings and love. But my mind told me otherwise. I knew that Lucy had lost her husband after only five years of marriage and that she had trodden a lonely path as she had brought up their little daughter. Hers had been a life full of hardships. Where were all the blessings?

How I wished I could step into her spiritual world.

Disaster strikes

It was one evening in May 1984. Peter and Lucy were getting ready to leave for a missionary trip to a Christian hospital in Taiwan and had in fact already sent their luggage on to their destination. Their little daughter Esther, after a tiring day learning to walk, was already sound asleep and dreaming sweetly. Lucy was in the kitchen, making up some of her husband's favorite dishes. Peter had often offered to help provide for other brothers and sisters so Lucy did her best to maintain a simple lifestyle. She was busy all day caring for the baby; but she still longed to have more time with her husband.

At the dinner table that evening, Peter had a thoughtful look on his face and he didn't seem to be interested in his favorite dishes. "Anything wrong, Peter?" "Nothing much. I'm hungry. Let's eat first." After the meal, he kissed his little sleeping daughter, then looking into his wife's eyes he said abruptly: "The diagnosis has come through. I've got lymph cancer." Gazing steadily at his confused wife, Peter went on, "It looks serious. We may not be able to go to Taiwan after all."

It was very quiet that night. Lucy was still thinking about their prayer before they had gone to bed. They had asked God for just two things: one, that the Lord would be glorified through this crisis, and then that whether it was to be life or death, that the result would lead to even more people serving the Lord. But now it was Lucy praying alone: "Oh Lord, oh Lord! I know you desire to glorify yourself through Peter's cancer. I am sure you will cure him just as you did with Elder Wu so that he can serve you better in the future." As she faced the awfulness of the situation, Lucy was still full of confidence. She did not feel any need to start planning for a lonely journey for herself in the future, nor did she have the courage to do so.

But her racing thoughts refused to stop. All the moments she had spent with Peter flashed through her mind - at the students' Bible study class in Hawaii his first words to her had been: "Do you believe Jesus will come again?" What a deep question for his first words to a female student he had never met before! After their marriage, they had lived very simply. They moved a lot, but she always felt comfortable whenever her eyes met Peter's because she knew he was very clear about God's guidance. But was God now leading him towards death? At the thought that Peter's strong shoulders could perish and his hands could be no more, Lucy felt as if she was falling into a vast whirlpool, her cold body falling deeper and deeper. "Oh no! Lord, you wouldn't do that! You care most of all for the weak. I know you are only testing my faith in you." Her eyes full of tears she continued in confident prayer.

A bright path before him?

It was a September morning in 1984. Lucy, sitting in the passenger seat, gazed unseeingly ahead, oblivious to the silent weeping of the sister next to her. She could only hear Esther's screaming: "Mommy, I want Mommy! I want to go home..." If it had been a normal day she would have rushed from the car and taken Esther back inside, or she would have held her tight at Peter's side. But at this moment, Lucy's heart was like impenetrable armor, her arms and legs simply swinging pendulums. She could only come to visit her daughter once a week before rushing back to the hospital.

The car sped toward the hospital. The highway was wide, but the path ahead for Peter as he lay there in the hospital, was getting ever narrower and harder. He had just undergone surgery and the wound on the lymph-node was still wide open. Due to his difficulty with breathing, they had done a tracheotomy too. So Peter was no longer able to talk. Lucy had to stay with him day and night, preparing herself for what might happen at any moment. Now she no longer prayed with tears for all her tears had dried up. Any hope of a miracle was quickly diminishing. She was starting to believe that God really meant to take him away this time. "Oh Lord, if it must be this way, then please, in Your sovereignty, take him. Please do not leave him here to suffer." Indeed, whenever she thought of Peter's worsening condition, she felt as if a great saw was slowly cutting open his weak body along with her own broken heart.

Ironically, though, as she stepped into the ward and sat down beside Peter, seeing her beloved slowly slipping away, she had the feeling that his pathway was actually becoming wider and brighter. Peter was already prepared to leave this world. He seemed to show not the slightest sign of sorrow and regret but rather of confidence, assured that as he came nearer to death he was returning to his heavenly home. Once again Lucy bowed her head and prayed, "Oh Lord! Please strengthen Peter, and strengthen me too, so that we go through the valley of the shadow of death, others may sense the sweet fragrance of Jesus, because Jesus is alive in us. Oh Lord! Please help us to go forward without fear."

