BEAUTIFUL EMPIRE OF PEOPLE

A Testimony of one who suddenly became a widow!

 

A little over a year ago I had everything. I was married to my husband Mike for 32 years. We had 15 children ranging from 32 to six years. We homeschooled and my husband worked from home. Our oldest children were married and starting their families, so we had two new grandchildren.

 

Mike and I met at a time in our lives when neither of us was living for God. I had been a rebellious teenager and my parents, trying to save me from myself, sent me to live with an aunt. During that time, I grew close to God but going back home after a year, I fell right back into the same pattern. Mike and I started dating, and soon after I was pregnant. When our oldest son Michael was eight months old, we married.

 

I got pregnant with our daughter Hannah right after we married. We were still not living for God. Mike lost his job and decided to join the Air Force. It was then that we hit a very rough spot in our marriage for several years and I knew we were never going to make it without God. I turned my life over to Him, and within a year Mike also gave his life to God.

 

I read a book about allowing God to be in charge of your fertility and talked it over with Mike. He was very open to receiving that message from God and we decided to allow God to plan our family, and God blessed us with 13 more children. We didn't homeschool our older children, but one day we visited a church where I met a woman who changed the trajectory of our lives forever.

 

We talked in the lobby while we watched our toddlers play. She told me about homeschooling and how she'd struggled with her older daughter who had fallen into the wrong crowd and left home at 18 years. She said she was now homeschooling her other seven children and would rather her children have no friends than bad friends. Those words changed my life. We decided to take our children out of school and homeschool.

 

The oldest three asked if they could finish high school, so we agreed. When my oldest son was very young, I remember having a bad feeling he was going to get into drugs when he grew up. I prayed about it over and over. When he was around 25, he called my husband to tell him he got into drugs and needed help. My husband did everything to help him. It took several years, but God stepped in in a mighty way and arranged so many circumstances that it could have only been God.

 

Mike helped him get into Sandhills Teen Challenge and he stayed. When visiting him, Michael played us a song, "I'm gonna see the victory," by Elevation Worship. At that point, Mike and I saw hope that he would make it. Looking back, I see how God was building a track record with us.

 

In the nine months leading up to Mike's death, anytime we'd disagree, I'd feel the Holy Spirit tell me, “Let it go, don't say anything, forgive.” Many times I didn't listen. I know now God was trying to keep me from having many regrets. During the spring and summer, we did so many things as a family. We decided to sell our house and move to North Carolina to be closer to my parents and our older sons.

 

My husband took us to Cooperstown on the 4th of July. I remember driving home that evening with all the children in the car, watching fireworks everywhere, and feeling grateful for all God had blessed me with, but also a strange, ominous feeling in my spirit. I assumed it was because we were moving. The scenery and mountains in New York were beautiful, and I was sad to leave.

 

About a week before Mike passed, we were driving and a song came on the radio called "In Case You Didn't Know " by Brett Young. This song always reminded me of my husband and how much I loved him. I wanted to tell him, but I didn't want to say it in front of the children, so I told myself I'd tell him some other time. That chance never came.

 

On a beautiful, warm, sunny Friday afternoon we got a call from our realtor that we'd be closing on our house in three weeks. We'd already secured a six-month beach rental in NC, and everyone was elated. About an hour or two later, we were all getting ready for our Friday evening sabbath meal. When I went to see where my husband had gone and I tried to open the bedroom door as I realized he was behind it. I could tell he wasn't breathing. I ran out to my son Joel and we called 911. My daughter Grace, 17, and son Sam, 21, went in the room to do CPR. I stayed in the living room with the younger children trying to comfort them, but it was so chaotic and surreal.

 

My son Sam came out of the room while my daughter Grace stayed with her father, telling him how much she loved him and begging him not to leave. He passed away from a heart attack before the ambulance came with her staying by his side the entire time.

 

The amazing thing is that about two weeks before Mike passed, he was talking about being with his mother when she passed. Grace asked him questions and I didn't want Mike to share too much for fear it would scare her. He shared anyway, and I believe that was God because two weeks later she was with her own father as he left this world. I don't know if she would have had the courage if he hadn't walked her through it those few weeks before.

 

Mike came to bed one evening not long before all of this and began talking to me. He shared with me about when we first met and how excited he was to have found me. He talked and talked about anything and everything. We talked for hours that night. He reminded me of so many things I'd forgotten, and we told each other how much we loved each other. Mike died suddenly of a heart attack called a widowmaker and I believe God let us say goodbye because we weren't going to have that chance. I cherish that time more than anything.

 

Dear fellow wives, please do not take advantage of the fact that you think your husband will be around. Even one more minute with him is never a guarantee. One minute Mike was walking through the house, helping me with the bills, making plans to run to the store before dinner and the next minute he was gone forever. Love your husband every second you have here on earth with him. Forget about the silly things that may get on your nerves and just love him with all you have. Everyday!

 

It's been the hardest year of my life, but God has been so faithful. In a world I knew so well and felt so confident in, I no longer fit. I have always been a stay-at-home homeschool mom and now I am a single mother at 52. My children don't have a dad cheering them on at their sporting events like they always did. My littlest boys, now nine and seven years will never know what it's like to have their father watch them win a basketball tournament like my son Joel did just months before his father died.

 

I know God is there. I know he is holding us up. I've felt his presence like never before, even on the worst days when I beg Him to tell me why this had to happen. Mike was so good. He loved us so much, and he loved God. Many friends have spoken life and Scriptures over me and have been a shoulder to lean on and a place to cry.

 

Nine months before Mike died, he started a Bible study with our sons, Joel (18) and Luke (14) called “Every Man a Warrior.” He faithfully read his own Bible every morning. The day after he died, I was looking through his Bible. I found a little note tucked inside that said:

 

"My Marriage Commitment. It is my privilege to show love for Yeshua by caring for my wife—to love her, show her honor, try to understand her, and give up my life and rights for her.”

 

Under those words were these three scriptures: John 14:21; Ephesians 5:25; and 1 Peter 3:7.

 

I read this letter at his funeral, where all 15 of his children sat in the front row, living proof of what an amazing man their father was to them. During the years we were having our children we received a lot of wonderful and also critical comments. We didn't listen to the critical ones. We decided to believe the Bible where Psalm 127:3 says: "Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.

 

And also Psalm 127:4-5: “Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.” I look at my children now and I realize I need them far more than they need me. My husband made sure I would never be lonely. Over the last year, I've gotten my best advice from our children.

 

I accepted Jesus into my heart as a small child, though I strayed over the years. As I got older and lived out my faith, I always knew my faith would be tested at some point. I thought it had been when my oldest son had his struggles, but never like this. We don't truly know what we believe until we've really walked through the fire. A friend recently told me, “None of us are getting out of here alive. We are all going to face this. Every marriage is going to face death.”

 

Mike always told me, "You're the strongest person I know." I didn't believe him, but I want to live that out for him now. I want to live that out for our children. Sometimes that means them seeing me weaker than I've ever been, crying because I miss their daddy, who I loved, who they loved, and who loved us more than I could ever express in words. He still loves us by giving us this gift of a large, beautiful family, this beautiful empire of people who will continue to grow and produce a harvest that we can all enjoy together for as long as we're all here on earth together.

 

NICOLE KEENAN

Albany, New York, USA

 

Mike and Nicole’s children are Michael Jr, Hannah, Dominic, Gabriel, Elijah, Samuel, Joel, Grace, Evelyn, Luke, Bethanyjoy, Amelia, Adeline, Benjamin and Alden