Why this waste of perfume?

It took a long time to fill my heart with love. But Hans managed to fill it. God used my husband to erase the years of widowhood and the emptiness that comes from not knowing God's love. Toward the end of our life together, I got pretty assured of love always being there. But life is about loss. For change means loss. It means letting go of all things except Christ. This is my final journey toward perfection, maturity. In reflection, I see that Hans was like a mom and dad to me. No wonder I was so content. He was nurturing like a mom and provided safety like a dad. In that environment, I could try anything. He was bedrock. Foundation. The nausea is a sign of the anxiety that comes from separation. It is to be expected. Still, I have not walked this way before and all these things trigger years of denying abandonment and rejection. I should have dealt with those issues long before this. But God is so smart, he will heal me one way or another, and long before eternity begins  for me. 

But now Hans is asleep and is not dead. I must not weep for it is unseemly to the Savior if I do. At least not weep as the lost do. For he shall be awakened from his sleep into everlasting life, roused as it were from a dream in which his body rests. Is. 26:19. 

Matthew Henry says, "The death of our relations should drive us to Christ, who is our life. But to be healed of our sorrow we must touch the hem of his garment. There is no other real cure. Sometimes when the sorrow of the world prevails, it is difficult for Christ and his comforts to enter. For this reason, he forbade them to weep or mourn." 

I think this is a matter of more will than emotion—a choosing to believe, as it were. I must continue the journey alone. For there is more to be done in my preparation for eternity. The human predicament is this: I am driven to Christ. The steeds of my mystic chariot are the triggers that cause me sorrow on a daily basis. They are the ones that drive me to Christ. Yesterday I saw them as tormentors. Today I see them as instruments which serve to bring me to his hem. The woman with the issue of blood would not have been so valiant in her search of the Christ had she not been in such straights, no money, no hope, only a sure wasting away from the loss of blood. But she was driven to Christ, as surely as my pain drives me. Yesterday I was doing more cleaning in the garage and I saw the augur that Hans used to clean out the drains. Why this item? It must have made an impression on me how he could make things work again. Then I could not walk by his office or go inside. It still remains like a museum piece to me. Yesterday was Monday, and only two weeks ago on Monday evening, he died. Every Monday has that affect on me. But I had not realized that these are my coachmen, not to the grave, but to life. To the author of life. 

Today is my birthday and after a celebratory lunch at the Sunset Brewery (of all places) I will go to the cemetery to check on the flowers. It is not the grave that causes me pain, oddly, I am comforted to be there among the dead. But it is the artifacts of his life that cause me anguish. The workmen's tools. His worn out socks and shoes that make my heart break from love. He never wore the academic collar or the Domini's (clergy) robes of which he was a part. He wore the garment of a carpenter. He could have worn them, but he chose to walk Another's path. I did not understand it then as I do now. He took his flask of oil and broke it over the feet of Jesus. His precious life's oil.  And that will surely be rewarded. In his life and in mine.