Wendy Louise Jackson
April 4, 1958-May 11, 2018
Five years ago, the Lord allowed my wife to “go on ahead,” into Heaven. Wendy is enjoying eternal bliss because of the salvation she claimed in Christ finished work on the Cross of Calvary 44 years before in a youth revival meeting in Kissimmee, Florida.
On May 11, 2018, a new season started in my life too, one only those who have lost a loved one can connect with. When being introduced to speak before a church service, the kind host stated, “Dr. Tim Jackson has endured great loss but has a real joy in the Lord, in spite of it all.” I was stricken by the kind observation, and wondered just what others thought a believer in the Lord ought to respond to the Lord’s taking of their Christian bride of 38 years and ten months of marriage.
After knowing Wendy Louise Jackson for 40 years, she was no longer just my sole partner, my love from college, my cheerleader, my faithful counsel. She was my precious wife. She left me for her Savior in Heaven. She passed on. She was “taken” by the Lord. Wendy had been diagnosed with an inoperable, terminal brain cancer nine months earlier. We prayed each day, for nine months, for God to heal her using modern medicine, a pharmaceutical trial from the FDA, some special vitamins, or God heal her by letting her be home in heaven. The Truth is we knew there had been issues with her health two years earlier. The physicians really had run out of tests and patience with our insistences. We came to a point where we underwrote medical tests, and we were seriously concluding that what one professional said was what the medical field had concluded. Her well-meaning practicing nurse stated, “Wendy, your insurance company isn’t going to like me running more diagnostic tests on you. There is nothing else!” After we discovered in the E.R. a year later, the terminal diagnosis my wife could not wait to share with that nurse, a few days later that there were no hard feelings for their doubts of our requests for answers, only a sense of relief, we finally knew what was wrong. Only the Lord knew the answers and a sense of comfort came over us as we suspected something was going on then, and it was finally validated by the biopsy of tissue removed from the base of her brain. Inoperable, terminal, brain cancer, the diagnosis, the only question was not if but how soon she was going to die and start new with the Lord.
The hope of this blog is to help those who are searching for answers, to offer some suggestions. You too have had physicians, family, ministers, and friends wonder about your frame of mind. That “still small voice” that the Prophet Elijah heard is hard to explain to believers, who are “doing church” and even harder to those who do not know the Almighty. It is an internal voice that God crystalizes to you personally. The words on this page could be a help for you to cope or to be able to begin to live an abundant life from this day forward. Sometimes knowing the Lord’s will can deliver a little more peace, knowing you are not alone; you never were alone.
A look back at our relationship together, showed me that we were the typical young Christian couple growing our faith and relationship together the best we knew how. When we met at Christian College, we fell in love, went on dates, had some clean fun, had devotions together, served in church together, and prayed together. One day, after we had been married for a year, I was jogging, and Wendy was riding next to me on her bike. She stopped me and asked for forgiveness because the ladies in the little chapel we were serving in were not growing in Christ. She really was that sensitive to helping others. Of course, it was not her fault that 70- and 80-year-olds were not growing, but she wanted to see God bless our ministry. We prayed about it and helped them memorize, and invited their friends out to services. One night we were sleeping in a small cabin provided for us to stay in while serving in the chapel in Interlochen, Florida. We slept on the bottom bunk bed together, and when I opened my eyes, she was staring at me. I whispered, “Wendy, what is wrong?” Wendy whimpered, “This place has rats crawling around!” I really thought she was exaggerating; I took the little flashlight, and sure as the world, there were rats on the floor. The next day we found another place to stay, my bride needed her rest, and honestly, I did not know if those rats would stay on the floor.
