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Two Years

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“There isn’t any good way to start writing about this. My son is dead. I can write that as a definitive statement but it doesn’t feel like that. It really feels like he is just staying somewhere else for a moment and we will go pick him up. But, of course, we would never do that with a two-month old. We would keep him close; watch his every move; hold him over and over. And then there is the fact that I saw him on that table in the hospital laying still. And then I saw him in that tiny coffin at the funeral home. Those are images I am certain I will never forget.

“….

“This was the worst day of my life. It will always be the worst day of my life. I will never forget it. I will never be whole from it. I will never understand it. My baby, my little caboose, my Ethan, is gone. And my single hope is that one day I will see him again. I will live the rest of my years waiting for that day.”

Ethan’s Dad: Those were the first and last paragraphs of my first written expression about Ethan that I wrote two years ago, soon after he died.  I will not share the rest of that writing because it is too personal, too raw — too much even for this space. But for me those first and last paragraphs are fitting on this day — this day that marks two years from the moment Ethan left us. They are fitting because no matter how much has changed over the past two years, those thoughts remain the same.

Much has changed. I no longer always feel cold or desolate or listless. I now see Ethan’s mom smile when his twin brother does something amusing. I still sit beside his grave, but not with the feeling that the whole world could be rushing past and I won’t care because there is nothing else of importance to do. That dagger in my heart pokes intermittently rather than slicing with incessant fury.

And yet . . . and yet every now and then it still seems to me as if Ethan is just staying somewhere else overnight and we will wake up and see him in the morning. I still long to hold him. I still remember him lying on that metal table, unmoving.  I still remember the awful coffin and a quiet that shattered our world. I still know it to be the absolute worst day of my life, even amidst the experiences of other days of profound fear and heaviness.

This is not a day of celebration. It is not a day of fond farewells and whimsical dreams. It is a day of darkness, a day of mourning, a day of counting an immeasurable loss. It is a day I would never wish upon anyone in all the world, no matter how otherwise evil a person may be, and yet I know all too well it is unfortunately shared by many who also have lost a child, perhaps by some reading these very words.

To you all I can say is that I also still have that single hope — actually stronger now than when I wrote those words two years ago — a hope that I will see Ethan again because of the One seated on the throne who says “Behold, I make all things new!” (Revelation 21:5)

I will not pretend that this hope makes it all better here and now. It does not. This day is still excruciating. This is a loss I still cannot fully fathom. My life, my entire family’s life, will always be different — be less — than what it was to be with Ethan among us. I cannot comprehend how God will rectify such an absence. All I know is that He promises that He will.  This is why Jesus came:

“To proclaim freedom for the captives,
to release prisoners from the darkness,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God.

To comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—

“To bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.

“They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord
for the display of his splendor.” (Isaiah 61:1-3)

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The Silence of God

GethsemaneEthan’s Dad: “Silence is golden.” Except when it’s not. You might think that when there are four children 8 years of age and under running around you, you have more than enough noise, and you long for quiet. But when you know there is a voice missing, jabbering from another two year-old that you should be hearing in the din, the chaos isn’t enough. Instead what you hear is a sound of silence that pierces your soul.

As Ethan’s mom hinted at in her last post, lately I also have been thinking about another kind of silence: the silence of God.

“It’s enough to drive a man crazy; it’ll break a man’s faith
It’s enough to make him wonder if he’s ever been sane
When he’s bleating for comfort from Thy staff and Thy rod
And the heaven’s only answer is the silence of God.”

-Andrew Peterson (The Silence of God)

There seems to be an impression among some Christians that God is only silent when we are distant from Him. That is to say, the only times we don’t hear from God are when we are enmeshed in deliberate sin or when we don’t like the answer we are getting about a request we have made to God. But this is, at best, only a half-truth.

To begin with, unless you are so distant from God that your conscience is dulled, the fact is that a Christian does hear from God quite loudly in the midst of deliberate sin. God lets us know in no uncertain terms that what we are doing is wrong. That’s why it is a deliberate sin. And if we don’t like what God is telling us when we ask for something, then He isn’t actually being silent, is He?

But I think in a way what these Christians are really saying is that God is never actually silent; we are just turning a deaf ear to Him. Now, this might sound like good theology to you, but as well-meaning as it may be, it is flat wrong. The silence of God is a very a real and agonizing experience for believers the world over.

“It’ll shake a man’s timbers when he loses his heart
When he has to remember what broke him apart
This yoke may be easy, but this burden is not
When the crying fields are frozen by the silence of God.”

Moreover, the Bible does not shy away from this fact.

Job suffered with excruciating pain and loss for a stretch of time before God spoke to Him, and even when God broke the silence He did not fully explain to Job all of the reasons for his suffering. (See Job 38-41).  When Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were sentenced to die in the fiery furnace, Scripture records that the three of them stated that “even if [God] does not [save us from the blazing furnace], we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” (Daniel 3:18). The clear implication is that the three men were not told by God beforehand what would happen to them when they were thrown into the fire. In the period of time between the Old and New Testaments, the people of Israel lived for over 400 years without any revelation from God about their salvation through a Messiah. John the Baptist passed time in prison under Herod without hearing anything from God as to whether his ministry had made any real difference. Finally John — in apparent desperation — sent some of his followers to Jesus to ask Him whether He really was the Messiah. (See Matthew 11:2). The Disciples spent the Saturday after Jesus’ death in despondency and silence (a period worth pondering in a future post).

Are we to write off all of these people’s recorded experiences as false impressions about God? If those examples are not enough, how about Jesus himself, who exclaimed from the cross: “My God my God, why have You forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).

“Oh,” you say, “that was different because Jesus was taking on the sin of the world in that moment. God had to turn away. The same is not true for us.” But I think Jesus’ question was expressing the culmination of His entire experience during the crucifixion. It’s likely that God’s silence started the moment Jesus was led away from the Garden of Gethsemane by the Sanhedrin’s guards. Jesus came to earth and experienced what we experience. Did He bear more pain that we ever will or could during the crucifixion? Absolutely. But Jesus’ experience with the silence of God — perhaps more than anything else could — reflected His humanity.

“And the man of all sorrows, he never forgot
What sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought
So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
In the holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God.”

In asking this question — “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” — Jesus echoed the words of David as recorded in Psalm 22. So David too experienced this silence. And, in fact, the Psalms are full of reflections on the silence of God. For instance, David in Psalm 13 inquires:

“How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?

“Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
and my enemy will say, ‘I have overcome him,’
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.”

Psalm 42, the beginning of which is often (and I believe wrongly) quoted in a happy fashion, says:

“As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
‘Where is your God?'”

Psalm 77, which to me is one of the best passages in all of Scripture, pulls no punches:

“I cried out to God for help;
I cried out to God to hear me.
When I was in distress, I sought the Lord;
at night I stretched out untiring hands,
and I would not be comforted.

“I remembered you, God, and I groaned;
I meditated, and my spirit grew faint.
You kept my eyes from closing;
I was too troubled to speak.
I thought about the former days,
the years of long ago;
I remembered my songs in the night.
My heart meditated and my spirit asked:

“‘Will the Lord reject forever?
Will he never show his favor again?
Has his unfailing love vanished forever?
Has his promise failed for all time?
Has God forgotten to be merciful?
Has he in anger withheld his compassion?'”

