This is not the entire story, but in part what God taught me through the great trial of losing my husband twenty six and a half years ago and the healing only He could bring to my heart.
Jim 28, Stephen 2 and Me 23, Kinji (Golden Retriever)
JOY IN THE MORNING
“You can do all things through ME who strengthens you.” from Phil. 4:13
THE CLIFF
Have you ever been up against a wall? That you couldn’t get past? Had a task in front of you that seemed like a cliff so high and so steep that you absolutely could never climb it? Been faced with a fear that debilitated and controlled you in certain aspects of your life? That’s where I found myself one July morning in 1991 as I drove to Camp Bighorn, a Bible camp not far from Plains where I was then living.
But before I go on let me back up two years and three months to April 8, 1989 the day I lost my first husband, Jim Sakaguchi, who was 38. Our son, Stephen, was 9, and I was 32.
It was a gorgeous spring day, yet I had an unsettled feeling. Something was wrong, but I couldn’t figure out what. We were camping on the Clark Fork River, a few miles from Camp Bighorn on the St. Regis cut off.
I had two Golden retrievers and never missed a chance to train them. I threw training dummies into the river. Both dogs were caught in an unseen eddy which had a strong current, and they could not swim to shore.
Misti, only a year old, was a few feet from shore so I thought I could help her. I figured if I did have to swim, I could always go down river. I didn’t consider how cold the water was. The river was swollen from melted snow and ice.
I waded out to my chest and tried to reach Misti. The current swept me off my feet, but I thought I could swim the short ways back. I gave her a push and tried to touch bottom. I went under, so I started to swim. The cold water engulfed me, my arms already becoming numb. I knew I wouldn’t last long in the frigid water. I panicked.
“I can’t make it!” I yelled to Jim, who was on the bank just a few feet from me and telling me to go down river. “It’s too cold.”
He waded in and stretched out his arms. “Swim!” He cried, and oh how I wish I could have grabbed his hand, but the current held me firm.
He did not hesitate, but jumped in and seized me around the chest. He swam down river and released me. “Just rest,” he said.
I relaxed and let the current carry me. It was so easy, and I didn’t feel cold anymore. It would be nice to stay here, I thought. I looked at Jim and he even smiled as he treaded water. Then I heard Stephen calling for us.
“Mom, Dad,” he yelled.
I was jolted back to reality. “We’re going to drown,” I cried.
“No, we’re not,” Jim said, emphatically. But he made no move to do anything and continued to float.
“How are we going to get out of the river?”
“I don’t know.”
I thought it was strange that my strong, capable husband wasn’t making an effort to get us out of the situation. I think even then the cold was shutting down his system. We were nearing the highway bridge, and I knew we needed to get out before the bridge if we were to make it. I suggested we swim to the other shore, which was closer now. He agreed. I started to swim and looked back. He wasn’t swimming but he said, “Go on, I’m coming.”
Jim was a very strong swimmer. He dove in high school. I thought if I could just get myself to shore, and if he didn’t have to help me, we would make it.
I swam for shore, and fought the hardest fight I have ever had in my life. Sharp pains shot down my arms to my chest when I tried to stroke, leaving my arms useless. My sister had taught me the scissors kick to use when saving a drowning swimmer, so I kicked as hard as I could. It felt as if I had lead weights on my feet and hands. One time my head went under water and I thought it would be so much easier to give up. To just let it go.
“FIGHT!” A voice in my head shouted. “FIGHT!” I struggled on, against the current. I know there was an angel in the water with me, helping me, encouraging me. How else could I have fought that current in my weakened condition? My chest felt as if it was in a vise grip and pains stabbed through my body. I lost track of time. I didn’t know if I was making it or not.
My hands touched rocks. I grabbed hold and looked back.
Oh Lord, No!
I expected to see Jim right behind me, but he was still in the middle of the river. He was looking at me, and even though I couldn’t see without my contacts, I saw him smile. I can still see it in my mind. Then he was swept from my view. I knew in my heart, as I drug myself out of the river that he was gone forever.
It was the last time I ever saw my husband on earth.
THE LONG DARK NIGHT
“Your guarding angel helped you out of the river,” my pastor told me later that night after I stumbled through my story to him and my parents.