I heard a devotion that addresses the warped thinking people are taught or come to believe, however the solution is found in Jesus: “Our culture tells us that if we could be healthy, young, and energetic forever, we would be genuinely happy. But that is not where our fulfillment is found. Before He went to the cross, Jesus prayed for His disciples and for future believers. John 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” -Karen Pimpo, ODB
Here are some thoughts to apply with the passing away of your mate that may assist you or someone you love going through this season in life(full disclosure this is sixty months after my bride has passed away and forty-three years after being ordained in the ministry so there is still some work to do):
- Work on your relationship with God through prayer, Bible reading, hymn singing/listening, worship of God in church, serving others through the ministry, witnessing every day, get a job where you are accountable to someone. This is not any new revelation, but it is worthy of your time Psalm 1:1-2 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor standeth in the way of sinners, Nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. 2. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; And in his law doth he meditate day and night. This gives a promise of the value of staying with the Word of God. Everyone I have observed who flourishes after loss invests themselves in eternal business not temporal things that have no lasting value. Show me a bitter widow or widower, and I will show you the roots of someone who is self-centered. Work at your place of employment or find a new place to work and go there regularly- the interaction is encouraging, and the responsibility will keep you moving forward. Staying in your house or apartment alone will only yield you to discouragement. Turn off the Television/Internet: Wheel of Fortune/ Jeopardy and Candy Crush are not your friends. They are draining you of your remaining life loaned to you by the Lord. Find or stay at gaining for yourself for your family for the Lord’s work financially. It is not getting less expensive to live. If you are all set financially, then get a job doing it for free to help others more. In the forty years of ministry, we noted those who retire and become stationary often pass away quickly from their change of routine, in worship and activity.
- Look towards the Lord’s Soon Return, the taking up of the Church, Rapture of the believers. 1 Thessalonians 4:16–18 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words. The blessing of knowing this is just a short season here on earth, before His return, “rights the ship” every moment of every day. Each morning in my wife’s consciousness we would sip on a hot cup of tea/coffee and look towards the east for the sun to rise and see if the Son would call us to the sky. If it did not happen, we would just start the routine of the day. Read a book on prophecy each month, which is centered on the scripture: suggested books to read will be forthcoming.
- Increase your giving of time to others in the community looking to share your faith. Increase your giving of money to missions through your local church, even if your income has changed. The need of the Christian faith has not gone down, so trust God to budget better(Look at your spending through eternal values; cut the cable/satellite the subscriptions to magazines and that little bit will add up quickly). Increase giving out your faith by talking to someone each day before you end the day: hand out a Gospel tract every time you pull out your wallet, pray with someone about their needs by just volunteering on the spot when they mention a need or problem in their life. Luke 6:38 Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.
- This is a point you knew would be brought up by a widower pastor and one who attends church to honor God because my pastor taught me that (my parents did the same thing, something about making a big deal about God).worship of God is the answer to My bride couldn’t attend church all the time, bed sores and other ailments kept her home and sweet ladies from our church would come to sit with her so I could go preach. She would turn on the church services on her smartphone when she could not operate the live stream on the monitor. Worship means you are humbling yourself to God and honoring God in hymns, prayer, offerings, and study/preaching of His Word. Psalm 95:1-2 1 O come, let us sing unto the Lord:
Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving,
And make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. Change your schedule so that each day you worship God in your closet (your war room, your devotion hub), and make sure you are in church each time the doors are open for services. If you are not connecting where you used to attend find a Bible-preaching church and start worshiping God there, the live-streaming or the smartphone is not a replacement for church just a substitute if you are incapacitated.
- Every day you need to take inventory (you are blessed to be a child of the King!). Each morning and throughout the day, be grateful. Often believers start believing they are victims where we are really victors in Christ! Nearly every week, my ministry calls on visiting others, as I walk out from visiting people (a time I treasure as we pray together, read Scriptures, deliver a little gift from the church like sugar-free candy or a small McDonald’s treat) in the hospitals and rest homes, I literally sing hymns of thanks, pray thanks to God and reward myself (a decaf coffee at Panera or an extra half hour of reading my favorite book of that week) at least once a week for making it another week helping others rather than having to be helped by someone. Lamentations 3:23 They are new every morning, great is thy faithfulness. Here is a project for you. Write out every good thing God has done for you, every excellent quality about God, every friend and family member that God has blessed you with-now thank God for it all.
