Naomi Dassow. Praying The Lord's Prayer while a volunteer Chaplain with The Salvation Army

About the Lord’s Prayer

The Lord’s Prayer is the model prayer Jesus gave His disciples when they asked Him to teach them how to pray. It honors God’s holiness, seeks His kingdom and will, asks for daily provision and forgiveness, and requests protection from temptation and evil. It reminds us to depend upon God and extend His forgiveness to others.

Naomi’s Message

In this video, Naomi Dassow introduces herself as a volunteer chaplain with The Salvation Army in the greater Milwaukee area. She explains that Jesus’ disciples noticed that whenever He went away to pray, He returned renewed and filled with power from His Father to heal, deliver, and forgive. They wanted to learn how to pray so their lives and ministry could also bring God’s transforming power to others.

Naomi encourages us that whenever we feel the need to draw upon that same power of prayer, we should remember the prayer Jesus taught His disciples and gave to us. She then warmly invites everyone to join her in praying the Lord’s Prayer.

Watch “The Lord’s Prayer with Chaplain Naomi Dassow”

Scripture note: The disciples’ request, “Lord, teach us to pray,” is recorded in Luke 11:1. The Lord’s Prayer is also presented in Matthew 6:9–13.

Our Early Years of Marriage and Family

 

A Story of Faith, Community, Prayer, and God’s Providence

Richard F. Dassow

A Story Preserved Through Storyworth

Several years ago, our children participated in Storyworth. Throughout the year, they emailed questions to me about my childhood, work, marriage, family, faith, and other life experiences. I answered those questions in my own words and often included photographs and personal reflections. At the end of the year, Storyworth gathered my answers into a printed book titled Faith Vision Service—Richard F. Dassow.

That book has become an important record of our family history. It preserves details I might otherwise forget, including how Naomi and I met, the beginning of our marriage, our years with the couples from Divine Shepherd Lutheran Church, and the remarkable way our three children came into our family. The following story draws from that book as well as from memories that have returned to me more recently.

Building Our Marriage and a Christian Community

Naomi and I were married on April 21, 1979, at Divine Shepherd Lutheran Church. During our first year of marriage, we attended two marriage weekend retreats. I no longer remember the names of those retreats, but attending them showed that we wanted to build our marriage on a strong Christian foundation from the beginning.

Naomi soon approached other young couples at Divine Shepherd who had married in 1979, along with several who had married a few years earlier. Those friendships developed into a weekly Bible study and Life Group in our home. At times, ten or more couples participated, and the group continued for approximately fifteen years. We eventually became known as the 79ers.

Naomi and I initially led the study using The Christian Couple and The Christian Family by Larry Christenson. After we completed those books, Pastor Bruce Harrmann led us through various books of the Bible.

The group became part of the foundation of our married life. We studied Scripture together, supported one another, raised our children alongside one another, and prayed together when important decisions and difficulties arose.

Wanting Children

Naomi and I wanted children, but we did not become pregnant during our first year of marriage. We pursued medical answers and attended several infertility groups. One of those groups was called OURS, and Naomi spoke at one of its meetings. Even at that stage of her life, she was willing to talk openly about a difficult experience if her story might encourage someone else.

As we considered what God might have for us, we began exploring adoption. We read widely, attended meetings, talked with many people, and eventually contacted Lutheran Social Services.

We participated in a nine-week study group where we learned about parenting, behavior management, and the needs of adopted children. It was often a discouraging time. We considered several possible placements, but none worked out, and we sometimes wondered whether we would ever become parents.

Two Brothers from Korea

Then Naomi received a telephone call from our social worker. Two biological brothers from Korea were available for adoption. Michael was seven years old, and Peter was four. Without hesitation, we said that we would take them.

We completed the immigration documents and received their photographs. The following day, however, Naomi received another call. Because of an oversight, the social worker had not noticed that we had been married for only two and a half years. Korean law required adoptive parents to have been married for three years. We were told that we could not have the boys.

We were heartbroken because we already felt that Michael and Peter were our children.

At the end of that week, I called the social worker in Minneapolis and asked whether there was still any possibility that we could adopt them. She could not give us a reason for hope, but she told me that she believed in the power of prayer.

That Thursday evening, our Life Group gathered in our home and prayed earnestly for the boys and for us. Many other people in Milwaukee were praying too.

On Monday morning, the social worker called with the news that we would be allowed to adopt Michael and Peter after all. On October 19, we met them at the airport in Minneapolis and welcomed them into our family.

An Unexpected Call About a Baby

Approximately six months after Michael and Peter came into our home, we received another unexpected telephone call. A Christian young woman from northern Wisconsin asked whether we would be interested in adopting a baby.

We told her that we now had two sons and felt satisfied with our family. We were no longer looking for a baby.