“What about Jim’s angel?” I cried. “Why didn’t he get Jim out?”
My friend Linda said, “Jim’s angel carried him home to Heaven.”
I knew that was true because Jim knew Jesus as his savior and Lord, but I wanted to go home. I wanted desperately to be with Jim. I begged God to take me away with Him. That’s all I wanted except that I knew I needed to be there for Stephen. I tried to comfort and help him, but I had very little to give.
When I was 4, I asked Jesus into my heart. What I understood even at that young age, was that Jesus would forgive my sins and would be always with me. Salvation is really so simple that a child can understand. Jesus forgives our sins when we ask and will become a part of our lives when we invite Him to be our Lord. Jesus was a precious friend and comfort to me as a small child. But as I grew older He began to seem farther away, more like a benevolent father there to help when I needed Him. I wanted to serve God, but I wasn’t sure how.
I was 17 when Jim and I were married, and I went from having a father take care of me to having a husband take charge of my life. I was totally dependent on him, emotionally and physically. Jim was my friend, my joy, my happiness, my security, and my life. When he was taken from me, it was as if life tipped over and dumped me out. I was suddenly in the bottom of a deep, black, empty pit. There was no one to help me, no one to comfort me, no one to rescue me. Except God, and I could not seem to find even God in the darkness.
Linda read from Psalms that first night and the verse that stuck in my mind was, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” Psalms 30 verse 5.
It was a long dark night. I could not imagine joy ever coming to me again.
STOP FIGHTING
Most of the time I just kept moving. Rebounding off the walls. Ricocheting from one project or outing to the next. I built a defense against pain, and in doing so, I erected a wall against any emotion. Feelings, even for my dearest friends and family, were blocked out. I didn’t feel anything, which was worse than feeling the pain. Later God dealt with this wall and helped me tear it down, but it took many months.
I didn’t want to face life without Jim. The years until I would see him in heaven stretched long and hard before me. I wanted to run away. I wanted God to take me out of this world, or I wanted my husband back. I hurt; I cried; I asked why; I ranted and raved; I begged God; I made deals; I bribed Him; I wanted out of the situation, away from the pain.
But God said, “Be still, Child. Cease striving and know I am God. Stop fighting. Stop running. I am in control.”
Linda had surgery for cancer just a few days after Jim was killed. For precautionary measures she had chemotherapy. One day, I was sitting with Linda as she was getting chemo and I saw all around me cancer patients that were suffering without hope. People worse off than me and in that moment, God said, “Give me your pain.”
“Okay, God you can have it!” I eagerly cried. “I’ve been trying to get you to take it away.”
“NO, Child, not so I can take it away, but so I can use it for My Glory.”
“Oh dear God, that means you want me to stay in the pain. You want me to go
through this. But I can’t Lord! I just can’t deal with the loneliness and despair.”
He said, “I am sufficient for you. I will be your comfort. I will be all you need.” Even though in my heart I didn‘t understand His words, I clung to His promise, “He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds.” Ps.147:3
NEVER-ENDING LOVE
Two months after my life was ripped out from under me, I began to give God all the sorrow, the fear, the anxiety, the loneliness, the anger and I realized that He gave me what I needed for each day. Not for tomorrow, would he supply, but just for today. “Daily I will bear your burdens.” It says in Psalms. Day by day, He gave me the strength, joy, peace, and guidance I needed. If I looked beyond that day, I would sink. And sink into the waters I did many, many times. When the waters rose over my head and nearly overcame me, God reached down and rescued me. I clung to His hand and His strength was my life line.
One evening several months later, I was sitting up on the mountain struggling with the grief as I still often did. This verse came to my mind.
“The Lord’s loving kindnesses never cease, His compassions never fail. They are new every morning, great is His faithfulness.” Lam. 3:22
“I will never leave you,” God said. “Even if the mountains fall into the sea, even if you lose everything in this life I will always be with you. My love has no limits and I will love you forever.”
I looked out over the valley, but my eyes were not seeing it. I was gazing into the face of Jesus. In my mind’s eye I clearly saw Him. I saw His face. He held out his hands, and His eyes. . .oh His eyes were full of love. Such love I had never seen, never knew existed.
Then I felt His love fill me from my head to my toes. It was all around me, covering me, and filling the emptiness inside, lifting me. And suddenly I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, I understood in my heart how He loved me.
