Hagen Updates: 10/10/12

I turned on the radio on my way to the grocery store a few days ago and "In the Secret" was playing. I started weeping and cried all the way to the store and sat in the parking lot. You may remember that was a special song to Marshall as he sang it at a church in Iraq. We played it at his funeral and I included it as one of the songs in his slideshow. So I can't listen to that song without thinking of him. It's so fitting that Marshall liked that song because it talks about dark, quiet, and secret places and there God is.

In the secret
in the quiet place
in the stillness
You are there.

In the secret,
in the quiet hour I wait
only for You
‘cause I want to know You more.

I want to know You.
I want to hear Your voice.
I want to know You more.
I want to touch You.
I want to see Your face.
I want to know You more.

When I sing it I think of both God and Marshall. Yes, I want to see God and know Him more, but I also think of when we will get to see Marshall again. Because I lived 20 years with him on this earth, I remember what it is like to be with him physically. We don't (typically!) see God, or feel Him, or audibly hear Him, and it's sometimes harder for me to long for that although I still do. But my longing for Marshall is based in memories of reality - I had it once. I want it again. My heart aches and aches just to be with him again. Just to sit next to him in the car - even in silence - and be together. That's what I loved about our relationship - we didn't have to talk, we were just there together.

My two-year-old Tirzah knows where her Uncle Marshall is. She first learned about death when a bug got caught between our window and the screen and couldn't climb back out the hole. We watched it struggle for a few days, and then it died. That was months ago, and it's still there. Every now and then Tirzah goes up to the window and says "dead bug." I asked Tirzah where Uncle Marshall is and she said, "He's in heaven with Jesus." She likes to play with her moose and she knows it was Uncle Marshall's moose. She sometimes takes naps with it. One time she wanted to take it on a walk and somehow it fall out of the stroller. Someone behind us on the sidewalk ran up to me and said, "I think you dropped this!" I grabbed it tightly and said, "THANK YOU!" It doesn't go on walks with us anymore!

So, what can I say. Today Marshall would have been 26. I'm 27. I wonder if they do anything special for earthly birthdays in heaven, any way to commemorate them. I've been reading about David's mighty men in Kings and Chronicles and of course it makes me think of Marshall. I looked at his myspace profile again today and it's so weird and kind of funny how much he talks about killing in his profile. Now before anyone freaks out and thinks Marshall was a psychopath, he was kind of extreme in talking about wanting to kill people, but he's not talking about just killing ANY one. He wanted to be an instrument of justice and kill bad people, people who needed to be killed but maybe no one else was doing it. (And maybe he liked the shock and reaction he got when he would say things like that because it seemed so opposite his quiet, gentle nature?) He was a warrior inside. I wonder who he's fighting with now. Family and friends who knew him, do you have any more insight into his part of him?