Grief Archives - Page 2 of 3 - call me pasturescott

a letter to a grieving friend questioning his faith

My friend J____,

Your words leave me grasping for words that don’t smack of buttoned-up pietism or following predictable lines. As I mentioned earlier, I believe the Lord has kept me on an essential fast from offering you words that might lose their impact as soon as they touched your device! It’s now the middle of the night and I feel I’m awakened by God with a direction in response to a repeated cry to him for such.

A couple weeks ago I was in the Poconos of Pennsylvania with Sandy where I served as the guest speaker for an audience of disabled folk at their annual July Camp. I try to only preach what the Father burns into my heart (I wish I always succeeded at this, but it is my fervent intent), and, for reasons known only to him, I was given the task of preaching through the book of Ecclesiastes.

I know.

It could *only* be his prompting.

Long story short, it was a marvelous dive that was wonderfully received (praise God!) and His gospel came through each session through the book and I believe he got what he was after through it. That became clearly evident as I counseled many in between the chapel services.

During one of the sessions I went off script and shared my story (which you’ve heard) and was asked afterward by a woman who was there as a volunteer if I’d ever been bitter about the whole ‘satan-meant-it-for-evil-God-intended-it-for-good’ drama of my life. Never hesitating, I said “never, not even once.”

It’s been asked of me dozens or more times in these 38 years, and my response has never wavered. It’s always, “Never, Ever.” I usually go on to explain (as I did that morning with C____) that I prayed for it to happen; that my heart lifted up the offering of my legs to God in an anguished moment of surrender. He took me at face value and, voilà!, I’m a paraplegic. I am often quick to add the disclaimer: in my fevered, youthful zeal, I only meant I was willing to forfeit the ability to walk….and that only temporarily. I had no idea catheters, and pressure sores, and UTI’s, and atrophy, and bowel programs, and a hundred other debilitating, embarrassing, painful, pitiful things would be added into the deal. And for a lifetime. These, my friend – these – I have been known to rail against God about, often with choice words. And these I repent of, for reasons we’ll come to in a bit.

My son, my only child, departed this hard sod in a mean, cruel way. We (Sandy and I) did not fake a Job reaction, we lived it. “The Lord has given, the Lord has taken, blessed be the name of the Lord.” Both of us were wont to expect this would be how the story played out (because of Graham’s addiction roulette), had been waiting for the ‘phone call’ for years, not to mention prepared for it with grieving grace. The controversy with God came when we asked if he couldn’t have intervened and overwritten the genetic code with which our Graham came pre-packaged. Why, God? We accepted his death as a mercy to pull him from the self-cannibalism of addiction but wondered often why he couldn’t have been fixed.

I’m less argumentative today with the rabbi who lost a child, was eventually brought to the conclusion that God cannot be both all loving and all powerful at the same time, and wrote a bestseller about it. The rabbi waved a white flag as an acceptance mechanism that God didn’t head the tragedy off at the pass because he couldn’t, not wouldn’t. He and I part ways at his dreadful conclusion, but I do understand the pain that brought him to it.

God is all-loving, all-suffering, all-powerful, all-in, all-active, all-supportive. These truths keep me from falling away. Suffering on the scale that I have known has made me a mixture of both Arminian and Calvinist. I hold tightly to the theological rung of God‘s sovereignty; but my other hand is equally holding on to the rung of prevenient grace, that God is trusting me to hold to him for all he’s worth even when reason tells me to flee.

I had the opportunity to preach at a black church a week ago (pastored by a beloved friend I’m mentoring) and shared with the congregants the prosperity gospel of Paul. It is found in 2 Corinthians 12 and summed up in the word “weakness.” In the message I declared that my paralysis and all that comes with it, and my daily grieving for our son, has been used of God to heal the deeper afflictions of my soul: my self-godship.

