How Could I Wish You Back from Heaven?

By Sandra Brown Neahusan

Each morning when we wake up, we do not know what we will have to face before going to bed that night. My husband and I were making plans to move to Florida full time, but God had other plans. He took my husband home one afternoon. I had no warning and could make no preparation. I have written this book to let others in similar situations know that God is faithful to provide for us, comfort us, and sustain us in our life's journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Oct 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781449768614

Sandra Brown Neahusan

Sandra Brown Neahusan is beginning a new life, seeking God's wisdom and direction. Since her husband passed away suddenly in 2010, she has traveled the paths of grief and sorrow. She and Ron actively served the Lord in their local church and in disaster relief projects. She has lead ladies' Bible studies and spoken at women's gatherings. After taking the past two years to rest in God's comfort and protection, she is ready to serving Him again. She has a great desire to share her grief journey experience with others who may be in the same situation. Sandra lives in Venice, Florida.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Again, if two lie together, then they have heat:

but how can one be warm alone?

—Ecclesiastes 4:11

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LAUNDRY DAY HAD CREPT UP AGAIN. I’d gathered my husband’s dirty clothes, measured detergent, and started the washing machine. I started to load the clothes into the washer when it hit me: this was the last time I would wash his laundry. Never again would I have to get out a stain or mend a seam for Ron.

I had buried him a few days before. I slid to the floor, holding his shirts up to my face, sobs wracking my whole body. His shirts still smelled of lingering aftershave lotion, maybe a little grease, and sweat. I took in the smell, trying not to forget—even dirty clothes were a memory I didn’t want to lose.

How do women cope when we lose our husband, our best friend? How do we cope when we’ll never hold him in our arms again? How do we keep the same friends? What will we do with the rest of our lives?

These are questions I considered as I slowly faced this fact: my husband had died, I was alone.

CHAPTER 2

Cast thy burden upon the lord, and he shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.

– Psalm 55:22

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AS CHRISTIANS, WE EXPECT GOD TO take care of us. So, why am I amazed when he actually does?

Ron and I were married for twenty-eight years. We met in 1982 and married the next year. I was a single, divorced mother with a little boy and girl; he was a widower with three boys of similar age to my children. I tried very hard to be a good mother to all the children.

I was an only child, so I had no experience with competition within families. My mother and father had divorced when I was a child, and I spent a lot of time alone. I loved to read, and books were my friends.

I admit I was overwhelmed. I had no idea what I was getting into.

Our years together had many ups and downs. We had many great years, but we also had some rough ones. I was thirty years old when we married. Ron was thirteen years older than me, and he came from a family with seven children.

We clung to the Lord. As children, we had both accepted him as our Savior. We went to church three times a week, and the kids were enrolled in a Christian school.

When Ron retired in 1998, we sold our home in the Flint, Michigan area, and built a house on Lake Huron. Ron’s family had owned a cottage there for decades. We bought the property from his father, tore down the old cottage, and built a year-round house.

We babysat our twin grandsons in Flint for the first year and a half of their lives. It was hard to leave them, but leaving Flint was the best thing we could have done. I still believe the many emotional trials we were going through would have taken my husband from me years earlier if we had stayed.

At that point my son, Brandon, had graduated from college and was pursuing his career in Grand Rapids. My daughter, Kara, was attending college in Florida, and she didn’t plan on coming back north after graduating.

We decided to join the legions of retired people who flock south for the winter the same year we moved north. We purchased a house in South Carolina, found a great church, met wonderful friends, and really got to know each other for the first time. It was like having an extended honeymoon, even though it was seventeen years after we had married.

The grandkids came up to the lake during the summers. There were seven of them by this time, and they all enjoyed the sand and water.

God led us to the perfect church also. It was a small work that had survived one hundred years, but was struggling because of the economy and changing area. It was founded by a gypsum mining company to serve its employees.

The town, which had thrived for years, had literally been picked up and moved, including the mining operation. So, the church basically sat alone on the shores of Lake Huron in what had been Alabaster, Michigan.

We had visited several churches in the area, and decided one Sunday morning, at the last minute, to visit this one. We felt at home as soon as we walked inside the door. The church family welcomed us, and we settled