Blog - Kristina Lunde

November 19, 2016 by Kristina Lunde Leave a Comment

Letter to a New Widower

Dear B___,

Thinking about you today and praying that God will be with you every step of this new journey through grief as a widower. I pray that God will be with you in all the tough realities you face today:

Waking up to an empty room with the big hospital bed gone. A painful routine it has been, with that big hospital bed and the adjustment to E____’s decreasing strength as she stayed in bed longer and longer. But you adjusted, and you worked so hard to keep her spirits up and her body working as she lay in that bed. May God give you the assurance that you did everything possible to help E____.

Your main job is finished. You washed and lifted, carried and helped. You served her with such love and care, offering an intimacy that spoke volumes of love and support as she wrestled emotionally with letting you do things for her. May God let you know that you did His work in amazing ways. Now it is time to rest, grieve, and let God comfort you.

Coming home with to the empty house. Maybe you listened for noises of her breathing—even those snoring respirations would be a comfort right now. There are no more visits from the caring hospice staff. I pray that God will ease the quiet and give you His comforting peace.

Seeing reminders of her everywhere. My prayer is that you see more and more of the precious reminders and less of the hospital accessories that remind you of E____’s illness. May God refresh your sweet memories of E____ as He eases the reminders of her suffering.

Thank you for loving E____ and being such a great husband to her. You were her humor, strength, and caretaker. What an incredible blessing you were to her as she faced the cancer!

Praying for you.

P.S. Check out www.griefshare.org to sign up for daily emails of encouragement and comfort as you grieve.

October 6, 2016 by Kristina Lunde Leave a Comment

Pastor Appreciation: A Thank You Letter

October is Pastor Appreciation Month. Please consider writing a letter of encouragement, support, or thanks to your pastor – or maybe to a pastor in your community. I wrote this letter of thanks to a pastor in my community several years ago, and I still have never met this man.

Dear Pastor M___ ,

No, you don’t know me, nor have I been to your church. I attend another church in our town, but I want to thank you for all that you have done recently to show God’s love to our community. Seems like every time I hear about an event lately, you are giving of yourself and your resources, whether the people involved attend your church or not. So I want to specifically thank you for your caring outreach and let you know how your efforts have blessed so many others.

Last winter, you began counseling a couple in the midst of their marital problems. Perhaps they attended your church at some point but neither attends church now, and they both work in different towns. I spent time with the wife, and when she mentioned that they were seeing you for counseling, I was relieved to know that they were getting Godly advice. She quoted you and the recommendations you had made. Sadly, the couple eventually separated, but thank you for giving God’s love and Biblical counsel to people outside of your church circle.

Last month, you offered your church to a couple getting married. They rushed to have a service within weeks of their engagement, trying to find a church to host their wedding on short notice during the busy spring season. In your sanctuary, a beautiful bride was escorted down the aisle by her recently diagnosed, terminally ill father. Thanks to your church’s gracious hospitality, a dying man and his daughter saw their dreams fulfilled.

Recently, you preached at a memorial service for a suicide victim. The family was not even from this town, and you led the service at a church that was not yours. For two weeks afterwards, people quoted parts of your sermon and told me how your words had blessed the people in attendance. Thank you for serving God beyond the borders of your church.

May God bless the energy and effort you make to serve Him in this community and beyond. May He produce much fruit from the work you do beyond serving your church. I pray that God would surprise and even stun you with miraculous outcomes of your service in His name.

May your example challenge all of us to work outside our obvious zone of responsibility in Jesus’ name.

September 26, 2016 by Kristina Lunde Leave a Comment

Empty Nest: Ode to the Shoe Pile

Shoe pile, shoe pile, empty nest at the door

Where have you gone, shoe pile?

I can actually see the floor!

Shoe pile, shoe pile, gone from the hall

No more tripping hazards

Threatening to cause a fall.

Shoe pile, shoe pile, that huge display

Seemed like every pair they owned

Was always in the way.

Shoe pile, shoe pile, overflowed into the room,

When the kids’ friends came over,

Showed who was visiting whom.

Shoe pile, shoe pile, always in disarray

No more dirt and melted snow

From an overfull boot tray.

Shoe pile, shoe pile, missing from the entry

Look, there’s tile and a throw rug

So much else to see.

Shoe pile, shoe pile, removed from the scene

Now I can thoroughly sweep and mop

And the floor might stay clean.

Shoe pile, shoe pile carried off to the U

The kids can deal with their own shoe pile

I’ve got better things to do!

August 20, 2016 by Kristina Lunde Leave a Comment

Frozen in Time: A Widow’s Final Goodbye

1999 Avalanche Disaster

In October of 1999, forty year old mountain climber Alex Lowe and twenty-nine year old expedition cameraman David Bridges died in a Himalayan avalanche. Along with fellow alpinist Conrad Anker, they set out that morning to analyze the south face of Shishapangma, a Tibetan peak. Six other expedition members, farther back from the three scouts in the lead, were spared the sudden, crashing torrent of ice and snow. Seriously wounded and partially buried, Conrad pulled himself out of the avalanche’s aftermath and participated in the desperate, but ultimately futile, two day search for Alex and David.

Back in Montana, Alex’s widow Jenni had only verbal reports, along with her own climber’s instinct and intuition, to confirm her husband’s mortality. No physical proof of a life ended. No lifeless body to authenticate the finality of death. No tangible validation of a life ended and grief begun.