And then there is Psalm 88, which is perhaps the most depressing expression of God’s silence in all of Scripture. It contains lines such as:

“You have put me in the lowest pit,
in the darkest depths.
Your wrath lies heavily on me;
you have overwhelmed me with all your waves.

“….

“I call to you, Lord, every day;
I spread out my hands to you.
Do you show your wonders to the dead?
Do their spirits rise up and praise you?
“Is your love declared in the grave,
your faithfulness in Destruction?
Are your wonders known in the place of darkness,
or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?

“But I cry to you for help, Lord;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
Why, Lord, do you reject me
and hide your face from me?”

Why would God include these expressions of anguish in Scripture if the experiences were not real, and, perhaps more importantly, appropriate? God does not shy away from His silence, so why should we? The expressions of silence are there often enough that we are almost forced to face the prospect that the silence is purposeful. So why would God sometimes choose to be silent in our most painful moments, the very moments when you would think we need Him the most?

When we ask the question “why did this happen?” what we really mean is: Why weren’t You there, God? Why didn’t You stop it? Isn’t that, in part, what is behind Jesus’ haunting question: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”

Yet, so often when we ask that question, what follows is silence. In our case, we screamed the question, over and over: Why did Ethan die? Why did you not tell us earlier that he wasn’t breathing? Why didn’t you stop this? Why couldn’t the paramedics save him? Why didn’t you bring Ethan back, like you did the son of the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17-7-24), the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-17), Jairus’s daughter (Luke 8:40-42, 49-56), and Lazarus (John 11:1-44). We received no answer, no comfort, no reassurance. Just cold, dark, silence.

It has taken me a while to realize, as I indicated above, that perhaps this silence was intentional. In fact, I think the “Why” questions might be important not so much because of answers you hope to receive, but instead precisely because they are accompanied by silence. It does not seem so at the time, but if God is not going to supernaturally intervene, then silence is really the only appropriate response in a horrific moment like that because there is no answer that will satisfy other than “I will give you your son back.” Yet God has already chosen, for whatever reason, not to provide the satisfying answer. And He is no fool. God knows that when that is the case, the response from His child will be anger, disappointment, confusion, and despair. The truth is, in that God-forsaken moment — and for a while afterward — if His answer was not “I will save Ethan,” I did not want to hear from God and He knew it.

I think that the silence occurs because the answer to “Why?” will not satisfy if it does not include an immediate fix to the brokenness. And when you sit in the silence what you start to realize is that God is not who you thought He was. This may sound like a negative thing, but that is only the case if you think you have God figured out. And if you think that, then your God is too small because He fits into your finite mind. He stretches far beyond that.

“‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,’
declares the Lord.
“‘As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.'” (Isaiah 55:8-9)

The unvarnished truth is that God is a lot more concerned with how we answer the “Who” questions of life than He is with answering our “Why” questions. For one inquiring mind, Jesus answered the question: “Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29-37). The answer is: everyone. On another occasion, Jesus asked His Disciples: “Who do you say that I am?” And Jesus approved Peter’s answer: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” (Matthew 16:15-17).

And in the silence of God, this last question is the most important question of all: when your world comes crashing down around you, when the unthinkable tragedy is your reality, when you weep until you have no strength to weep anymore (1 Samuel 30:4), who do you say Jesus is? If He is just some friend or spiritual mentor or great teacher, He is useless in that moment. But if He is who Peter said He was, then He makes all the difference in the world.

Because that person, that Savior, cares for you beyond all measure and He proved it by dying for you. He didn’t just tell us He loves us, He demonstrated it in the most agonizing way conceivable to our finite minds, by dying on an instrument of torture. And beyond that, if He is who Peter said He was, then Jesus isn’t even just some martyr who died a horrible death in our place. He is alive, meaning He overcame death, and He is capable of extending, and eager to offer, that same gift to us — and to our little ones whose lives were so tragically cut short.

This is what real faith is about: it is about foregoing the “Why” based on the “Who.” If we can accept that, then we can keep on living — if not in complete peace — then at least in genuine hope. “And this hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who God has given to us.” (Romans 5:5).

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Weep Until You Have No Strength to Weep

Ethan’s Mom: This week was pretty weird in our BSF study of People of the Promised Land. The assigned chapters in 1 Samuel included Saul meeting with a medium (1 Sam. 28:3-25) (that is a whole other post for a different day, and probably not one written by me) and the study questions included one about experiencing the silence of God (also a tender subject with my husband and I). Ethan’s dad had an intense conversation in his small group for that portion of his discussion last night, speaking up about how the silence cannot always be explained by unrepentant sin driving a wedge between you and God. My group did not take that direction in answering that question, but I had my own moment of “is this really how we are going to answer this question?” a little later on in our discussion.

Here’s the background (1 Sam. 30): David and his men were between a rock and a hard place – they had been living in Philistia, hiding from Saul and deceiving the Philistine king Achish into thinking they were allies against Israel. For a minute, it seems David is going to be conscripted into fighting against Israel, but God mercifully provides away out of the bed that David has made before he has to lie in it. His men return to their home base at Ziklag to find that an enemy clan has burned it to the ground and kidnapped the wives and children of all the soldiers, including David. Verse 4 says, “So David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep.” That verse is what I wrote down to answer the first question on that section: “Describe the scene at Ziklag. How did David and his men respond?”

No one immediately jumped to field that question, and my group leader tried rephrasing it. “What was the first thing David does when he returns to this scene?” she asks. I replied, “wept until he had no strength to weep.” She seemed a little surprised and said, “Well, yes, but… what was next? What did he do? In verse 6?” Someone else provided the answer she was looking for, that David found strength in the Lord. She follows up with “Then in verse 9?” Someone else answers, “David inquired of God.”

First of all, if someone “does something next” that is not, by definition, the thing that he does first. But I was taken aback by more than mere semantics. Glossing over the fact that David’s initial reaction was to weep until he had no strength left to weep totally discounts his grief over losing his family. Yes, they were kidnapped and eventually rescued, but initially David didn’t know their fate. For all he knows, he will never see his family again, and he is leading hundreds of men who will never see their families again.

Let’s allow them to weep before we are demanding that they find strength in God, shall we?

I firmly believe after my experience, watching my husband grieve, and reading several books/memoirs by fellow mourners, that the tears must come first, then the strength in the Lord, and then the inquiring of God.

In the lecture that followed, the teaching leader made a statement that struck me as she was summarizing the divergent paths of Saul and David. “No one drifts toward God.” While we do not earn God’s mercy or grace towards us, faith does require a conscious choice to seek God. This has never before been so clear to me. Sometimes I feel like not only am I not drifting to Him, I am fighting against a strong current of pain and doubt as I struggle to swim towards Him. But in those initial months of shock, confusion, and disbelief, I could do nothing but be tossed by the waves. I could not even ask why or articulate to God that I was angry or sad or anything.  It was a terrible place to be, but I couldn’t just sit up and say, “let me go and find strength in God.”

Choosing to trust God and find strength in him requires more effort than I had for quite some time.  But eventually, I could.  I think I am just now maybe beginning to move to the inquiring of God stage — to trust that He will not only keep me from drowning in a pit of despair (finding strength in Him) but also guide me into an abundant life as I inquire of Him what to do next (wow, that was even just hard to type, I am definitely just beginning to move into that stage!)

