A Week Before

The Saturday evening service between Good Friday and Easter morning, called the Easter Vigil, was the Mass during which Rich would enter the Roman Catholic Church.

A week before the Vigil I finally grasped that this Catholic change was really going to happen, and I’d better prepare. I planned to make a nice dinner, get my hair cut, and select just the right clothes to wear. I queried Rich about the dinner, but he promptly informed me he did not want a fuss. The process leading up to the week ahead had been difficult enough, and he did not want to emphasize it any more. I knew he was thinking of my needs, so I planned his favorite breakfast for that Saturday morning. We had a quick dinner the evening of the Vigil.

During the days leading up to the Vigil, I mused on my future within this unfamiliar body of believers. That future looked somewhat bleak. Rich often sat holding me as I mulled over questions about my role in Rich’s new home church. What if I had a spiritual problem? To whom would I go? As a non-Catholic, how would I “fit in” as Rich involved himself in the life of his church? I had always been at his side during church ministries, such as teaching Sunday school and home Bible studies. Would I now have to remove myself from those ministries in which he would participate? We clung together and pondered these questions from time to time – I in despair and he in anguish, unable to give me answers or comfort me.

By “coincidence,” my daily Bible reading took me through the book of Job during Holy Week. I’d read this book many times before, and had always plodded through the narrative of what seemed like one long, dull complaint. This time I saw myself in a Job-like situation, and his question, “why?” echoed in my mind.

But the more I read of the futility of Job’s situation and how he suffered without understanding the reason for his pain, I realized Job’s character grew stronger through his trials. His steadfast trust in God remained firm despite circumstances and personal attacks. Nothing altered Job’s trust in the mercy and righteousness of his Redeemer.

Friends accused Job of living a sinful life, and that was the reason for his troubles. Although no one had accused me of living a sinful life, I began to accuse myself. I desired so desperately to have renewed life breathed into our marriage that I now agonized over my supposed and real failures. For a time, I worried something was wrong with me because I could not accept the new beliefs that were so easy for Rich. I struggled with this every day. And, like Job, I pleaded with the Father to let me know what I was to do –not what I wanted to do, but what He wanted me to do.

I found part of my answer in Job 23:8-16 (New American Standard Bible):

8"Behold, I go forward but He is not there,
And backward, but I cannot perceive Him;
9When He acts on the left, I cannot behold Him;
He turns on the right, I cannot see Him.
10"But He knows the way I take;
When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.
11"My foot has held fast to His path;
I have kept His way and not turned aside.
12"I have not departed from the command of His lips;
I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.
13"But He is unique and who can turn Him?
And what His soul desires, that He does.
14"For He performs what is appointed for me,
And many such decrees are with Him.
15"Therefore, I would be dismayed at His presence;
When I consider, I am terrified of Him.
16"It is God who has made my heart faint,
And the Almighty who has dismayed me,”


Our Father poured into my troubled heart the balm only He could provide. I was comforted by His reminder that He knows the way I take, and that He appointed for me this time, this place and this way. Even when my heart felt faint from the darkness of an unknown future, it is His nail pierced hand that orchestrated it.

I read that passage repeatedly; and I remembered the exhortation of pastors and teachers in my past who encouraged me to trust in the Lord, lean on His word, accept good and bad from His hand.

The words to a favorite hymn played in my mind, “It will be worth it all when we see Jesus. Life’s trials will seem so small when we see Christ. One look at His dear face, all sorrow will erase; so bravely run the race till we see Christ.”

I would try to accept everything from the Lord’s hand as something He had planned for me.