Unexpected Grace: Comfort in the Midst of Loss

By Sheila Walsh

When Eleanor Pfaehler and I met, we stood on opposite sides of an invisible, and seemingly insurmountable, wall," Sheila Walsh writes. "Eleanor and I talked over this wall. At times we reached up to hug. But the wall was always there.

"Then Eleanor was diagnosed with liver cancer. Finally, by the grace and mercy of God alone, the wall came crashing down. Eleanor and I found ourselves swimming in the river of mercy with our arms around each other, holding each other, willing to give our lives for each other."

Unexpected Grace is a tender account of the relationship between a mother and daughter-in-law and how they discovered extravagant grace in the midst of what could have been the most tragic experience of their lives. Their story will encourage you and help you see how God can bring good out of even the bleakest circumstances.

Previously published as Stories from the River of Mercy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Apr 28, 2002
• ISBN: 9781418519223

Sheila Walsh

Sheila Walsh es una poderosa comunicadora, maestra bíblica, y autora best seller con más de cinco millones de libros vendidos. Es autora de los galordonados títulos: Gigi, Princesita de Dios, Peace for Today, Loved Back to Life, La tormenta interior, y Five Minutes with Jesus. Vive en Dallas, Texas, con su esposo, Barry, y su hijo, Christian.

Book preview

UNEXPECTED GRACE

UNEXPECTED GRACE

Comfort in the Midst of Loss

SHEILA WALSH

Unexpected_Grace_0003_001

Copyright © 2002 by Sheila Walsh

Previously published as Stories from the River of Mercy. Copyright © 2000 by Sheila Walsh.

Published in association with the literary agency of: Alive Communications, Inc.; 7680 Goddard St., Suite 200; Colorado Springs, CO 80920.

All rights reserved. Written permission must be secured from the publisher to use or reproduce any part of this book, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Scripture quotations noted NKJV are from THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers.

Scripture quotations noted NIV are from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Walsh, Sheila, 1956-

[Stories from the river of mercy]

Unexpected grace / Sheila Walsh.

p. cm.

Originally published: 2000.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-7852-6489-2 (HC)

ISBN 0-7852-6530-9 (TP)

1. Walsh, Sheila, 1956- 2. Pfaehler, Eleanor. 3. Christian biography—

United States. I. Title.

BR1725.W2965 A3 2002

248.8'66'092—dc21

[B]

2001054660

Printed in the United States of America

02 03 04 05 06 PHX 5 4 3 2 1

This book is dedicated to Christian Walsh Pfaehler by two women who love you very much, your mommy and your nana. We offer this story as a remembrance of the goodness of God in all the days of our lives. In our good days and in our bad days, we are loved with an everlasting love. Remember that, darling boy.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Our Story

Part One: In the Beginning

The First Meeting

The Next Morning

That Conversation

The Search for the Ring

The Ring

Planning the Wedding

The Week of the Wedding

The Rehearsal Dinner

The Big Day: December 3, 1994

The First Year

The Baby!

The Delivery

The Visits

Part Two: The Turning

The Beginning

The Gift

A Second Opinion

Stones of Mercy into Pools of Pain

Pain in the Process

The Test Results

Our Last Christmas

The Long Road Home

Broken Dreams and Unexpected Graces

An Immaculate Conception?

Compassion: The Child of Joy and Sorrows

Black Comedy

Prayers We Didn’t Know to Pray

Final Requests

Worship

A Conversation Before Dying

The Piano

Good-byes

Part Three: The Homecoming

The Viewing

The Funeral

My Three Boys

A Final Word to the Reader

A Letter to Eleanor

Notes

About the Author

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Janet, I want to thank you with all my heart for your vision and passion for this book. You stood by my side, encouraging me to tell this story. I believe this book will impact the lives of many families. Eleanor and I thank you.

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ELEANOR AT AGE NINETEEN

OUR STORY

Inever imagined I would write a book like this. To write about the relationship between two people when you are one of the two and the other one is gone, how could that ever be fair? How could my version of the events that changed our lives forever be the whole truth? I know now that I don’t even remember all that happened.

