Just a pair of miniature Dutch shoes and some old books are among the remaining items left that will soon depart for their new home with her children.
She was Dutch, loved tulips, and loved to have her husband read to her from those old books.
There are memories there in those tear-stained ancient romance novels.
He read them all, the entire series, to her in the first years of their marriage a half-century ago.
He read them again – though not all of them, as there was not enough time – as she lay there in the last weeks of her life.
One year ago, February 19, 2023, Hospice Care arrived for the first time in their home.
Readers here might exclaim from what follows ‘How serendipitous!’ or ‘How ironic!’ or ‘Imagine that!’
But what happened that very morning is better understood as divinely orchestrated, carefully planned, and without question a most precious truth from another ancient book, something he would need not only that day but a comfort he has needed every day since.
The One Year Bible Reading for that day, the day Hospice arrived, was Psalm 37:18.
Benson, in his commentary, puts it this way:
“The Lord observes with singular care and affection the dangers, fears, and sufferings of those who love God with their whole heart, and he watches over them.”
Cambridge says “each fraction of their lives.”
Barnes says:
“He knows how long they will live, and all that will happen to them. He sees the whole course of their life; he sees their end. It is implied here that his eyes are on all the allotted days of their life…and that nothing can shorten the days appointed to them.
“And they have an inheritance waiting.”
As these old books and miniature Dutch shoes leave for their new home with her children, so she has left for her new home, and her husband is forever grateful that there is one who sees, and knows, and cares.