So I want to encourage you, whoever you are, that if you are faced with a devastating loss, it is OK to weep until you have no strength left to weep.  Don’t let anyone rush you through this — the time frame that is right for you is known only by you and the Lord.  You do not have to find strength in God or have stalwart trust that He has a plan for you in the midst of this tragedy.  There will come a time when you will have to look to someone or something for strength to resume your life, and at that point, you will have to make a conscious choice to find your strength in God.  He will strengthen you and eventually you will then be able to inquire of God — looking for redemption in the midst of your tragedy and discerning “what is His good, pleasant, and perfect will” (Rom. 12:2) for your life, including your life after loss.

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Tough Chicks

pieta-1499.jpg!Large

Ethan’s Mom: Last week before church started I was visiting with a friend who should be celebrating her first Christmas as a grandmother. Her daughter, whom I remember being in the youth group when we first joined our church, was due in October with a baby girl but is now in “the club” after her daughter was stillborn this summer. Although our stories have some pretty significant differences, we are both believers and mommies to babies in heaven, which makes Christmastime more important and more painful than you might realize. At the end of our chat, my friend looked at me and said “You both are really tough chicks.” I chuckled at first but then said, “You know what? We are.”

One theme that has popped up again in Bible Study Fellowship this year as we are studying the People of the Promised Land is that people play a role in God’s plan for their lives. God promised them the land, but they had to go take it. They had to take the first step into the Jordan River, blow their trumpets outside the walls of Jericho, and show up for battle when they were completely outnumbered. Last year when we studied Romans, we learned that salvation is the same way. It is not by our own will or volition we are saved, but there is some kind of mystery of how God enables us to receive His salvation through faith — not the absence of doubt but the presence of faithfulness. I remember one of the teaching leaders illustrations was about a man who walked (or maybe rode a bike?) on a tight wire across Niagara Falls. He asked the crowd if they believed he could carry someone across with him, and the crowd went wild with cheers… until he asked for a volunteer. No one came forward to show their faith in his ability by the action of volunteering.

There are days I literally have no idea how I made it through, and I know there was something supernatural going on. But even on those days, I have to choose to get out of the bed. To be honest, nearly two years later, the days where that is a sacrificial choice are fewer but not gone. Just today I had two conversations (with my friend and my husband) that basically ended in us shaking our heads as we said “It’s just really, really hard.” Sometimes there is just nothing else to say.

I didn’t sign up for this. It is my honor to be Ethan’s mom, but it is a really, really hard job.

Which brings me to the actual point of this blog post — there is a woman, really a girl, who signed up for the toughest mothering gig ever. When the angel showed up to tell Mary, “You will conceive and give birth to a son and you will call his name JESUS,” she didn’t try to find out exactly what would be involved before saying yes. She had one (understandable I’d say) logistical question but quickly came to “I am the Lord’s slave, may it be done to me according to your word.”

I can remember in 2016 sitting in the Christmas Eve service, 34 weeks pregnant with the twins, thinking how amazing Mary was for traveling to Bethlehem. At that moment, if Greg had told me we needed to take a trip to his homeland of Ohio, I would have pointed at my huge belly and declared that “we” would not be making this trip with him. Even still, nine hours in the car cannot be compared to a few days on a donkey. Mary is a rock star, I thought.

Two weeks later, there was an ice storm in Birmingham, and I went into labor with no way to get to the hospital. A fire-rescue truck came to our aid and attempted to get me to the only accessible hospital, which I had never even seen before much less planned to go to for delivery. There was no room for my husband in the back with me, so he watched  their births as best he could through the small window up front. There was no one to hold my hand, no technology to monitor the babies, no nurses to coach me through the contractions, and no mom standing nearby with a camera and moral support.

After we got to the hospital and they asked me a million registration and medical history questions, one of the nurses asked if she could call my mom for me. YES! If there is ever a time when a daughter wants her mom, it is when she herself becomes a mom (or becomes a mom again).

Back to Mary — she makes this crazy trip on a donkey. I have always wondered whether or not she expected to make it back before the baby was born. It is not inconceivable that the difficult trip contributed to premature labor and the baby took everyone a bit by surprise. Either way, whether she knew she would be away for the birth or not, she was. No mom or familiar midwife to coach her through her very first delivery. No familiar and safe home in which to welcome her baby.  She was probably in the last place she would have thought she would deliver the Son of God.

This is a far cry from the typical nativity scene played out in churches and yard displays. We just went to the live nativity at our church, and I think ours is typical of most of these programs. Mary and Joseph walk straight to the stable. At best, Mary looks about 6 months pregnant and is moving pretty well. Lights go out. Lights come up. Mary and Joseph sit beaming at a baby doll either in Mary’s arms or the manger. Shepherds and Wisemen arrive, and everyone just looks goo goo eyed at the baby. Curtain.

Now, don’t misunderstand me — I am not advocating that we all bring our children to watch an actress screaming in pain with bloody rags around the stable. I just think maybe we should all realize that was part of Mary and Joseph’s experience as much as the goo goo eyes.

Yes, Joseph found that kind innkeeper. But how many doors did he knock on first? How close were the contractions when they finally found the stable? Did Joseph deliver Jesus and if so, how did he know what to do? Did Mary think “oh how charming this little manger is, full of nice clean hay” or did she cringe as she put Jesus down in the feeding trough because her arms were too tired to hold him another minute? When Mary said, “Let it be done to me as you have said” could she have imagined this? Did she think “this is not what I signed up for as the mother of the Messiah”? What an amazing honor, what a really, really hard job.

Andrew Peterson’s song, “Labor of Love,” conveys the real scene well:

“It was not a silent night
There was blood on the ground
You could hear a woman cry
In the alleyways that night
On the streets of David’s town

“And the stable was not clean
And the cobblestones were cold
And little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
Had no mother’s hand to hold

“It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love

“Noble Joseph by her side
Callused hands and weary eyes
There were no midwives to be found
On the streets of David’s town
In the middle of the night

“So he held her and he prayed
Shafts of moonlight on his face
But the baby in her womb
He was the maker of the moon
He was the Author of the faith
That could make the mountains move

It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love

“For little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
It was a labor of love.”

I was really upset for weeks about how the twins came into the world. Turns out, having twins (one breech) in the back of a moving ambulance in an ice storm is a walk in the park compared to burying one of them two months later. It didn’t get any easier for Mary either. When Simeon tells her “a sword will pierce your soul,” he is not kidding. She gets to see the miracles, but she is there at the foot of the cross, watching her baby cry out in terrible pain. She watches him die.

At the retreat I went to in September, the counselor handed out small cards with a picture of Michelangelo’s Pieta on them. I had never seen this sculpture before. Mary is holding the body of Jesus after his crucifixion. She has one hand cradling him and the other open and pointed up, as if she is both holding on and letting go at the same time. According to Catholic tradition, Mary was the first person to hold Jesus and the last. That was her holy and sacred duty and privilege as his mother. Mary, blessed among women, is my new #1 hero in the faith. She isn’t just a smiling, well-coiffed new mother in a charming, rustic stable. She is the toughest of all tough chicks.