- If you have not liked what you read up to this point, I am sure you are going to hate me now: get off the couch. A physician told my wife and me in 1991 that most Christians are under-exercised and overeaten. He then proceeded to support us financially for four years with hundreds of dollars to help us plant a church in Lansing, Michigan. “No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care” – President Theodore Roosevelt. We could not escape his kindness and his boldness; therefore we began working at being more active and eating smaller portions. Fast forward twenty-five years, my terminally ill wife had to be checked with a glucometer, a sphygmomanometer, a pulse oximeter, and a special diet, all part of the new schedule each day of her last nine months. Those meters told no lies- bold accounting each time each day. If we had been more active, would it have stopped the cancer from growing? Probably not. I am not saying if you start a light regiment of activity, after getting cleared by a physician of course, and eat clean food you will not die from an illness, but it could help you (you will feel better, so put away the Twinkie’s). I Timothy 4:8 For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. The Scriptures do not advocate staying active, and certainly point out the value of keeping a balance in life. Imagine if the disciples could not walk the distance with Jesus on the Emmaus Road?
- Who do you belong to besides the loving God in Heaven? That is your tribe, the ones you are with: your parents, your siblings, your close friends, your church friends. Invest in them with your time, your love, your counsel, your schedule, and your worship of God! They love you. There are so many in my tribe that have assisted me through the grieving process, the recovery time of my wife going to be with Jesus, now doing it alone, but not really. They are there. Some of them moved in for a few days, some of them called me and took me fishing, some of them sent me gift cards, some of them stayed away. It is uncomfortable for people to know what to say to a pastor, brother, father, friend a neighbor when there is loss, great loss. Go ahead and take the risk, say something like, “Would you like to go for coffee tomorrow at 6 am?” (I like mornings, so the answer is yes). Bring them a book that you have read. Bring them a favorite dessert enough for two and sit with them and share it. Mow their lawn, wash their car. I had a preacher call me and say, “Brother, do you need tires, a new suit, a vacation?” I answered, “No.” I really did not need anything, and I would not feel comfortable taking anything that I asked for, really that is strange to me. So, I answered no. He said, “If you need anything call me.” I do believe he would have gotten anything I wanted; I did not need a thing. I was just reeling through the time, trying to get bearings for the next day, month, year, decade-alone. When a grandchild gives me a hug, or a family member embraces me it is empowering. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit keeps reminding me that God is in control, so take a breath and look for Jesus’ return. My accountant told me the following, “Keep on for the Lord.” I did not ask him; he just gave that advice. I Corinthians 13:7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
You were wondering why the title: “Delete Contact”. It goes back to something on my iPhone contacts list. When you want to take a name off the list, the edit says these two very final words: “Delete Contact”. I have had the opportunity to conduct hundreds of funerals in ministry, several in the last few years. There are two times when someone passes, it becomes a reality to me.
- The first time is when at the conclusion of the funeral service I am standing at the head of the casket and the family share their final goodbyes at the end of the service.
- The final time is when I must remove the deceased from my contact list on my I Phone. Those two words seem very cold to me, very final, very hard: Delete Contact. It is over, humanly speaking when you tap those red words, they are out of my life, for now. What a wonderful hope I have in Jesus that it is not final forever. Titus 2:13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; The last song my wife and I sang as a duet was at my brothers Gary and Dan’s church in Sarasota, Florida, we had a nice visit with them and I preached and we sang a Stuart Hamblen song that she harmonized perfectly with:
“My heart can sing when I pause to remember
A heartache here is but a stepping stone
Along a trail that’s winding always upwards.
This troubled world is not my final home.
But until then my heart will go on singing,
Until then with joy I’ll carry on;
Until the day my eyes behold the city,
Until the day God calls me home.”-Hamblen 1958