Hello,

When I started this Caring Bridge for Lisa I had an agenda to develop three narratives:

1. I wanted to describe how much I loved Lisa, and this was always the easiest part to write. I wanted to tell our love story so plainly that it would make you want to be a better husband or wife. I was so happy when my friend in St Petersburg, FL told me that I was making all the men look bad. Mission accomplished! I still hope that all of you get to have a marriage even better than ours was. Personally, I think it kind of sucks that they tell you during the ceremony that the whole thing will end if one of you dies, but they just seem to gloss over that part.

2. I wanted people to know that the Christian faith offers hope to people facing a terminal illness, or facing anything else in this life. Even though I can tell you about people who are enduring much worse things than what we went through, I feel like the Christian faith is still sufficient. It is the only real hope for this world, and I wanted to show you how it gave Lisa and me and the girls hope in ways you just can’t find anywhere else.

Along these lines, there is a somewhat-deserved stereotype of the Christian faith. It portrays Christianity as just a bunch motivational-speaking self-help platitudes and cherry-picked verses telling you that nothing bad should ever happen to you and if it does then there is something wrong with you personally.

That is one of the worst lies you will ever hear. I don’t know how that even got to be a thing.

I wanted you to know that the Bible speaks to humans on a much deeper level than just platitudes and rules and rewards for good behavior. I wanted to describe what I’ve learned from the parts of the Bible where the writer is crying out to God in anguish. There are way more of those passages than you would think. Those underemphasized parts of the story were written for people like us who are suffering and hurting and don’t want a platitude to hang on their refrigerator magnet. They want hope. They want hope when the world has none to offer. The whole story of the Bible is one of God on a mission to rescue his people. That is the hope of humanity. All you have to do is believe it. There is nothing for you to do, the rest will just come naturally after you believe, which is the last point.

3. Finally, I wanted people to know what the Kingdom of Heaven looks like right here and right now in this broken world. Lisa was living the Kingdom out for so long that people were just naturally attracted to her. Sometimes they didn’t even know why. She was just committed to that Kingdom. That was her thing, and it could be all of our thing! I wrote this Caring Bridge with the intention of trying to describe the way The Kingdom of Heaven was at work in our lives during the ordeal, often showing up through many of you. I can’t thank you enough!

That Kingdom of Heaven talk and action was the centerpiece of Jesus’ ministry. His village-to-village stump speeches, his parables and storytelling, his healing and feeding and loving people; all of that was him describing and demonstrating the Kingdom. That was his whole point. I got to see part of it in Lisa’s life for years and I got an even better look at it the last year and a half. I just feel like asking God if there wasn’t an easier way he could have showed that to me. I still trust his goodness, even when I don’t understand his methodology. I wanted to show the goodness of the Kingdom to you when I wrote so many of those entries.

Thank you for trekking this trail with us.

If you want to find out what happens to me next, I’ll be writing about it on Facebook.

Merrill Hoekstra | Facebook

Or you can contact me via email : merrill.hoekstra@gmail.com

I want to thank all of you that continue to reach out to me and the girls. We are very grateful.

Peace, Merrill