{"id":33643,"date":"2021-07-17T00:01:18","date_gmt":"2021-07-17T07:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=33643"},"modified":"2026-06-06T12:43:57","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T12:43:57","slug":"all-shall-be-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/all-shall-be-well\/","title":{"rendered":"Widowed: Her Stolen Car Came Back, but My Husband Didn’t . . . And All Shall Be Well?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"my<\/a>
Jon’s office: His desk chair, head phones and chess set are still there.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201c . . . all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.\u201d — Julian of Norwich<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

My friend Carrie’s car got stolen. It was an oldish car, but it had served her well for years, and she was attached to it.<\/p>\n

Being a sensible person, after a week went by Carrie pulled herself together and accepted her loss. It was time to move on. Let go of the old car. Get a new one.<\/p>\n

Then came the phone call.<\/p>\n

Carrie’s car had been found. She could go pick it up.<\/p>\n

She did, and there it was, parked in an obscure parking lot in the far reaches of Oakland.<\/p>\n

Intact.<\/p>\n

More than intact. It was pristine. Her tin of Altoids still lay on the center console where she’d left it.<\/p>\n

Her Car Is Back and All Shall Be Well<\/strong><\/h5>\n

All was well.<\/p>\n

It’s been five months since my husband died — since I got that phone call.<\/p>\n

I’m OK most days right now. I go about my business. I’ve located a contractor to repair the old brick walkway in the back yard. I’ve contacted Social Security. I’ve figured out what to do with Jon’s car and his car payments.<\/p>\n

Then out of the blue, come the tears. No. Not tears. That’s a euphemism. What comes out of me is screams followed by sobs followed by wails.<\/p>\n

My reasoning, if you can call it reasoning, is that if I can just cry in some other way — with a wail instead of a sob, or a sob instead of a scream — maybe that will bring Jon back.<\/p>\n

It doesn’t.<\/p>\n

Jon is not coming back.<\/p>\n

Carrie’s car showed up out of nowhere.<\/p>\n

Jon has not. And he won’t.<\/p>\n

At My House — All Is Not Well<\/strong><\/h5>\n

My home church friends, hearing these stories, side by side, Carrie’s and mine, dove for their Bibles. To Mark 14:32-36 and Jesus in Gethsemane.<\/p>\n

On the night before he died, in the hours before he was betrayed and arrested, Jesus prayed for a reversal in his fate.<\/p>\n

“Abba, Father. All things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me.”<\/p>\n

God took no action.<\/p>\n

Jesus died the next day.<\/p>\n

The same death that took my husband took Jesus.<\/p>\n

Can we say, then, that all shall be well?<\/p>\n

Further reading for the skeptics among us at “Why Pray? Some Thoughts From Karen Armstrong.”<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0Also, “The Trouble With Daffodils — And My Writing.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"all<\/a>
Most of Jon’s stuff is right where he left it, including crossword puzzle books and thrillers. It will be a while before I’m ready to give these things away. Photos by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"my<\/a><\/p>\n

The same death that took Jesus took my husband. Can we say then that all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well?\u00a0 Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[103,34,2471,191,2472,22,29,2473,2474,2419],"class_list":["post-33643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-rocky-spiritual-journey","category-widowed","tag-aging","tag-dont-miss","tag-gethsemane","tag-grief","tag-husband","tag-jesus","tag-jon","tag-julian-of-norwich","tag-stolen-car","tag-widowed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33643"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49499,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33643\/revisions\/49499"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}