“I am sufficient for you, ” God had said, and now I understood. When it gets down to the bottom line, when there is nothing left but despair, His love is there. He will never leave me. You, God Almighty, Keeper of the Stars, Your love is all I need.”
A SACRIFICE OF PRAISE
As God’s love became real to me, light began to shine in my world again.
Then God asked me for something more. He wanted me to Rejoice because of the fiery trial I was going through. To thank Him for the loneliness and pain that drove me closer to Him. To Praise Him for my life just as it was, without Jim.
How could I do that? It was my right to grieve, to hide, and to stay in the darkness. For to stop hurting I would need to let go of my life with Jim. To relinquish my grief, to lay it on the altar, to give God my sacrifice of praise was to give up that right and the past I was clinging to. When you grieve you focus on the past and what you are grieving, there comes a time to lay the grief aside and put your focus on the future. It’s a very difficult step to take and I’m not sure I could have done it without God. For—
God wouldn’t let me grovel in the pit. He wouldn’t let me stay in the darkness. He fought long and hard for my sacrifice, but finally, reluctantly I gave Him praise for it all. He does not necessarily ask us to feel thankful. It says, “In everything give thanks.” I couldn’t feel thankful or glad that He had taken my husband from me, but with my sacrifice of praise I totally accepted the life He now gave me.
One day, life was good again. It was amazing to me that I could say that! I kept thanking Him and praising Him every day, whether I felt it or not and soon deep-down joy began to well up. I began to seek Him not for what He could do for me, but because I loved Him and I wanted to walk with Him and seek His face. I sought desperately to know Him more. I began to understand what a relationship with God is. He no longer was just that far away father figure, but now a living presence walking and talking with me every day. And loving me with an unending love that goes beyond anything I could ever understand. “In Your presence, oh God, is fullness of joy.” Ps. 16:11
GOD’S WELL
The next step, the next foothold, on this great mountain I was climbing was obedience and service. My desire was to glorify Him and reflect His love.
A year and three months after Jim was killed I counseled high school girls at Camp Bighorn. It was a difficult week. I have always been a tomboy and try as I may, I couldn’t connect with the girls in any way. Their focus was totally on boys and fixing their hair and putting on make up. I could not direct their thoughts towards God. My heart was still too raw to share what I truly felt. My mirror was foggy indeed, there was very little reflecting done there. One girl was a tomboy and we became friends, maybe I helped her a bit, but I felt completely useless that week. I told Tom and Terry, the director and his wife, who are very good friend, that I felt as if I had nothing to give, I was empty. He agreed with me. He said, my bucket had been dumped out and God hadn’t yet filled it back up.
Sometimes we have to carry our bucket to the well. The well of God’s enabling. The living waters of His strength, His courage, His abilities, and His wisdom.
The next summer, 1991, I found myself saying yes when Tom asked me to counsel once again for the high school girls. This time, however, it was an off campus adventure camp, and I would be alone with my ten girls for the majority of the week. No speaker, no Bible classes, no lesson plan, just me the girls, God’s great creation and the Holy Spirit. Not only was that daunting, but the canoeing and white water rafting took place on the Clark Fork River. I was terrified of that river. The very thought of going on it caused me to freeze up and my stomach to tie in knots.
On that July morning as I drove to Camp Bighorn I ran into a huge, steep cliff, that seemed totally unscaleable, and I was not good at rock climbing. So I cried out, “I can’t do this, Lord! I can‘t climb the cliff!”
This time I figured He had asked too much.
His quiet reply filled my thoughts, “I will help you, Child, I will take your hands and put them in handholds and I will take your feet and place them in footholds. With my help you can climb the wall.”
I took my bucket to the well and I dipped it in the Living Waters. What else could I do? I felt His peace that passes all understanding flow through me. God would take care of the girls and put the right words in my mouth, and after all I really didn’t have to go on the river. Tom told me he had people lined up to go in my stead if I couldn’t do it. Okay it was settled, then.
Tom and Terry and the staff at the camp were very supportive. One young man, Kevin, who God put in my life for a couple of years to encourage me in ministry, in particular told me he too was praying and that he knew I would have victory over this fear. But wait a minuet, victory! I didn’t need victory, I was fine the way I was.