If you are reading this as a mother of a baby in heaven, hear me say this — you are a tough chick. God has promised to see you through to heaven where He will wipe all the tears from your eyes and reunite you with your sweet baby. Keep choosing to fight the darkness, and know you are winning the battle even if all you can do is take your next breath. If you can’t take it day by day, back up to hour by hour, or even minute by minute. I am praying for you as I write this, and I think you have a special place near to the heart of the Mary as well. After all, she is in “the club” too. But most of all, you are seen and known by the God who was faithful to strengthen Mary for her very unique mission and is able to strengthen you for yours.

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When Love Refrains: What Else the Story of Lazarus Tells us about God

Lazarus 1Ethan’s Dad: My wife has mentioned in this space before that sitting in church can be a trying experience for us. We never know when a song, a prayer, or a statement made in Sunday School banter might open the floodgates of sadness that reside within us from losing Ethan. Of course, this is also true in everyday encounters, but we have found that the likelihood of it occurring is magnified in church because mortality and miracles are topics of discussion in church much more often than in everyday life.

One of those occasions occurred this past Sunday when our pastor was giving a sermon titled “Who is Jesus.” It was part of a series he has been doing in which he has listed three descriptions of Jesus in each sermon and expounded upon them. The first of those descriptions this past Sunday was that Jesus is “the resurrection and the life.” This is a description Jesus gave about himself that is recorded in the book of John, chapter 11, that tells the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.  In one part of the story, Jesus has a captivating conversation with Martha, the brother of Lazarus.  Just after Martha informed Jesus that Lazarus has died, Jesus said:

“Your brother will rise again.”

“Martha answered, ‘I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.’

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He would believes in me will live, even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’

“‘Yes, Lord,’ she told him, ‘I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God, who was to come into the world.’” (John 11:23-27)

Our pastor was, of course, right that Jesus’s pronouncement about himself in this passage is foundational to the Christian life because it revealed to Martha (and all who would later read those words) who Jesus was in the grandest eternal sense and what they must do to inherit eternal life, which was simply to believe in who He really was. My problem was not with the pastor’s reference to this exchange or to the story of Lazarus in general. My issue was with the pastor’s use of something Martha said right before this part of their conversation.

When Martha first heard that Jesus had arrived in Bethany — the town where she, her sister Mary, and Lazarus had lived — she said to him, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.” (v. 21). To fully understand this comment, you have to know that several days earlier Martha and Mary had sent Jesus a message informing Him that Lazarus was sick, and they no doubt had expected Jesus to come quickly to Lazarus’s aid.  Instead, Jesus arrived in Bethany four days after Lazarus had died.  Jesus’s delay piled confusion on top of the crushing grief Martha was feeling because of her brother’s death.

Our pastor chose to focus on those two little words near the beginning of Martha’s statement: “if only.” The pastor did a riff on how we all have “if only” times in our lives, i.e, times when we believe that things could have been different if only God had acted or if only we had made a different choice. He made some statement about how, in thinking this way, we are often more focused on temporal things while God is concerned with eternal matters. Again, that is a true statement in itself (to a degree). And I believe the pastor’s point was that whatever those “if only” moments might be in our lives, Jesus is the ultimate answer to them because He is the resurrection and the life.

Now, as I have said, I had no theological problem with any of this in the abstract. My issue was that as soon as the pastor started talking about “if only” moments, my mind (and my wife’s) immediately veered to March 10, 2017, and that horrific period when we literally screamed for God to save our precious Ethan. We begged; we pleaded; we cried oceans of tears. . . . And nothing happened.

So, here is the thing about Martha’s statement that the pastor chose to gloss over: she was right. If Jesus had been there before Lazarus had died, He could have saved Lazarus from death. Indeed, in all likelihood Martha had seen Jesus do it before for total strangers. All she was wondering was: why didn’t Jesus come earlier and save His friend Lazarus? And is that really such a bad thing to wonder about?

I don’t think so. For one thing, Jesus did not rebuke Martha in any way for her implied question. In fact, if she had not wondered about it, I think it would mean that Martha did not really believe that Jesus was who He said He was. But we know this isn’t true because Martha gave not one, but two great statements of faith. Right after Martha made her “if only” statement, she said: “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” (v. 22). And then when Jesus asks her if she believes that He is the resurrection and the life, Martha responds unequivocally: “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God who was to come into the world.” (v. 27).

As one who has been where Martha was, in the throes somber grief, I have to say that this is a wonderful testimony on her part. The Holy Spirit must have encouraged her, but it is truly admirable that Martha did not let her deep sorrow swallow her faith in Jesus at that moment. The sincerity of Martha’s faith practically explodes off the page because of the palpably desperate moment in which she expresses those statements. It is not unlike that moment when a thief hanging on a cross, in the midst of excruciating agony, expressed his faith in Jesus even as Jesus was on a cross right beside him (Luke 23:40-43), or when Stephen asked the Lord to forgive his executioners as they stone him and he proclaimed that he saw Jesus standing at God’s right hand in heaven. (Acts 7:54-60).  To proclaim Jesus as Lord when doubt has enveloped the heart and darkness is one’s sole companion: those are the testimonies that speak most to me because I know first-hand how difficult it becomes in that lonely place to cling to this truth.

But as commendable as Martha’s faith is, do not lose sight of the fact that, at the same time, she questioned Jesus’s timing. For faith and questions are not incompatible; they are, in a sense, inseparable. We do not continue to learn about who Jesus is if we do not keep wondering about why things must be the way they are. For Jesus is “the author and perfecter of our faith,” (Hebrews 12:2), where “perfect” really means “finish” or “complete.” Our faith must mature, and it only does so when we probe and ask Jesus to show us who He is, just as Martha did. And I think the answer she received stretched beyond her imagination, because how could one really conceive that Jesus was going to call Lazarus forth out of that tomb, and that Lazarus would actually walk out of it as if nothing at all had happened to him?

So as I sat there in the pew now only half listening to the rest of the sermon, I kept poring over this story about Lazarus, a story like the widow of Zarephath, which inevitably causes a believer who loses someone close to him or her to wonder, just as Martha did: Why didn’t you save him, Lord? And I am not afraid to confess that I did not receive an answer. But what I did see was something I had never noticed before in all my years of being told about and then reading this story. It was this: Doing this was really hard for Jesus.

I don’t mean the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Indeed, the remarkable thing is that that was the easy part for Jesus. For Jesus, raising Lazarus was no different than restoring a blind man’s sight or causing a lame man to walk or walking on water. Certainly, it seemed different to everyone else, but for the One “through whom all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible,” resurrection is not difficult. (Colossians 1:16; see also John 1:3).

No, what was really difficult for Jesus was not saving Lazarus before he died. Go back to when Martha and Mary first sent their message to Jesus telling Him that Lazarus was sick. John 11:3 says: “So the sisters sent word to Jesus, ‘Lord, the one you love is sick.’” Martha and Mary knew Jesus would understand that they were talking about Lazarus, which tells us that Jesus and Lazarus must have been extremely close friends. Jesus responded to this message by saying: “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” (v. 4). This response, though somewhat cryptic at this point in the story, tells us that something bigger was going on than anyone could really understand.

But then John decides to give the reader an interesting side note.

“Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet, when He heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where He was two more days.” (vv. 5-6).

This note drives home the point that Jesus loved all three of these people very much, and yet He did not do what everyone would think He would do and rush to see Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. No, instead, Jesus essentially decided to kill time with his Disciples while Martha and Mary watched their brother suffer and die. Despite appearances, this isn’t callousness; it is the exact opposite: it is unfathomable love. John is telling us that Jesus really wanted to rush to Lazarus’s side, but that for the sake of something greater, He had to wait.

This point is reinforced again when Jesus said to his Disciples: “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.” (vv. 14-15). Jesus says He is glad for their sakes, not His own, because if this was just about His personal feelings, He would not have allowed Lazarus to die. Jesus was also acknowledging here that if He had been there, He would have healed Lazarus rather than letting him die. Think about it: where in the Gospels is there a time when Jesus refused an in-person request for healing? He certainly would not have refused to heal if He was standing before his dear friends watching Lazarus suffer. So, Jesus did not go right away because He knew what had to happen — Lazarus dying — and that it would not have happened if He had gone to them sooner.

John decides to make very sure the reader does not miss how difficult this was for Jesus by noting that when Jesus saw Mary and her friends weeping near Lazarus’s tomb, “He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled,” (v. 33). And then he observes that “Jesus wept” when He saw Lazarus’s tomb. (v. 35). The word “troubled” that is used in verse 33 is the same root word Jesus later used in the Garden of Gesthsemane to describe His spirit in its agony before the crucifixion. And yet again, just before Jesus raises Lazarus, John notes that “Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb.” (v. 38).

John (God, really) is practically begging his readers recognize that Lazarus’s death precipitated intense pain for Jesus. Jesus understood that allowing Lazarus to die had caused great pain and grief for people He loved very much. Jesus weeps for the real anguish that is present even though He is about to remove the reason for it by raising Lazarus from the dead.

In the same way, I believe that God weeps for us in our sorrow for Ethan’s loss. God knows that Ethan is with Him and that He will raise Ethan again for us to see one day, but He also knows that there is real and genuine suffering caused right now by Ethan’s absence. He knows that torment because Jesus lived it. The fact that Jesus is the resurrection and the life gives us incredible hope for eternity, but it does not erase our reality of agonizing loss in the here and now. God does not ask us to ignore or diminish that reality because He has shared it.

So God wants us to know that He truly understands our pain and grief. But in this incarnation story, God tells us more than just that He felt as we feel. He tells us that there are times when, in His love, He refrains from acting to save even though it deeply wounds Him to stay His healing hand. In the immediate sense it is not what He wants: God does not enjoy seeing our suffering, and it hurts Him even beyond what we can imagine because He knows that He can help us. But sometimes God chooses “to stay away from Bethany for a couple of days” even as He hears our cries. I do not pretend to know why He makes this choice at some times while at others He rushes to save one in need.

Certainly the answer comes easier in the Lazarus story, for Jesus delayed coming so that He could demonstrate that His power extends even over death itself. Further, Jesus’s raising of Lazarus started to bring the conspiracy against Jesus to a head because the miracle caused a great many more people to believe in Him, and, in turn, the religious leaders resolved that Jesus must be stopped at all cost. So His raising of Lazarus became a part of the chain of events that led to the crucifixion, which caused His death, which precipitates His resurrection, and leads to our redemption.

God’s choice to refrain from acting in our circumstances does not portend such heady consequences — at least so far as I can see. I believe that at least in part the answer to why He sometimes stays His healing hand lies in the fact that this world is corrupted by evil, and in many cases God must let the consequences of that evil play out; otherwise, love and choice do not exist. And part of the answer lies in how suffering occasions examples like Martha who proclaim their belief in Jesus even as they drown in sorrow, and by so doing they embolden others to believe likewise. But those are only partial answers. Right now we know in part, but there will be a time when we will know in full. (See 1 Corinthians 13:12).

Yet, as much as I wonder about a complete answer to the why question, even a full answer would not bring Ethan back. Consequently, for me what is more important is the knowledge that God’s failure to act does not equate to a failure to care. God can simultaneously allow and yet participate in our suffering. In fact, this also happens when people sin. Sin hurts the sinner and often those around him or her. But it also grieves God to see His children participate in evil. Thus, whether the suffering is caused by the world’s brokenness or by human rebellion, God permits pain knowing that it will cause Him intense pain as well, all because of His greater purposes.

In the story of Lazarus Jesus tells us that greater purpose is “God’s glory,” (v. 4) and our eternal lives (v. 25). The stories of our earthly lives take places within that context, and so ultimately we can take lasting comfort in the assurance that the tragedies which befall us — tragedies seen by a God who hurts with us as we experience them — will one day be made right again. One day He will call Ethan forth and we will see him again because Jesus truly is the resurrection and the life.

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You Can’t Move Me Beyond This, but You Can Sit Beside Me Through It

“There is no great loss without some small gain.” Little House on the Prairie

Ethan’s Mom: I wrote this quote down after listening to Little House on the Prairie on audiobook with my kids. At the very end of the book, the Ingalls family is forced to leave their homestead after they had worked so hard to build and furnish their house, to set up their farm, and to invest in their future. Pa had bought potatoes to use as seeds to grow a potato crop the next year, but they could not take them in their wagon to the next destination. So, they ate the potatoes in one great feast. Laura describes how delicious those potatoes were in great detail, and then Pa says, “There is no great loss without some small gain.” My eyes were filling with tears as I drove home from ballet lessons, listening to the last chapters where they say their final goodbyes to the little house. It seemed so unfair, and I couldn’t believe Pa would be grateful for the potatoes. It literally was “small potatoes” compared to the difficulty he was facing with his family (terrible pun, I know).

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this lately (as you could have probably guessed from my last post on lessons I learned from Ruth). I have been reading a book called, Empty Cradle, Broken Heart. It is kind of a What to Expect When You are Expecting for infant loss. This is not written from a Christian worldview, so it has some sections that have been difficult to read. However, it mostly has been validating to read about commonalities across parents who have endured similar tragedies. I came across this passage the other day:

“After your baby dies, recognizing something positive is a way to make meaning out of enduring this tragedy. At first, you may be too distraught or too angry to even consider anything positive. But when you can try to assess the salvage from the wreckage… people might get philosophical, offering that ‘things happen for a reason’ or ‘whatever happens is for your higher good.’ But finding the positives and applying philosophies are tasks that only you can undertake, when you are ready, and not when you’re in shock, infuriated, or in the depths of despair. Plus these sayings are more easily applied to trials such as taking two years to find a job, when, in the end, you land the perfect position. But a long job hunt is not a traumatic bereavement. There is just no comparison.”

Amen and amen.

Later that night, I read that day’s entry (November 4th) in Streams in the Desert. The devotional used the experience of being in captivity as an analogy for an exceptionally difficult circumstance you cannot control or escape. That immediately resonated with me. I remember telling Ethan’s dad on several occasions during the early days that I felt like I had been sentenced to a lifetime in prison for a crime I didn’t commit. There is no end and no escape. I do, in fact, feel like a captive.

The entry goes on to say:

“In order to receive any benefit from our captivity, we must accept the situation and be determined to make the best of it. Worrying over what we have lost or what has been taken from us will not make things better but will only prevent us from improving what remains. We will only serve to make the rope around us tighter if we rebel against it.”

