Comfort in knowing he’s somewhere I’m going

Does anyone know where May went? 
Regular readers of this newspaper may not have noticed (because others covered well for me) but I wasn’t around much last month. First, my wife, Tammy, had triple bypass heart surgery on May 9 in Lincoln. (She had a speedy recovery and is even back to driving again now!) 
But then, two days after her operation I received a call telling me that my brother, Wendell in South Dakota, had suffered a cardiac arrest and was being airlifted to a Sioux Falls hospital. He never regained consciousness and died a week later. That meant a third week of absences from work and a trip home to Winner for his funeral on May 23. I had the privilege of preaching his funeral service and have told many people that, despite the crushing loss to our family, it was a blessed and grace-drenched time. 
It has been interesting in the last couple of weeks since then to think about how our relationship as brothers changed over the six plus decades we have been a part of one another’s lives. As the two youngest siblings in our family of four children, although we were three years apart in age, we were each other’s first playmates. We shared the same toys and the same daydreams and built sandcastles, tree houses, pretend cars (using junk from Dad’s scrap pile), roads and towns in the dirt and we even planned to build a hilltop lookout tower. (Our dad, who was concerned about the unsightly visibility of such a structure, suggested we build our house in the thick chokecherry and plum brush between the house and the barn, which we did.)
Our cousin, Wade, who is between us in age and lived only a couple of miles away up the river, pointed out at Wendell’s visitation that as the years went by the three of us became the Three Amigos of the Rio Blanco and had numerous adventures.
As we both started driving he, being the natural born gear head of the two of us, taught me things (like that you should accelerate around a banked curve, rather than slowing down) and he was always available to answer my car questions. Once in high school, when a kid decided it would be a good idea to do a dance on the hood of my car completely crumpling it, he became my defender and confronted the perpetrator at the Pizza Pub on my behalf.
Adolescence brought with it the predictable competition for attention (especially from girls) and I endured a fair amount of teasing and tormenting from an older brother who sometimes felt like I was a detriment to his social life. But somehow, through it all we continued to stay close. He attended Oak Hills Bible Institute in Minnesota and I followed a year later. In my early twenties I moved to Rapid City to pursue a career in radio and within a year or so he moved there too and we were housemates at four different places over the next several years until I met and married Tammy. Then in 1988 Tammy and I moved back to Winner and a couple of years later Wendell and his wife moved there too, just in time for me to move on to Illinois for the next 16 years. (I wasn’t trying to get away from him, that’s just where the Lord was taking me.)
Those years put more than miles of distance between us. It’s hard to stay close to someone when you can’t be actively involved in each other’s lives on a regular basis, but after we moved back to South Dakota in 2007 we sort of picked up where we left off. (He even started criticizing my driving again!) 
Over the next few years I was at times his employee, going on numerous lock jobs with him to places like West Yellowstone and Jackson Hole.) At other times I was his scribe or ghostwriter, helping him put things down in writing that were on his heart and mind.
Over the past 10 years, even though we continued to be separated by miles (he in the Winner area and me in Wall then Custer and now Nebraska) his life circumstances brought us closer together emotionally and spiritually in an amazing way. On those travels for work and attending conferences and other events together, we talked for hours about the Bible and church and the Christian life and at times even prayed aloud together, becoming closer than ever. Through the crises and struggles of his life we came to understand the sovereignty of God in a fresh and new way and he especially grew in his faith and reliance upon the Lord.
Now left with only memories of our lifetime together I could lament my loss and question God why He didn’t give us more time together, but I’d rather focus on what makes those memories so sweet and look forward to our reunion someday.
Thinking back to our days growing up on the farm, it’s easy to fall into a kind of nostalgic haze seeing the past through rose-colored glasses and forgetting the fears and hardships. But when I hear other people talk about their upbringing and childhood struggles I realize we really did have an idyllic childhood, one where we never had to worry about our parents’ love for us or any of the other real worries millions of children face.
Thinking about those days I could feel sorry for myself, realizing that I’m getting older, the old home place belongs to somebody else now and those days are gone forever. But what sustains me is the living hope that one day we will regain that home and it really will be perfect this time.
With that in mind, I want to share the lyrics to a song that I’ve come to love recently. It’s by the country gospel women’s quartet, High Road, and speaks of those sweet memories of home. However, it doesn’t get stuck in the past, but points to a day when those of us who are bound to Christ will go back there forever.
It goes like this: “Front porch swing is creaking in the lazy summer wind, Racin’ barefoot through the front door as Mama calls us in. Laughter echoes from the kitchen, I can smell the chicken fryin’. I sure wouldn’t waste a minute if I could get back there tonight.
I can still see all the faces behind that ol’ screen door, I know they’re all waitin’, They’re just on a distant shore. But jasper walls and mansions aren’t the answer to my prayers. The love that made it heaven here will make it heaven there.
Whenever people ask ‘Where’s home?’ I tell tell ‘em ‘bout a place, With family ties and memories that time cannot erase. I know the road that takes me there where the gate is standin’ open, ‘Cause home’s not just somewhere I’m from.
It’s somewhere I’m goin’.”