Later that evening, I got to know my girls and found that most of them were athletic and eager for the outdoor adventure. But there were two, we’ll call them Marie and Lori, were not athletic or strong girls and had misgivings about the physical activities we would be doing. Marie, the youngest in the group was searching for attention, said she was afraid of everything especially the repelling. I wondered why she was there.
My peace flew out the window. I knew I was going to have to go on the river. How could I ask the girls to do what I wouldn’t do. I knew God wanted me to face this foe that had such control over my life, to beat the fear and have the victory through His strength alone. After all I had dipped my bucket into the well.
The first day we did the mountain biking and I soon realized, this being my first time riding on a narrow foot trail cut into the mountain side, that this was not the best idea ever come to man. Poor Lori, who was not adept on a bike even on flat ground, could not seem to stay on her bike. I don’t know how many times she flipped off and rolled down the steep slope into the bushes, but scratched and bruised and battered she always got back on and never once complained. Marie whined and cried in fear the whole way, and needed to be encouraged and pressed to go on. Four long hours later, after the rest of the group had whisked ahead and were waiting for us at the end of the trail, the three of us wearily pushed our bikes out of the trees, nearing the end of the trail. I looked up to see we were right at the spot on the river where I had last seen my husband and where I had crawled out that fateful day. Wham! It was like a mule kicking me in the belly. The air went out of me and I froze there leaning on my bike.
The girls asked if I was okay and I told them to go on to where the group was waiting, that I would be along. I was useless for the next hour or so while staff from the camp brought us our supper and helped us set up camp. I felt like a bowl of jelly as I sat on the sand, and my peace was completely shattered. When Kevin asked if I was okay, all I could say was I needed prayer. He prayed for me right then and I felt strength returning.
After dinner, it occurred to me that I should share my struggle with the girls. So I told them exactly how I was feeling, and how scared I was to go on the river the next morning. The girls too, shared and after a bit Lori told us that her mother had been killed a few years earlier in a boating accident and that she was afraid of going in any kind of boat. She had come that week hoping she could overcome her fear, but after the biking fiasco she decided she would say she wasn’t feeling up to it in the morning. “But since your going,” she told me as she slipped her hand in mine, “I’m sure I can do it too.”
Wow! The people God put in my path to help me that week. Tom and Terry, who continued over the years to be great towers of strength. Kevin who became a close friend and was a propelling encouragement towards youth ministry. And now this sweet girl was looking to me, the helpless to help her, for in helping her I would be helped. “God’s power works through my weakness.” From 2Cor. 12:9
The next morning, even though my legs felt like a wet noodle, I got in that canoe with Lori beside me and we went down that blasted river. Later that day we rafted down the white water. I had never in my life had a fear such as that, and when I walked climbed out of that raft, I felt as if a great weight had lifted from my shoulders. I truly understood what it meant to exalt. Lori and I both were exalting. We had the VICTORY!
The girls and the staff praised God with us. It was a great week! The girls opened up and shared many aspects of their lives. We were able to discuss spiritual things as well as practical helps and give each other encouragement. God became real to every one of those girls and I say there is the VICTORY.
I climbed the cliff! I made it to the top. But only with God’s enabling. Only with His strength, His courage, His wisdom and His abilities. Now when I’m faced with a situation or a task that appears completely impossible I try to remember how He got me up the cliffs in the past. How He takes my hands and gives me handholds and how He takes my feet and places them in footholds.
“My God turns my darkness into light. With my God I can scale a wall.” Ps. 18:28
THE PROMISE LAND
Most of my journey so far had been in the desert. It was a bit barren and lonely, but that was okay, I had become accustomed to the desert. It was comfortable there. One day God took me to the river and pointed to the other side. “There”, He said, “is the promise land. But to reach it, you have to step into the river.”
Like the Israelites stepping into the Jordan, I had to take those first steps of faith, before he would part the waters. The Promised Land was a new life. In Isaiah I read promises about a new thing that would spring up; new gardens in the wilderness and springs in the desert. God had something new for me and I had a feeling it was closely related to a man named John Kleker.
I told my friends that if I ever married again, God would have to dump a man in my lap. Well that’s what He did, literally.