Those words still sting, 20 months later. Any mention of acceptance will bring a physical reaction from deep within my gut. I don’t want to accept this. As many times as I have read that accepting the death doesn’t mean condoning or agreeing with it, I still don’t want to accept that my baby died because that feels like I admitting that I am OK with it. I will never, ever be OK with it.

Even so, I am trying to work on finding the small gain within my great loss. I wrote about my desire for redemption, and how God impressed on my heart that redeeming this situation is not my job. I wanted to share these words with those are walking through grief with friends or family members — You can’t redeem this situation either.

The entry ends with these words, “Make this story your own, dear captive, and God will give you ‘songs of the night’ (Job 35:10) and will turn your ‘blackness into dawn’ (Amos 5:8).” All of the parents in this horrible “club” have to find a way to make this story their own, and as much as you would like to help hurry the process along for your grieving loved one, you really cannot make it go any faster.

If you find yourself now sitting beside someone grieving a child, take care not to step into the role of finding a silver lining or interpreting what God means to do in and through their situation. It certainly is not as easy as finding the magic Bible verse or suggesting that “everything happens for a reason.” Doing that is a defense mechanism for you, not encouragement for the mourner. I know it takes courage to sit with me in my grief. I know that you would rather think that everything happens for a reason because somehow that means there is a reason it won’t happen to you. Just like me, my loss forces you to acknowledge some uncomfortable truths about life and God.

If you have the courage, walk alongside as they find their way. Pray for them and for the discernment to know how to encourage them. Help with surviving children or errands or whatever you can do to allow your loved one to do their “grief work” as counselors like to call it. Remind them, as often as possible, that you love them. Love is, after all, the greatest thing we can give.

“And now there remain: faith [abiding trust in God and His promises], hope [confident expectation of eternal salvation], love [unselfish love for others growing out of God’s love for me], these three [the choicest graces]; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13, Amplified Version).

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Some Lessons from the Book of Ruth

Ethan’s Mom: Confession – two weeks ago when I saw that our next Bible Study Fellowship unit was on Ruth, I was not super excited. Great, I thought. This is just a love story where everything works out for everyone, nothing like my life. Turns out, I had a lot to learn from this not-so-easy love story. So much, in fact, that not only was it the focus of BSF, it was also a focal point of a book I was reading with a small group of intergenerational ladies at church. It seems God really wanted me to pay attention to these folks, and I think I can see why.

For starters, let’s all take a moment to acknowledge that Naomi is not just a supporting actress in this drama. There is so much that Ruth’s mother-in-law and their relationship can teach us. I had not really paid close attention to her before, but then again, I had never identified with her grief before March 2017. First, she went to a foreign land with her husband and sons. Then her husband dies, and years later both boys marry and then they die as well. I think in order to familiarize modern readers with the cultural challenges that Naomi faced, the message that comes through most loudly is that Naomi was in a pickle because she had no income or that she was in despair because she was going to go hungry. No doubt the financial woes and uncertainty were a huge stresser, but that is not the whole story. She is grieving the loss of THREE people in her immediate family. The only three people in her immediate family. For the sake of argument, let’s assume she and Elimelech had an arranged marriage and maybe his death didn’t break her heart. Maybe she was so mad at him for moving the family to Moab that she felt like she lost her meal ticket but not her happiness. You can’t tell me, though, that she wasn’t torn to pieces over losing her sons. One of the sweetest relationships that has developed since our loss is my friendship with an older lady at church whose adult son died unexpectedly. The loss of an adult child may be different in some ways than losing an infant, but there is deep, unrelenting grief in both situations. That makes me feel like I can identify with Naomi in a way I never really identified with Ruth.

For instance, it may sound a little melodramatic when Naomi arrives back in Israel and demands that people call her “Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.” (Rule 1:20).  Here she is, rolling back into her old neighborhood, seeing people she hasn’t seen in more than 10 years. There was no post office, much less Instagram. I’m thinking no one knows what has befallen her. She is likely telling the story over and over as she sees more and more people who inquire after her family or want to be introduced to this foreign woman she has with her. She is likely finding out that some of her old friends have bucket loads of grandchildren and are totally set for life. She has made a long, arduous journey with plenty of time to reflect on her situation and wishes that her husband or sons were travelling with her. I don’t blame her a bit for saying “I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty.” This is not a suck-it-up-buttercup kind of a moment; this is understandable anguish.

Do you know what is missing after this little pity party? A rebuke. Thanks to my husband for pointing that out to me. Naomi may not be theologically on target, but she’s being honest. This says to me that God can handle honest, even bitter honest, maybe even especially bitter honest. The important thing is not what she said when overwhelmed with sorrow when her arrival caused a “stirring” among the women in her old neighborhood. The important thing is that she had made the decision in Ruth 1:7 to “set out on the road that would take (her) back to the land of Judah.” She made the decision to move towards God in the midst of her fear and depression. It didn’t erase her pain immediately, but she was moving, one step at a time, toward the one who could bring redemption to her terrible circumstances.

Redemption. It’s a huge theme in the book of Ruth. It’s a huge theme in our lives walking in the shadowlands. Aside from the foreshadowing of Jesus as our kinsman-redeemer and all the beauty that entails, the story has moments where the tragic circumstances of Naomi and Ruth are redeemed by Boaz’s actions.

If there is one thing that parents whose babies have died want, it is for their loss to be redeemed in some way. There are bereaved mothers who have launched non-profits, written books, organized fundraisers or remembrance walks, etc., etc. We desperately want something good to come out of this because ultimately that gives us a way to share our little one’s life and legacy with others.

Side note: This is NOT the same as finding a reason for the tragedy – do not tell me that Ethan died so that this or that would happen. He is not just a pawn in God’s big chess game, and all the promises in the Bible that I can claim apply to him, too. That’s a whole other post, one that is probably better suited for my husband to analyze in this space.

Anyway, I have struggled with this thought since a few months after Ethan’s death. I have had ideas on how I can honor his memory, but nothing seems big or important enough to qualify as redemption, except things that seem impossible. I felt like God was saying to me through the study of Ruth that it is not up to me to do the redeeming. That’s His job.

Ruth has left her homeland and her family of origin after losing her husband. She lost so much. There is no reason to believe that she and Naomi were walking up the incline to Bethlehem talking about how great they were going to have it once they arrived. I’m quite sure they weren’t discussing how they might fit into the lineage of the Messiah. They were just doing what they felt was right in going back to the Promised Land and to the one true God. When they arrive, Ruth says she will go out and work for their food, and that’s just what she did. She went out and gleaned in Boaz’s field. Nothing glamorous, but she worked so hard on the task at hand that Boaz took notice of her work ethic and her devotion to Naomi.

God took her day-in-and-day-out obedience in the most mundane task, and out of that He brought redemption to Ruth’s life, Naomi’s life, the nation of Israel, and ultimately all humanity. I felt like He was pressing upon my heart that He wants my day-in-day-out obedience in the mundane tasks of mothering my four children on earth, loving my husband, and pouring into relationships with friends and family. Out of that work I have set before me, He will set into motion a plan to bring redemption in this lifetime to our loss, our pain, and our grief.