How could I call him back?

It was midnight on October 8, 1984. Lucy had urged everyone to go home because she knew that sooner or later she would have to face an empty house without Peter. What she needed most of all at this moment was a good night's sleep so that she would have the energy to cope with the difficult tasks of the next day.

As soon as she closed her eyes, Lucy once again saw Peter with all the tubes disconnected from him. He was no longer breathing, no longer able to embrace her and Esther in his arms, no more would his lips break into warm smiles as he kiss them. He was gone and Lucy's heart had gone with him. She heard herself telling her relatives over the phone: "He is safe now in his heavenly home, resting in Jesus." But why was her voice so dry and empty?

Then, through her tears of grief, Lucy saw another scene, the scene she had seen that day as Peter was slowly walking away from his earthly body. There on the other side of the room was the Lord Jesus himself, reaching out his arms in greeting to his own child. And Peter, his face wreathed in smiles, joyously and with utter confidence had thrown himself into the Father's bosom like a small child who had just learned how to walk. Jesus had touched Peter's head and said to him, "The kingdom of heaven is not timed by years, nor does it measure a person's worth by his accomplishments. I am coming to take you home because you have glorified your Father..." The whole ward was filled with God's peace, solemnity, joy and radiance, and Peter was in the center of it all. The scene had been so real that, even though she had wanted him never to leave her, she found that it would be even harder to call him back. Indeed, she could not call him back. Now that she was certain that Peter was with the Lord Jesus, why would she want to do anything to prevent him from enjoying his share of the Kingdom? Exhausted, she fell into a sound sleep.

Where is Daddy?

It was December 13, 1985. High on a lovely hill above a Hawaiian village stood Peter's tombstone. It was his birthday. Lucy, with a bunch of flowers in her hands, had gone there with her little daughter, now nearly three years old. High above the hill there was the blue sky. The ocean waves continuously caressed this piece of land which held Peter's body; gentle breezes brushed sweetly over his grave. There beneath God's vast universe, one could only feel very very close to Heaven.

As she arranged the flowers in a vase, Lucy carefully pulled out the weeds around the tombstone. She said: "Peter, Esther and I have come to see you. I know you are not actually sleeping under this cold piece of stone, but I somehow feel I am close to you right here. Do you remember how I asked you at your sick bed shortly before you went away: 'What will I do if you leave me?' And right away you wrote on the paper: 'Do what you must do.' Do you know those few words of yours have become my constant companions? Whenever I sigh or complain or feel so full of self-pity that I almost want to give up, these words remind me that before you left us you had put me and our daughter into the God's hands , so you were not anxious. You knew me better than anyone else. You knew I always leant on you; you knew how frustrated I would get at being humiliated or confused. But you would always say the same thing, 'It's OK. The Lord is here.' Peter, Peter! Are you sure you can just leave us like this without being worried?"

Esther trotted over her mother - how sturdily she walked for such a little girl! Pointing at her daddy's name on the tombstone she asked Lucy, "Is this where Daddy lives?" Lucy smiled into the child's puzzled eyes, then, pointing up to heaven, she said, "No, sweetheart, Daddy doesn't live here. He lives with our Heavenly Father and Jesus in Heaven." "What does he do there? Doesn't he think about us? Can he see us from away up there? Will we see him again?..." The little one kept asking questions as she tried to fathom the mystery of heaven.

"He lives with our Heavenly Father and with Jesus. In Heaven there are golden lamp stands which never stop shining and lovely flowers which bloom all the time. There are no tears, no bitterness. Daddy is happy living in such a happy place. But he also thinks about us. One day we will go to our Heavenly Father too. He will lay his hand on our head and say, 'You are my darling children and I love you.' Then we will be with Daddy forever and we will never be parted from each other again." Seeing her daughter's eyes shining with excitement, Lucy realized that, deep in her own heart, she too longed for that eternal city and its eternal joys because, with the loss of her husband, she felt that everything else had been lost and there was nothing that could be depended upon. Peter had been able to leave them without anxiety because he was assured that she, too, would one day come to this eternal love. "Oh Lord! Oh Lord! Peter is no longer here, but you are."

No fears of the darkness and loneliness

It was an evening in July 1987. Esther was playing on a Hawaiian beach with a neighboring child and her father. Her little daughter's happy laughter carried on the wind to Lucy and brought a pang to her heart. Yes, their little child was growing up every day, and yet only her mother knew how she longed for a father to lift her on to his shoulders or wipe away her tears. Fatherless children are lonely, and fatherless girls were more lonely.