John moved to Plains from Oregon and bought property one mile from my house. It was also my favorite hunting grounds. I would have to meet him to gain permission to hunt on his land. Not only that, out of many churches in Plains he picked my church, the Alliance, to attend. Still it was six months before I met him.
One day a friend brought John up to meet me and we became friends. We had a lot of common interests and he spent a year trying to convince me that I wanted a man. But I told him I did not want a man in my life. I was doing fine alone. Jeff Kingery, my pastor and friend, spent a year trying to convince me that I needed a husband. I told him I didn’t need a husband. I was doing fine on my own thank you. John and I were friends, we were compatible, and friendship was comfortable. I liked friendship.
Then God stepped in. He said the waters of that rushing river, that was my life, would stand in a heap if I would step out in faith.
I would rather stay in the desert. The desert was comfortable. Oh sometimes it got a bit tough, but that was okay, I’d learned to handle tough. It was lonely, yes, but loneliness meant no broken heart. It was fine where I was, no risks, no big leaps of faith, no new ground. That I could handle. What I couldn’t handle was opening my heart up to love and loss and pain.
I told Jeff I felt God could use me more as a single person. He said “Yeah, he could maybe use you more, but could He bless you more?”
I’d never thought of it that way. My concern was how I could serve God, not how He could bless me. I began to wonder if the fullness of God’s blessings, the abundant life He had for me was in the Promised Land. Which God was showing me was a relationship with John that went beyond friendship.
But fear stepped in. The desert was not only comfortable it was safe. There was only me and God. No risks. No special someone to lose. If I was to love John, wouldn’t I risk losing him and being hurt all over? I didn’t want to end up in the pit again.
God said, “My grace, my strength, my love is sufficient for all your needs.”
He was the one thing I could count on never to leave me. He would be with me and love me to the end of time. Though I should lose everything, I would have His love. It would hurt, but I would make it through with my head up looking at God’s face, my hand in His.
“Do not be afraid, for I am with you and will never leave you.” Josh. 1:1
I grabbed hold of this and other promises and hung on with all my might. Would it be worth loving to risk losing? Could I trust God with my heart? Yes! Yes! Yes! I knew with every fiber of my being that the answer was a resounding yes! Because He loves me and He is enough!
When the Israelites finally crossed the Jordan River, God told the priests to step into the rushing, flooded waters. So He told me, “Just step into the river Child, and I’ll stop the waters so you can cross over.”
So I took that step and gave romance a try with John and sure enough God stopped the river in a heap and we walked over on dry land. It wasn’t long before I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this man.
June 26, 1993, we were married before family and friends on a mountain top near Plains. The sun was shinning, the sky was as blue as John’s eyes and morning had dawned in my life.
That is not the end of my story. I am on a journey with God and of course there are more cliffs. There always are. He never stops training us. He doesn’t move my mountains, the mountains and the cliffs are my training ground. The climbing makes my feet like Hind’s feet so I can leap and run on the high places with My God.
Our wedding on Pats Knob, Plains Montana, June 26, 1993
In May John and I found the perfect boat in our price range, a bigger, newer, safer boat than our old one. For us, boating and exploring the huge, remote Fort Peck reservoir in Montana takes the place of horse packing into the high country. We love the peace and tranquility of being on the water and exploring those nooks and crannies on the lake, where very few people venture. And catching the big Pike isn’t bad either.
Also in May I took the train to Whitefish Montana for a visit with my good friends in Trego and Fortine, where we used to live. I was reminded of the beauty of the mountains, the clarity of the rushing mountain streams, and the amount of people there. It was a fun time visiting very good friends and stomping around in old stomping grounds, but I was glad to be back to my wide open and unpopulated prairies!
The kids came the first of June and the time flew until the first of August. Oh my the fun we had, riding horses, breakfast rides, hiking on buttes, in badlands and in the petrified forest, visiting Theodore Roosevelt park and watching the wild horses, going to church and the Sentinel Butte potluck.
All of us, with friends Saren, Jenna and Jared, went tubing on a lake east of here. The kids had a ball on the tubes and in the boat all day. Actually I’m not sure who had more fun, John or the kids. We camped, fished and boated at Ft. Peck for four days and had a ball. As the final finale, we went to the Monster Truck show in Bismarck and it was great!
Prairie Wind 