The story ends with Ruth and Boaz’s son, Obed, sitting in Naomi’s lap. Don’t you know that woman loved her grandson something fierce? I just imagine them having the sweetest relationship. She and Ruth must have just stared into his squishy baby face and delighted in counting his fingers and toes. They must have marveled at their miracle baby as he learned to talk and walk. That would have been such a blessing on its own, but then we find out that Obed has a son named Jesse. Jesse has a son named David, who becomes the king of Israel and a man after God’s own heart. From David, the lineage goes straight down to Jesus. There is so much more redemption coming than Ruth or Naomi could ever have imagined, and they don’t even see it in their lifetimes. Even the possibility that God can do more with our situation than we could plan, even more than we can imagine, gives me such hope. Now I am going to bed in preparation for another day of gleaning tomorrow, and I will rest in the freedom that the rest of our story is in much better hands than mine.

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I Hate Halloween

Ethan’s Mom:

I hate Halloween.

I didn’t always hate Halloween.  I grew up trick or treating in my little neighborhood.  I have fond memories of a fall festival at my elementary school, particularly the cakewalk.  I even won a costume contest once in an elephant outfit my grandmother made.  I think the prize was something like a $10 gift certificate to the local drug store.  We never did anything scary, so I never really thought of the “dark side” of October 31st.  I figured if you didn’t participate in the scary stuff, you could just ignore it.

Until last year, when it seemed that every street had at least one lawn decorated with faux tombstones, and my children started asking why people had stones like we see at the place to think about Ethan in their yards.  Then it hit me, how much of this celebration glamorizes death.

Newsflash y’all – death is bad.  Very, very bad.  And it is hard for me to be surrounded by symbols and reminders of it, no matter how whimsical they may seem or how cute kids (including mine) look in their superhero and princess costumes.

So, as we move from the witches and skeletons of October into the season of Thanksgiving, I am thankful that no matter who or what says otherwise, death LOSES.  No matter how many years I will look around and wonder what Ethan would have wanted to dress up as for our church fall festival or book character day at school, we will not be separated forever.  One day the flesh and bones of this world will be raised imperishable, and we won’t fear anything ever again.  Come Lord Jesus.

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Kept for Us

Picture 281

Ethan’s Dad: Last week was somewhat difficult because it included a 10th (as we have mentioned before, Ethan died on March 10, 2017). And on evening of the 10th last week, which was a Wednesday, I was at church helping with my oldest son’s activity group that has age rages from first grade through sixth grade. The leader of the group that night read the kids the story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath from 1 Kings 17:7-24.

For those of you unfamiliar with that story, it involves the prophet Elijah’s encounter with an Israelite widow and her son who are starving to death in the midst of a drought and famine brought about as a result God’s punishment against Israel’s evil King Ahab. The part of the story that is repeated most often concerns Elijah asking the widow for some water and bread. She readily gives him water, but she initially hesitates at offering him bread because the widow says that she and her son only have enough ingredients to make bread for one more meal for themselves. Elijah tells her not to be afraid, to make her meal, but to give him some bread first because the Lord had told him that she will always have enough flour and olive oil in her containers to make bread until the day the Lord sends rain and the crops grow again. So, the widow made bread for Elijah, and events unfolded exactly as Elijah had said: “There was always enough flour and olive oil left in the containers, just as the Lord had promised through Elijah.” (verse 16).

That part of the story is usually told as an example of what happens when someone shows faith in the Lord. Indeed, the Wednesday group leader summarized it by saying: “You do what the Lord says and good things happen to you. I am not saying a miracle will always happen, but good things result from obedience.”

The leader then went on to discuss the second part of the story, which is not told as often. 1 Kings 17:17-24 relates that later on the widow’s son somehow became sick and he eventually died. The widow expresses her anguish to Elijah, saying:

“‘O man of God, what have you done to me? Have you come here to point out my sins and kill my son?’

“‘Give me your son,’ Elijah replied. He took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his bed. Then he cried out to the Lord, ‘Lord my God, have you brought tragedy even on this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?’ Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried out to the Lord, ‘Lord my God, let this boy’s life return to him!’

“The Lord heard Elijah’s cry, and the boy’s life returned to him, and he lived. Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, ‘Look, your son is alive!’

“Then the woman said to Elijah, ‘Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth.'”

The group leader did not add much commentary to his reading of this part of the story beyond observing that the widow blamed Elijah even though he had nothing to do with her son’s death, and that God is able to do great things. For the moment, I do not want to focus on the probable meaning of Elijah’s raising of the boy back to life. Instead, I want to convey what hearing a story like that can feel like for someone who has experienced the loss of a child.

We have so far not related the details of Ethan’s death in this space because that is an extraordinarily personal and painful memory. What I will say is that his passing was very sudden, and as it was happening, as efforts were made to resuscitate him, we literally screamed to God to save our child. Immediately after we were told to accept that he was gone, we cried rivers of tears, pleading over and over for the Lord to bring our Ethan back to us.

Nothing happened. His body became cold. His life slipped away. We were left in the dark.

I don’t write that to make you feel sorry for us. I relate it because that is the way it is for many parents who lose a child. And so when you read a story like Elijah’s raising of the widow’s son, what someone in our position immediately starts thinking about is the death of our own child. Why didn’t God bring Ethan back to life? Was it because I did not have enough faith like the widow? Was this a punishment for some unrepentant sin? To many people it is just a Bible story. To us, because we have lived this, it (like so many other stories) takes on an entirely different character.

So, I felt discouraged coming home from church that night. That Friday, the same boys’ church activity group went on a camp out with their dads. All of the kids seemed to enjoy it very much, including our oldest, who caught his first fish during the outing. However, that night while the kids were playing, the men were sitting around the campfire chatting. At one point, for some inexplicable reason, one of the dads turned the conversation to talking about people’s ashes, and urns, and then cemetery plots. I got up and walked away from the fire because the discussion depressed me. What was idle talk to them was nothing to joke around about to me because my youngest son’s body rests in a cemetery. I felt disquieted the rest of the night (and not just because I was sleeping on the ground in a tent).

But then on the following Saturday evening and Sunday morning before church, I was reading the Scripture excerpts for those days from Daily Light for the Daily Path (my copy is in the English Standard Version, unlike most of the online versions which are King James), and some of the verses unfolded into a timely reminder:

“Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)

“Understand what the will of the Lord is.” (Ephesians 5:17)

“It is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.” (Matthew 18:14)

“Christ died and rose and lives again that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living.” (Romans 14:9)

It was not God’s will that Ethan would die. Sometimes “this present darkness” distorts God’s perfect will in this imperfect world. (Ephesians 6:12). That is not to say that God did not know or could not have prevented Ethan’s death — He certainly did and He definitely could have, but in this instance, evil was allowed to run its course. Yet, this is one of the reasons Christ died and rose again: so that He could reign over death and prevent such a little one from eternally perishing.