She explained that she had seen our photograph and a letter describing our desire to adopt. About a year earlier, we had printed one hundred copies of that letter, intending to distribute them to people who might know a young woman seeking adoptive parents for her child.

After learning more about Wisconsin’s adoption laws at that time, we decided not to distribute the letters. We put ninety-seven copies in a cupboard and forgot about them. We also forgot that three copies had already been given to close friends. Somehow, one of those three letters reached a Christian crisis-pregnancy counseling center.

Wisconsin’s adoption law had since changed. The termination of parental rights could now occur at the same time as the hearing for adoptive placement, so a child would not enter the adoptive home until the birth mother’s rights had been legally terminated. This change allowed us to consider the adoption more carefully.

We also had to think about Michael and Peter. They had been with us for only six months and were still adjusting to a new family and a new country.

Naomi and I prayed and talked at length. Then we took the boys to a nearby park and asked how they would feel about having a baby brother or sister. They responded positively.

Ami came into our family when she was only six days old. Her adoption became the first case in Eau Claire County under Wisconsin’s new law.

Michael and Peter had come first from Korea, and Ami joined us about six months later. Within approximately eight months, Naomi and I went from having no children to becoming the parents of three.

A Family Formed Through Providence

Our Life Group remained an important part of our family’s early years. We shared meals, Bible studies, prayer, and the ordinary experiences of raising children. We also enjoyed camping trips with church families and with individual families, including summer camping trips with the Langenkamps.

Later, Naomi and I tried to attend nearly every school and athletic event in which our children participated.

Looking back, I can see God’s providence throughout those years. He used our desire for children, the disappointment of infertility, Lutheran Social Services, a praying social worker, our Thursday-night Life Group, an exception involving Korean adoption requirements, three forgotten letters, and a timely change in Wisconsin law.

At many points, we could not see how the story would unfold. God could.

The early years of our marriage formed a pattern that continued throughout our forty-five years together. Naomi and I wanted our home, family, abilities, and resources to serve the Lord.

We did not do everything perfectly, and we could not anticipate the path ahead. Yet God faithfully guided us, surrounded us with Christian friends, and gave us three children whom we deeply wanted and loved.

The conclusion I wrote in my Storyworth account still expresses what I believe:

God is good. God has a plan for our lives. God is in control. God has blessed us to be a blessing to others.

Searching for the Young Naomi—and Looking Forward to Reunion

 

A few weeks ago, Bob asked me a question that has stayed with me:

“When you went back to Buckhorn, were you searching for Naomi?”

Even now, when I remember his question or try to say it aloud, tears come to my eyes. At first, I did not know exactly how to answer. I knew Naomi would not physically be there. I know she is with the Lord. Yet something within me was searching for her.

Now I think I understand it more clearly: I was searching especially for the young Naomi—the Naomi I never knew.

Buckhorn, Kentucky, was part of Naomi’s life before I entered her story. It was where she served as a young nurse in a rural clinic. It was where her compassion, courage, faith, and sense of calling were already taking shape. Long before she became my wife, the mother of our children, and my companion through 45 years of marriage, Naomi was living a life that I knew only through the stories she later told me.

When I returned to Buckhorn, perhaps I was trying to enter that earlier chapter of her life. I wanted to see what she had seen, walk where she had walked, and understand more fully what had shaped the woman I loved.

I knew Naomi as my wife and closest companion. I knew her as a nurse, a mother, a servant, and a woman of deep faith. I knew her through our years of raising our children, serving in ministry, traveling, facing her kidney disease, and sharing the ordinary experiences of married life.

But I never met the young Naomi of Buckhorn.

What was she like then? What did she think about as she traveled those roads? What did she see in the people she served? What challenges did she face? What was God teaching her? What dreams did she carry? How did those experiences prepare her to become the woman I would eventually meet and marry?

Perhaps part of my heart was asking:

“Naomi, what were you like here? What did you feel? What did God show you? I wish I could have known you then.”

There is something especially painful about realizing that, even after 45 years of marriage, there were still parts of Naomi’s life that I had not completely explored. I thought I knew her well—and I did. But no matter how long we love someone, there are still rooms within that person’s story that we have never fully entered.

After someone dies, we can no longer ask the questions we wish we had asked. We cannot sit across the table and say, “Tell me more about who you were then.” We cannot hear the tone of the voice, watch the face brighten, or allow one memory to lead naturally to another.

Perhaps that is one reason Bob’s question touched me so deeply. I was not only grieving the Naomi who died on November 8, 2024. I was also longing to meet a younger Naomi whom I could now know only through places, photographs, writings, stories, and the people who may still remember her.

Buckhorn holds part of her story. Because of that, it has become something of a sacred place for me. Returning there was not simply taking a trip into the past. It was more like making a pilgrimage into Naomi’s life.