"Mommy, Alice's dad would like to take us to the other end of the beach. Is that OK?" As her mother nodded assent, the two children skipped away. Watching her strong legs, Lucy remembered an incident not long ago when Esther had had a bad painful swelling in her joints. Lucy had gone everywhere in search of a good doctor. When she was told that Esther might have developed pediatric arthritis, she almost fainted. That night, after seeing her tearful daughter off to sleep, she had lifted her trembling body in prayer to the Lord. Immediately, like sweet honey, God's words had filled her heart, "God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear." Suddenly her heart was filled with peace. Both Lucy and her daughter had really good sleeps that night. The next day, a medical test result overturned the doctor's earlier diagnosis.

She watched the two sets of little footprints on the golden sand of the beach, at times distinct from those of the adult and other times overlapping with them, sometimes obscure and sometimes clear. And her wonderful Lord immediately filled Lucy's sad heart with thanksgiving. "Yes, Jesus my Lord. Thank you for your footprints all around ours. Not for a single moment have you left us. You are the father who loves Esther most of all. And you always listen to her children prayers. You are also my dearest father; you are the one who heals those deep wounds in my spirit."

Standing there at the convergence of the golden ocean and the golden sky, Lucy too was bathed in the golden sunshine. She raised her hands. She knew that soon everything would fall back into darkness, but she was no longer so afraid of the darkness and loneliness because the sunshine had already filled her heart. "Dear Lord! You know I am going to leave my parents and my familiar hometown to go back to New Jersey with Esther. This is a new step in my journey of serving you. More than anyone, you know your daughter's weakness and lack of courage. So today please fill me once again with your great love, so that I will move ahead without fear because my Lord will be with me!" Thousands of golden arrows darting toward the far side of the ocean echoed back: "My Lord will certainly be with me!"

Expose the wound; walk out of the shadow

It was an evening in 1991. Lucy was giving her testimony at a family gathering.

"Some time back a sister who was very close to me said to me, 'Lucy, I think you still have not walked out of the shadow of Peter's death.' I immediately retorted, 'That's impossible! Didn't I testify at the funeral and on numerous other occasions about Peter's glorious departure? Didn't I time and again thank the Lord for his protection and grace? I'm just so very thankful...' But in my spirit a voice was saying, 'Show me your wound. Why are you trying so hard to heal your own would?'

"Finally, in front of these trusted sisters, I did expose that wounded heart of mine that had been closed for years. My tears streamed down like a flood. Not since Peter died had I cried like this. Indeed, I had made a great show of Christian character, with myself at center stage showing a front of sincerity, calmness and submission; but at the same time I was having to cover over my anger, my depression and my grief. This double life was painful. If I had not released all the bitterness and anger of those years and poured them out before my only Savior, then my wounds would have been only superficially healed, and poisonous festering pus beneath the scar would eventually have destroyed me spiritually.

"Time and again I had experienced God's love, and it was that that had given me strength. But while this had intrigued me I would quickly find myself retreating back into humiliation of alienation. If only I had not kept suppressing my real self, but instead had come to Him with my open wound and said to Him with tears, 'Yes, I am angry at you; very angry indeed, because you took my dearest one away from me. I wish I could still say I love you.' If I had done that, then my spiritual wounds might have been healed long ago. The Lord really wants his children to expose their wounds so that he can wipe them away with his almighty hands, hands that have been bathed in our tears. He wants us to throw ourselves into his embrace, not just to touch his cloak as we keep trying to heal our own wounds."

As Lucy began her testimony in a steady voice, all parents who had been yelling at their kids fell quiet. All eyes, non-Christians or brothers and sisters, were fixed on her. Outwardly Lucy was so slightly built that half an armchair would have been too large for her. As she sat there, her feet scarcely reached the floor. But in her calm voice there was a power, springing not from the painfulness of her experiences, nor from a mere heaping up of spiritual phrases; it was a power that came from the childlike honesty in her life.

Indeed, every parent has this kind of experience. If a child has been humiliated, he will come wailing to his parents, even scolding them. Yet his parents will never turn him away, but rather they will help comfort him with their love. When the child later discovers that he may have hurt his parents because of his unreasonable behavior, he will repent from the bottom of his heart. If this is true between parents and children, how much more will it be so between our Heavenly Father and the children He loves? Because of Lucy's honesty, her heart and her audience's hearts became one.