When I take up a “self-pity cross” and rage against God and question his love, each and every time – whether immediately or after a season of soulish pouting – I am lovingly brought to repentance by the kindness of God. He implores me in these mercies to lay that one down and take up the cross of his design, the one for which he gives me grace to carry. I know full well when I am carrying the wrong cross, for those are the times I strive to expose him for the despot I think him to be, and all is vanity and meaninglessness.

I think I have a better grasp on why the Preacher of Ecclesiastes said going to the house of mourning is better than going to the house of feasting. Death – and mourning – have to do with resurrection (life to come), while feasting, as good and wonderful as these times can be, does not teach us we are created for something more but rather occupies us with this world.

My body would prefer my legs, and my soul would prefer my son and having some grandkids, but these fit into the category of “temporal“ things (2 Cor 4:18). Ah, but let’s not put too exact a period there – perhaps an ellipsis would do better – for an all-loving God has grace for temporal things too. It’s just that he has his eyes set on what’s after the temporary blessings of life. And so my heart prefers his plan, trusts his ways, and leans hard into his love. His love conquers all (Rom 8:31-39).

I believe these are the things the Father has awakened me to share with you, and I will trust that they might be an encouragement. Bless you, my brother. I have grieved with you … and all affected by this suffocating tragedy, and have done so nonstop.

I pray to God that none of these words sound Christian-ese, but because God woke me up, I believe they are what is on his heart for you. I remain, as ever, available to listen, to wait, and to understand throughout this process of venting and grieving. Believe me, Sandy and I know this familiar place.

All for Jesus,

Scott

hope is the thing

[this shot is for Sandy on her fifth Mother’s Day without Graham; it symbolizes her world blown apart by grief for a son lost too soon, even as her feathery faith – on precarious strings – holds it together…in hope]

Faith goes up the stairs that love has built and looks out the windows which hope has opened.

– Charles H. Spurgeon

“Hope is the thing with feathers…”

– Emily Dickinson

“Hope is revolutionary patience” says Anne Lamott. What is patience, then? It is the yet-to-be-realized longing of a looking soul. It is a parent’s eyes glued to yonder horizon, knowing that one day there will be a reunion and a feast…while, for now, there’s only the quiet vigil of sighing and dreaming.

The heart knows a secret bravery that is not celebrated with medals and speeches, but with unabated courage to take every day as it comes. It looks like flowers on a grave, instead of beside a child’s Mother’s Day card. Like sending a text or making a call to another mother who has her kids and wishing her a happy day.

Joy, in this world, is not sung, it is whispered; it is pomp and circumstance under the breath, minus the fanfare and marching. But ever so often it hears the instruments tuning and warming and tilts its head, satisfied the prelude is not too long now.

To witness up close such incarnated hope each day – along with every hollow milestone – is a thing of beauty. Sandy’s unpretentious, faithful life is a blog gone viral in the heavenlies, a sermon without pounded pulpit, a book you weep through to get to the next wonderful page.

Her spirit is a feather for she is the embodiment of stained-glass hope.

Proverbs 31:29-31
Many women have done excellently,
but you surpass them all.”
Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain,
but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Give her of the fruit of her hands,
and let her works praise her in the gates.

Selah

Still We Grieve and That’s Okay

I’m wondering, is there a statute of limitations on mourning?

(Asking for a friend.)

In the hurry-scurry bustle of Christmas the one thing you don’t plan on is burying your only child. That happened to us two Christmases ago.

On a cold December Sunday, in a driving rainstorm so bad we couldn’t even get out of our vehicle, Sandy and I could only watch through blurred windows as the workers lowered our 24-year-old son into the maw of earth. No minister. No ashes to ashes. No seated family as mourners filed by. No quiet assurances. No formal farewell.

There’d been the indoor service already but this was perversely anticlimactic. Sure, we’d had our private goodbyes in the viewing room before the lid was soundly shut, but this – this! – was morose. It was a scene straight out of Copperfield.

And with the caretaker’s back turned to us, busying himself with straps and pulleys, we unceremoniously drove away, leaving him to it. The surging rain protested even more loudly against the metal of the van as we pulled out into traffic.