I was not expecting to find her standing there. But perhaps I hoped that, by walking where she walked, I might feel closer to her. Perhaps the physical place could help close, for a little while, the painful distance between the life we once shared and the life I must now live without her beside me.

Was that healthy? I believe it was.

There is a difference between trying to recover a life that cannot return and intentionally revisiting a place that helps us remember, understand, honor, and grieve. I was not trying to deny Naomi’s death. I was trying to know her more fully and preserve the meaning of her life.

In one sense, I was searching for Naomi. But I was also searching for a part of our shared story. The young woman who served in Buckhorn eventually became the woman I married. Everything God was doing in her life before she met me became part of the person with whom I would share 45 years.

By searching for the young Naomi, I was also trying to understand more completely the wife I knew and loved.

The tears that come when I think about this do not mean something is wrong with me. They reveal how deep the bond remains. My mind understands that Naomi is with the Lord, but my heart still experiences her absence. Grief lives in that distance between knowing and longing.

My heart still asks: How do I remain close to you when I can no longer see you, hear your voice, ask you questions, or travel beside you?”

I also wonder whether I was looking for reassurance that Naomi was real, that our marriage was real, and that the life we shared still matters. Forty-five years together was a lifetime, but it was still not enough. I would have welcomed more years, more conversations, more memories, and more opportunities to know her.

I do not want to leave Naomi behind as I move forward. But perhaps moving forward does not require leaving her behind. It means learning to carry my love for her differently.

I can no longer carry that love through her physical presence. I now carry it through memory, gratitude, faith, the stories I preserve, the places I revisit, and the ways her life continues to shape my own. I can honor the Naomi I knew while continuing to discover the young Naomi whose earlier life helped prepare her for the years we would share.

My Reason for Hope

My story does not end with searching, tears, and separation. I have hope because Jesus Christ is real. Naomi trusted Jesus, loved Him, and lived her life for His glory. I believe that when she took her final breath on earth, she immediately entered the conscious presence of the Lord.

As Paul wrote:

“To be absent from the body” is “to be present with the Lord.”
—2 Corinthians 5:8

Jesus told His disciples:

“I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.”
—John 11:25

Naomi is not lost. She is not merely part of my past. She is alive in the presence of Jesus.

In my blog post, One Minute After You Die,    I reflected on what Scripture teaches and what Christian writers such as Erwin Lutzer and Randy Alcorn believe about the present Heaven.

I believe Naomi is fully conscious, completely at peace, and free from the pain and physical limitations she experienced on earth. Her years of dialysis, weakness, medical appointments, and suffering are over. She is experiencing joy, worship, fellowship, and the presence of Christ.

Her first experience after leaving this life may have been coming face to face with Jesus—the Savior she loved and served. I can only imagine the awe, peace, and joy she experienced when her faith became sight.

Some details remain mysteries. Scripture does not tell us everything we might wish to know about the present Heaven. I cannot say with certainty how much Naomi knows about what is happening on earth or exactly what her daily experience is like. But I believe what Scripture clearly teaches: she is with Christ, she remains the person God created her to be, and she is safe, joyful, and fully alive in His presence.

She is awaiting the resurrection of her body and the promised new heaven and new earth. Her story has not ended. It has entered a new and eternal chapter.

That gives me hope for my own future.

I am approaching 87. I do not know how many days or years God will still give me. Only God knows whether our reunion will be soon by our earthly measurement of time. Until then, I want to remain faithful to whatever purpose He still has for me. I want to use my time, gifts, experiences, and resources well. I want to finish well.

But I also live with the confident hope that this separation is temporary. Because of Jesus Christ, death will not have the final word. Someday I will see my Savior face to face. And through Christ, I believe I will also be reunited with Naomi.

Perhaps then I will know the young Naomi in a way I never could on earth. Perhaps there will be time for the stories I never heard and the questions I never asked. Perhaps I will finally understand more fully how God was at work throughout her entire life—before I knew her, during our marriage, and after she went ahead of me into eternity.

I am not searching for Naomi as someone who has disappeared without hope. I am remembering someone who has gone ahead of me.

If Bob were to ask me that question again, I think I would answer:

“Yes, in a way, I was searching for Naomi—but especially for the young Naomi I never knew. I wanted to see where she had lived and served, understand what shaped her, and somehow meet that earlier version of the woman who later became my wife. I knew I could not find her physically in Buckhorn, but I hoped that by walking where she walked, I might know her more fully and feel closer to her.

“But I am not without hope. Jesus is real, and Naomi is with Him. She is alive, at peace, free from suffering, and experiencing the presence of the Lord she loved. I believe our separation is temporary. Until God calls me home, I want to live faithfully and finish well. Then, because of Jesus, I believe I will see Naomi again.”

I was searching for the Naomi who existed before there was a “Naomi and Richard.”

And because Jesus conquered death, I believe that one day I will. And then the Great Reunion!