Roses in December

Marilyn Heavilyn, author of Roses in December, is one of those people you don't want to meet because you are afraid that what happened to her might happen to you. She told me some of her story during my stay at America's Keswick in New Jersey, where she participates in the restoration of men who have become addicted. She and her husband lost three sons --- one to crib death, one to illness at ten days old, and a third hit by a drunk driver at age 17.

Every blue moon one hears of such things, I suppose --- a person who ends up ministering to the kind of people who killed her child. I wanted to fall down and worship at Marilyn's feet, but she told me that as a mother, she would rather have her sons back than her new job with addicts. But we don't get to choose that, do we. Like it or not, Marilyn loves those men.

I asked the elephant-in-the-room question --- whether she still thinks that God is good. She said yes, and I could see she meant it. Then she told me about a knock on the door in 1964, after two of the Heavilyn's losses and numerous consolations from friends who had asked with them, "Why would God do this to you?" The visitor, a man from India, took the bereaved mother's hand in both his hands and said, "What a privilege to meet someone to whom God has entrusted such grief."

Almost like a voyeur, I asked Marilyn how she made it through grief, and she had this to say: "The healing started when I stopped asking 'Why?' and started asking, 'What do You want me to do with this?'"