September 17, 1997
I bolted from sleep and jumped to my feet in one movement, my heart revving so high I feared it would explode.
I glimpsed the nightstand’s glowing numbers. 3:46 a.m.
Dexter, my miniature dachshund, wriggled into the warm spot in the bed I had abandoned. Tears slicked my face. Had I been crying in my sleep? My lungs heaved air in and out like I had sprinted over a finish line a second ago.
The message pulsing through my every corpuscle was clear: Husband was dead.
It was more than a dream, that message. More than a premonition too; it had already happened. I knew it. But did God send messages that way? Did he wake people in the night and drop horrible news into their spirits like that?
“No, no, no,” I whispered into the emptiness of that farmhouse where I lived, although I could’ve yelled the words, and the old place wouldn’t have minded.
I dropped to my knees, but the action didn’t fix anything. I stood and paced, but I could move around all I wanted, and nothing would change. Husband’s flight from Tucson to Charleston that night had crashed. I felt it in my core. His death was as real as my own life.
Or was it?
Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
I knew those words well. I had focused on them before in dark moments. Noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable. Yes. But wait. Whatever is true…
TRUE.
Was that adjective new to the list? Had it been the leader in that string of attributes my whole life and I only noticed it now? It was fresh, TRUE, and solid, like a rock planted in the landscaping for so long my eyes had blinded to it. But there it stood—strong enough to hold me.
Did Husband’s plane crash? Was he dead at that very moment? Maybe and maybe, but no news station had announced it, and no phone call had informed me of it. So, even though it felt true, I didn’t know it to be true.
Twenty-two years later I still marvel at the lesson, wrapped in a night terror. The sweating palms, the jagged breaths, the hammering heart, the stunning revelation. Whatever is true…
Fears will come, and they’re convincing, but what’s true stands solid. Fight for it against all feelings. Pursue it when appearances lie. Search for it over what looks real.
Truth is strong enough to hold us.
*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.