• • • •

Someone quipped, “God gave us memories so we can have roses in December.” But what if December’s garden shears separate bloom from stem? What, then, is left?

In a single week Sandy felt ambushed by a doctor who suggested counseling (not a support group, mind you, but a shrink), a well-meaning associate (being kind) who bluntly chastised her for not letting it go, and someone even closer who wondered if it might not be time to move on. That was eleven months ago…when Graham had only been covered in earth for a year. A setback, but she powered through by grace.

I, too, have had my moments. Only recently, I had a horrible, terrible, very bad Thanksgiving Day, and, full disclosure, let me tell you why. It was the first holiday where Graham’s name was not mentioned at all by family and friends. But that’s not on them! It’s normal, it fits our patterns and protocols. Really, it’s almost been two years after all. I assure you, it didn’t take me to a dark place of bitterness against anyone, it just made me mindful of the too-soon (for us) end of an era.

Only, it’s not yet over for us, sorry. We’ll continue to keep our distance for awhile longer, but not because we’re loathe to move on. We just need space to grieve. And that’s okay – because in our mourning we’re becoming better worshippers.

Do I grieve for December 16, 2013 and how it all fell out on that day? Some, of course, but mostly what happens after that day. Not seeing Graham win over his demonic addictions and become my best friend through life, no family photos, no grandkids to spoil, no future milestones to celebrate. That’s why they call it losing a loved one, I suppose. There’s so much more you’re forced to give up than a person.

• • • •

When I shared with Sandy what I was going to say in this post, she balked at first. What if everyone thinks we’re depressed? What if they worry after us? Worse, what if they think we think they let us down? Egads, what if a council calls us in?

She said none of those things, of course, but they were hanging there still, unsaid, between us.

So I quickly cantered, explaining it’d be like one of David’s most depressing psalms: starts off all woeful, dark, and hopeless but lands where the Lord always shepherds the troubled who lean into Him real hard. With promise and praise.

No pity, please. We’re not sitting over here needing stroking and tons of cards. (But money, money’s okay.)

😊

We’re good. We’re so good. All is well. Promise.

And this is what we’ve learned so far on our short journey:

Closure is pure psychobabble. Grief is good, for the Lord is most tender with the broken-hearted and that’s a good thing to live with. He isn’t wanting to fix you, He wants to heal you. There’s a difference. One is mechanical, lacking artistry, the other is relational, a long-term, hands-on, intimate shaping process.
Every time you turn to Him for comfort and lay down your arms of accusation, or stiff-arm of inconsolability, He will show you more of Himself – and that will more than suffice even when you’re all too aware of what you’ve lost.
Life tends to shrink and become simpler when you’ve endured a greater loss than anything you’ve ever had to give up. When everyone gets up in arms over the news, or exasperatingly goes after the next new thing, the ones left standing in the wake of such loss – whether long ago or last year – prefer a saner, more quiet place of vigil. They turn to a truer reality. It’s the only thing that will get them through.
While those whose hope and stay is with the One who invented resurrection and life learns to gain a long-view of hope, it’s equally important to know that His Plan unfolds in tiny unimportant moments where you’ll miss heaven on earth if you’re not paying attention. Life is a mist, mortality is an exact science, and tomorrow is a year away. Suck all the marrow out of today. Shorten your pace, lower your arms, be present, and listen for the hum of the homeland in the right now.
Finally, not because it’s the end of our lessons, rather for the sake of your attention span, we’re learning to give people and their issues a wider berth, a more grace-filled response, and, because of our son’s story, refusing to concede too quickly their fate by writing them off. (Not naming names, but I need a lot more work in this area.)

These aren’t losses, but gains. And these are the greater blessings that come through our extended season of bereavement, so we’re not looking to end it too soon.

There’s sooo much more to learn.

And, so, we’ll soldier on, and we’ll still grieve.

And that’s okay.