"It is true that Christians must experience the love of God. But this is just the beginning. We must get to know ourselves better and we must get to know God better. We are God's creation, therefore we can know God deep in our hearts and we need God. We all have our own needs; we need God to accept us. We are like children who understand their own parents and who need their own parents. We are like children who have their own needs and need their parents to accept them. However, we are often self-contradictory. We want to be accepted but we do not want to accept others. God is different. He always accepts us as unique individuals. So we do not have to worry about revealing our weaknesses to him. Rather we should hand over our burdens over to the Lord; he is the best one to heal our wounds."

"In the past, if somebody had said to me, 'Loss can be bring you great blessing,' I would have accused him of being hypocritical. 'Why doesn't he taste the bitterness of a loss himself.' Now that I personally have experienced loss followed by God's healing touch, I am beginning to feel my shoulders just loaded down with blessings. But until I am willing to unload my sorrow, I will not be able to recognize the new blessings already bestowed on me. We often believe that blessings will follow sufferings, so we wait there passively for the sufferings to be over. But the blessings do not always come after sufferings, they can come to us in the midst of our suffering. The blessings we look for are just a few pretty shining stones, but God is wanting to give us a gold mine! And that gold mine is the Lord Himself."

Gain through loss

It was one evening in August 1998. Lucy was lying on the couch in my living room. She didn't look at all unwell in spite of the fact that she had just gone through a cardiac operation. We talked on and on. We discussed children and the empty nest syndrome. What I was curious to know, though, was how, despite her huge loss and the heavy burdens it had brought, she managed to reach out so lovingly to care for other people's children, and how she had managed to serve the Lord for so long in this important position. It was only recently that she had resigned from this post to wait for the Lord's further guidance.

"A lot of Christians come up with all kinds of excuses for not serving the Lord, like lack of time or lack of talent. Serving the Lord often means serving people. In my case, not only did I have to work with different kinds of parents, I also had to deal with all kinds of children. It can be frustrating, can't it? I often wonder why did I pick such a frustrating task? I believe it had something to do with my understanding of the Lord, my understanding of people and my understanding of myself. My heavy loss and Peter's death have greatly changed my outlook. The Lord does not value us based on our experience, knowledge, achievement or financial accomplishment. We are highly valued simply because we are children of the Lord. Jesus' resurrection has brought great hope into our otherwise worthless lives. A handicapped child, for example, can indeed cause much anguish and inconvenience to his parents due to his inability. But I believe that everybody God creates is a precious being for Him. God never makes useless waste. God has created us in his own image, so each one of us is precious."

Lucy's assured tone reminded me of the people who came in and out at the church. I would often see some young children there leading the way for a few bigger kids who, expressionless and passive, were clearly retarded. Weren't they "waste"? Yet Lucy's loving words made me admit that even a retarded child could become a blessing for many others. As we care for the handicapped, we grow in faith, patience and love, and these find their source not in people we can see nor in a particular environment, but in the invisible God, the one who loves us always.

"I have worked as a Sunday school teacher for a long time. The kids trusted me a lot because they felt I could understand them, accept them and appreciate them as unique individuals. I truly believe everybody is precious in the Lord's eyes. It is the Lord who determines the value of every individual. Although we have our own weaknesses, the Lord is always ready to forgive us, to wait for us to grow, to accept us as unique individuals, to patiently build us up so that His children will grow up to be like Jesus and with His strength. As a servant of the Lord, how can I not respect and appreciate each individual child?

"I often said to myself: 'May the love of God so fill me that I can rise to love all these different kinds of children who are as weak as I am.' With that love, I was able to speak words of encouragement to them. I often told the children: Don't look down on yourself because you are still young. God already has a big plan for your life. You just need to place yourself right in the middle of the Lord's love and then trust and obey His guidance so that you can live up to His expectation."

As she talked, thinking aloud, Lucy's face was shining with love, and my heart was too filled with joy. Yes, the Lord loves her; He loves Peter; He loves her whole family. And the Lord loves me too. So, as we see and record one person's painful loss, let us too immerse ourselves in the Lord's great love that we too may receive an abundant harvest.

During the interview process with Lucy, I read In Remembrance of Brother Peter Hu edited by Sister Zhang Zhu-li. I commend this fine work, through which these loyal servants of the Lord, Peter and Lucy, are made known to so many.

The author, a college professor, came from Shanghai. He now lives in New Jersey.