What I do know is that when Eleanor Pfaehler and I met, we stood on opposite sides of an invisible, and seemingly insurmountable, wall. She was Barry Pfaehler’s mother, and I was his girlfriend. Barry was an only child; Eleanor and William had waited twelve long years for this baby boy who now shared his heart and his dreams with me. Eleanor and I talked over this wall. At times we reached up to hug. But the wall was always there.

Then Eleanor was diagnosed with liver cancer. For a time the wall got higher. Finally, by the grace and mercy of God alone, that wall came crashing down. Eleanor and I found ourselves swimming in the river of mercy with our arms around each other, holding each other up, willing to give our lives for the other.

What happened? I’m not sure I understand it completely. All I know is that Eleanor found in her dying what she had been looking for in her living, and I got over myself enough to see beyond the stuff that doesn’t matter to love my mother-in-law, my sister in Christ. The events that happened in the last few weeks of her life made me realize I could try to write this down, because in the end Eleanor trusted me in her most vulnerable, weak moments. She even gifted me with the care of her body, a most intimate, sacred charge.

Before we get there, however, I have to tell you where we began. It’s not always pretty, but it’s true. I find it strange that it seems so hard for us as Christians to tell the truth. I was in New York recently and a reporter asked me what one question I am asked more than any other. That was easy: Do you find it hard to be so honest?

Isn’t that a strange question to ask a Christian? Apparently not. Lies are much more comfortable and comforting. We long to be inspiring—yet, the truth is, much of our everyday lives is not inspiring. For myself, I have made a new commitment to simply tell the truth.

I have been changed by Eleanor’s life and death, as indeed she was. So this is our story. It’s not my story. It’s our story. I have included some of the psalms that I read to Eleanor in her last days. I have shared some of her favorite hymns so that you can join the worship service of our last days together. I have also included some song lyrics from my album Blue Waters, and other poems I wrote throughout this time.

So now, I like to think that she is sitting right beside me as I write. In a way she is. She is part of the fabric of my life forever. Only God could have done that.

PART ONE

In the Beginning

I am still confident of this:

I will see the goodness of the LORD

in the land of the living.

Wait for the LORD;

be strong and take heart

and wait for the LORD.

PSALM 27:13-14 NIV

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THE FIRST MEETING

See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

HEBREWS 12:15 NIV

Iremember the first time I met Eleanor, during Thanksgiving of 1993. I had been dating Barry, her son, for about six months, and he invited me to spend the holiday with his parents in Charleston, South Carolina. I was a student at Fuller Theo-logical Seminary in Pasadena, California, and Barry worked for a television network in Orange County, so it was a flight from coast to coast for both of us.

As our plane left Atlanta, Georgia, on the final leg of our trip, I said, Tell me about your mom.

He smiled. Now, where would I start?

Are you two close? I asked, trying to narrow the field.

Yes, we’re close, he replied. Mom and Dad waited twelve years before they were able to have a child—and I’m it!

Oh great! I thought. I get to be the other woman.

I had talked with Eleanor a couple of times on the phone. Her strong Charleston accent was a match for my Scottish brogue any day. It reminded me of the gentle Southern accents in the movie The Prince of Tides. She always sounded warm and kind. You sure are an answer to prayer, she once said. We never knew what Barry was going to bring home!

I had visions of stray dogs, Amazon women, biker chicks. Eleanor had watched me on television when I cohosted The 700 Club, so I was past first base. In her book I was definitely kosher. Mom talks a lot, Barry continued.

My kind of woman! I said.

Yes . . . well, be prepared for Twenty Questions. Mom likes to know stuff.

I have stuff, I answered. Every woman has stuff.

When the plane began its descent into Charleston, I looked out the window at fields of swaying sweet grass and a multitude of little rivers running into each other, like veins connected to a throbbing human heart.

Later, as we began to walk up the jetway, I said to Barry, You go first.