Shock. Explaining to three young children, family, loved ones. Grief. Mourning. All without a body to say goodbye to. Etching, scraping, and climbing through grief and loss to survive. Adjusting to a family that was tragically minus one. Preserving a father’s love and legacy.

Jenni and her boys were later joined by new husband and stepfather Conrad Anker. Bound by the pain of Alex’s loss, they built a new family together over the months, years, and decade-plus that passed.

2016 Mournful Recovery

Sixteen years later, in April of 2016, came the chance for a final goodbye in the flesh, after Alex’s and David’s bodies were found on the mountain.

Bodies preserved, long after lives were lost to a frigid end. Lives claimed by the mountain, now brought to the surface by glacial melt. A potential grief ambush of torrential proportions revealed by the sun’s light. The emotional trauma of facing the proof of a life vanished, the irrefutable evidence of widowhood, and the harsh reality of all that was lost.

Ice melted. Grief revisited. Goodbyes offered. Mourning renewed. Time to review, admire, and remember both Alex’s and David’s lives. An opportunity to mentally journey back and reflect honor on husband, father, friend, and climber.

Widow to Widow

Dear Jenni Lowe-Anker,
May God give you His strength and comfort as you face this mountain. May the melting ice give way to precious memories, love remembered, and a husband honored. May your grief be less about ambush and more about resolution. I pray that this reviewal will refresh your family’s precious memories of Alex. May the light of God’s son bring peace and closure, rest and nostalgia, hope and renewal. I pray that your widow’s heart not be torn, but instead that your love for Alex will be celebrated and commemorated, even as you continue on with the love of the second half of your life.

Prayers for God’s blessings on you and your family.
Kristina Lunde, a fellow pilgrim on the journey through grief

August 19, 2016 by Kristina Lunde Leave a Comment

AWANA Closing Program: Preschooler Distractions

The AWANA closing program was set to begin, and children, parents, and grandparents gathered inside the church for the celebration. I was on the lookout to welcome my section of Cubbies and help them cope with their preschooler distractions.

C’s mother, ready to confront her son’s weekly bout of separation anxiety, carried him over to me. Kicking and crying in his usual protest, C resisted when I peeled him out of his mother’s arms for our prearranged hand-off. I always waited for his mom’s timing and cue that she was ready for her son to separate; our weekly dance resulted in a calm C, usually within minutes. We had never handed off in front of an audience before, and I realized how cruel I must look, pulling a crying child out of mom’s loving arms. However, not long after C was in my arms and we sat down, he laughed as I distracted him with silly conversation.

K came in with her transition object, only this time it was a doll instead of her usual baby blanket. K’s mother, the exhaustion of strong-willed children evident on her face, was coping with simultaneous challenges from all three of her children. Oldest boy was testing limits and mom was implementing consequences presented even before the evening’s outing. Middle daughter was refusing to sit with her AWANA Sparks group. Not to be outdone, K, the youngest, began to tantrum when mom tried to sit elsewhere. Mom settled into place with our group of Cubbies, resigned to K’s refusal to separate and committed to ensure that her older children stayed with their groups.

As I calmed C on my lap, I looked over to see K present one of her rolling-on-the-floor tantrums. I usually dealt with that in the Cubbies classroom, where K’s occasional tantrums were short-lived and self-extinguished once her parents were out of sight and she received nothing but strange stares from her peers. Since mom was a captive audience, this particular session lasted longer and the doll became a drama prop.

“You are a good mom! Hang in there,” I encouraged K’s mother with a pat on her arm. It sounded so feeble and I wanted to encourage her further, but I had to tend to the rest of my preschooler group.

In bounded A, deliberately shaking her cupped hands together, a smug smirk of accomplishment spread across her sweet, three-year-old face. Sensing that this was likely a live one, snuck into the sanctuary for the big AWANA finale, I asked what was in her hands.

“A bug!” she proclaimed triumphantly, gracing me with a short peek as she cracked her otherwise clenched hands to reveal a black winged insect. Knowing A’s strong will and desire for peer attention, I plotted my strategy carefully. I acknowledged the bug, without praising the accomplishment excessively. Having survived my own strong-willed, non-insect-averse children, I considered the consequences of a loose bug and the damage control that would ensue. My strategy was to give her a choice.
“OK, since you can’t bring the bug on stage with you, you have two choices. You can either bring the bug outside, or you can put it in this envelope,” I challenged her, grabbing an offering envelope. (Use # 257 for an offering envelope.)

“I want to go outside,” she demanded.

“Well, I can’t take you outside now; we are all going on stage to sing the Cubbies’ song. You’ll have to sit here until I come back and can take you.”

After our leader’s cue, the Cubbies stood up in preparation to take the stage. Knowing that A would not want to miss out on a fun group activity, I offered her the open envelope. She hurriedly dumped the bug inside and ran to the aisle with her peers. The kids in our row eyed me carefully to monitor what happened with the bug. Bug firmly wrapped in the envelope and tucked under the row ahead of us (to prevent catastrophic smashing of A’s trophy), I herded my group of cherubs to the front.

After wild gestures, whispered guidance, and a few rescued potential runaways, the group of sixteen Cubbies was ready to perform. Facing their parents, families, and friends, the children sang the Cubbies’ song and recited their Bible verses.

Dear God, may these precious children always leave behind transitional objects, separation anxiety, bugs, and other distractions in order to focus on your word. Amen.

Disclaimer: No Cubbies were harmed in the pre-program drama annotated above. The program preparation strategies described do not necessarily represent AWANA guidelines.

(Originally posted April 2016.)