A New Day Dawning

Daybreak

...His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning...

- Lamentations 3:22-23

But to you who fear My name
the Sun of Righteousness shall arise
with healing in His wings...

- Malachi 4:2

It's been more than six months since my husband Ernie passed away.

Sometimes I still find it hard to believe. But slowly, the reality is hitting home.

The first five months after his unexpected death have seen me in a whirlwind of activities:

Christmas, and New Year,
ministry involvement,
travel to Guam,
several trips to Manila,
a series of writing assignments,
house repairs,
school closing activities at the university, and
a triple family celebration in March - my birthday, First Born and God-given's first wedding anniversary and Forerunner's dedication.

In mid-April, I came here to Manila to be with Obedient One for what I had planned to be a brief two-week stay.

I'm still here... and realizing that God has a different timetable for me.

My having been here these past two months, away from the home that Ernie and I shared, has afforded me an extended transition period.

As I have shared in a previous post, initially I felt like my life was on hold, and that I was waiting for my new marching orders to be given.


Meanwhile, the feelings of being alone, of not belonging to anybody, became increasingly real.

When Ernie was still alive I always felt secure in knowing that someone cared. Even when we were far from each other, I knew someone was thinking of me. If I had a beautiful experience, there was someone I could share it with. If I had been away, there would always be someone waiting for my return.

With Ernie gone, I began to understand how a man, or a woman, after the death of a marriage partner, having nothing to live for, begins to lose the zest for life, causing a slow process of dying inside to take place.

Yes, I have experienced first hand the pain of separation that death brings.

No one to talk to, no one to share a meaningful experience with, no one to go home to.

Preparing a meal alone, and eating it alone.

Wearing a new dress, and no one to tell me, "You look beautiful!"


The first few weeks after Ernie left, I really had no emotions inside of me. Outwardly I would be laughing, but the truth was that deep inside I felt numb.

How can this numbness be described?

It felt like I had just come from the dentist's and the effect of the anesthesia hasn't worn off. I touch my face, but I feel nothing. That was how my heart felt.

To be honest, the joy hasn't completely returned to my heart. There is only an intellectual joy, a joy that is there simply because I have chosen it.

The sense of loss still runs deep.


After the first few months friends eventually stop asking how I'm doing. It's understandable, they also have their own lives to live.

I know my own children care, but it's not the same.



My main prayer for each of my children is this: "Lord, bring my son, my daughter, up to the next level of his or her destiny!

Recently I was actually surprised to hear these words being spoken to me: You are now entering the next level of your destiny.

I knew that the time has come for me to re-define myself, to learn to look at myself from a new vantage point.

Most of my days are now lived alone, and in silence.

I have learned to accept it, but I still need to get used to it.

But I also find myself talking less. There is a sense of quietness about me that I am beginning to appreciate. The feeling that I don't have to explain things; I can leave many things unsaid, and unexplained.

This is indeed a new level... and here I have opportunity for my priorities and decisions to be sifted, to separate what is of God, and what is simply coming from my own desires...a purifying process.

Being alone enables me to discover my true self.

This is actually just a continuation of a life theme that God began teaching me at one point in my Christian walk. Many years ago, I read Henri Nouwen's book entitled The Way of the Heart. It was one book that had an impact on me. It changed my outlook on how I should use my words, whether written or spoken.

Nouwen believes that cultivating inner silence affirms us in our pilgrim status, and guards "the fire within" from which our words come.

It was in Rasa, Switzerland that God began to say to me that He was going to teach me how to speak kingdom words: words that truly represent His heart, and how these words were to be used to glorify Him, and Him alone... not me... not my writing or speaking abilities.

I have realized that when I say too much, the end result of it is... just noise. Like verbal garbage. Or clanging cymbals.

And I certainly didn't want that.

I like the way Charles Ringma puts it:

This being with God in solitude and contemplation nurtures an inner sacredness. Our secret does not lie in our achievements, but in our friendship with God. What is seen by others around us does not explain all that we are. There is an inner life with God, nurtured by the Spirit, that is the great secret of one's existence.

Out of this inner sacredness sustained and guarded by God, I may live, act, and speak. And this will give my acting and speaking an authenticity, freshness, and creativity.

Things then do not come from empty wells, tired places, and the barren and wounded spaces of our lives. Things do not come from mere repetition of the boringly familiar and artificial. Instead they come from the sacred silences that characterize our lives.

An excerpt from Whispers from the Edge of Eternity by Charles Ringma

Greater things have yet to come
Greater things are still to be done
In this city!



My Prayer:

My heavenly Father, I just want to be obedient, and be ready for the new things that You have in store for me. My times are in Your hand.

Thank You for Your timely word that speaks clearly to me:

...God shall help her just at the break of dawn.

- Psalm 46:5

Morning has broken!