Later that same Sunday morning as I was sitting in church, the Scripture reading for the service included 2 Timothy 1:12. The second part of that verse says: “I know in Whom I believe and I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him until that day.” I used to take that verse simply in its context of Paul discussing preaching the gospel to unbelievers. After Ethan’s death, however, the verse became a promise from God for us: that He will keep Ethan, who we have committed to Him, until the day Christ returns. (This interpretation stems from the context of verse 10: “our Savior, Christ Jesus … has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”)  Obviously we did not willingly give Ethan away; evil robbed us and him of his earthly life too soon. But God has promised to keep and guard Ethan for us until we come to him. Ever since I was reminded of that verse shortly after his death, I have included it in a string of verses I repeat when I visit Ethan’s grave.

So I sat in the pew thinking about that, and about the verses on the Lord’s will I had read earlier that morning, and then the music minister had the congregation sing the hymn “I Know Whom I Have Believed,” which is based upon 2 Timothy 1:12. If you are unfamiliar with the hymn, the fourth stanza says:

“I know not what of good or ill
May be reserved for me,
Of weary ways or golden days,
Before His face I see.”

This is followed by the refrain, which is repeated after each stanza:

“But I know Whom I have believed,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed
Unto Him against that day.”

Then the final stanza reads:

“I know not when my Lord may come,
At night or noonday fair,
Nor if I walk the vale with Him,
Or meet Him in the air.”

By the time we finished singing that hymn, I felt overwhelmed with God’s reassurance that even though a miracle did not occur on that day Ethan passed, and even though his tiny body is resting in that small grave I so often visit, Ethan is okay because he is being kept safe by God until that glorious day. As I was reminded today: “Behold, the Lord God will come with power, and His arm will rule for Him. … He will gather His lambs in His arms and carry them close to His heart.” (Isaiah 40:10,11).

And as for Elijah’s raising of the widow’s son, it should be remembered that even the widow, with her great faith, despaired when her son died. She earnestly questioned Elijah as to why God would perform a miracle to keep her and her son alive only to let her son die of a sickness. It must have seemed like a cruel joke. Elijah himself did not understand what God was doing, asking God: “Lord my God, have you brought tragedy even on this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?”

God did not rebuke their doubts, which merely stemmed from a lack of understanding. As I explained above, both the widow and Elijah erred in concluding that God caused the boy’s death. He did allow it, but He did not cause it — there is a difference (as difficult as it may be to see) between causing the tragedy and allowing it to unfold. For what the widow and Elijah could not know is that this event was meant to foreshadow a much greater one hundreds of years later.

The widow’s son died; Elijah laid his body over the boy’s body three times; the boy came back to life; and the widow exclaimed that by this miracle she knew Elijah was a man of God who spoke the truth.

Mary had a son named Jesus. He was crucified on a cross even after He had performed many miracles. (Mary was probably a widow when this occurred because Joseph is not mentioned in the Gospel accounts after Jesus’s childhood, and on the cross Jesus told his disciple John to take care of Mary). Jesus was buried, and after three days God resurrected Him from the dead. And it is by His resurrection that we know Jesus is God and that He spoke the truth.

The point is that there was something larger going on with the boy’s death that neither the widow nor Elijah could comprehend because the events that would give its context lay in the distant future. I am not saying that every death of a child has a larger purpose beyond demonstrating with stark coldness the evil that pervades this world. But I am saying that the fact that we may not understand why a tragedy occurs does not mean God allowed it to happen without preparing the future context in which it will be wiped away. Because in that future

“The Lord God will swallow up death forever. He will wipe away the tears from all faces. He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth. And in that day it will be said: “This is our God, we have waited for Him, and He has saved us. This is our Lord, we have trusted in Him; come, let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation.'” (Isaiah 25:8-9).

Until that day, “the Lord will bless and keep Ethan, and make His face to shine upon Ethan and be gracious to him and give him peace.” (Numbers 6:24-25).

Posted on by walkingintheshadowlands · 2 Comments

Over and Underneath

Ethan’s Mom: This past weekend, I attended the (in)complete Retreat for moms who have experienced stillbirth and infant loss. The weekend consisted of group sessions with a certified counselor and Bible study with a leader who had attended the first of these retreats, held in 2016. My hope in attending was to connect with other women who know the pain of this loss firsthand, and I did, in fact, develop relationships which I think will last many years. But I was surprised to find out what a milestone this retreat would become on my journey.

I really didn’t realize how tired I had become – tired of pretending, tired of avoiding, tired of trying so hard to figure it out. The best picture I can give you of the change in my soul is an overtired child. When I arrived home Sunday, I was putting an overtired, no-nap 20 month old to sleep. This is not pretty, in fact, it is nearly impossible. No amount of rocking or shushing or calm reassurances of my love or his need for sleep made any difference. Eventually, into the bed he went, still wailing at maximum volume. After 30 minutes of throwing down in his crib, I went back in and asked if I could try rocking him again. This time, he did not fight me, and his anxiety lifted as I rocked. He stilled to my voice and seemed to accept that what he needed was to sleep. I didn’t put him in the bed as soon as he stopped gasping for breath between sobs. I held him until he was relaxed and ready to accept going to sleep. My love did not change one bit, and my actions were pretty similar both times I tried to put him to bed. He wasn’t able to accept my love in the same way he typically does at bedtime because his body and mind were so incredibly tired that it was affecting him deeply. Eventually, he hit bottom and looked to the person who had been there trying to help all along.

I have been an overtired toddler in the arms of God for many months now. Perhaps those of you who interact with me are surprised by this, but that is the best description for the angst that has built up inside of me, maybe mostly since the anniversary of Ethan’s death. It has felt like people have moved so far beyond this tragedy that anytime I tried to talk about Ethan or my grief, I felt like people became very uncomfortable. Well, if there is one thing I try to avoid, it is rocking the boat. Taking responsibility for how people reacted to my life and my loss was putting a tremendous strain on me. I was overwhelmed by the darkness — fighting and punching at air, trying to wrestle with what happened to my sweet baby, my family, and my faith — but I didn’t want any help. I didn’t want to invite anyone into the darkness with me.

There were many holy moments throughout the weekend, and some I will ponder in my own heart instead of sharing them on this blog. But I want to share a message I believe I received from God the Father through his Holy Spirit and the wise counsel of the retreat staff.

The Bible study leader and I were cut from the same perfectionistic cloth. Her journey contained battles with many of the things I had been struggling with. She encouraged us that we can stop wrestling with ourselves and start wrestling with God, inviting Him into our darkness. The enemy would have us fighting within ourselves instead of going to God with questions and doubts and turmoil. If he can keep us from bringing Him the negative feelings that are so hard to feel and harder still to express to other people, even the closest of friends or family, He can keep us away from the source of healing.

It sounds easy to bring everything to God, but it isn’t, at least for me. In the first few months after Ethan died, I remember telling Greg that people needed to stop telling me about the loving arms of Jesus. I did not feel surrounded by the loving arms of Jesus. I felt like I was in a choke-hold and that Jesus, if he was even really real, was a million miles away, coolly detached from my misery.

What I didn’t realize until this weekend is that I was stuck there. I have returned to church and Bible study, and I have watched as my husband’s cracked faith seemed to cement back into place. I have a completely new and deep gratefulness and longing for the return of Christ and the redemption of the world, but for the here and now, He seemed so far away. One day He will be my hero, defeat death, and restore me to Ethan, but until then, I’m just on my own down here in this crazy messed up world, fighting all the battles that wage inside of me. Grief has been the loneliest experience of my life.

Maybe it is easy to read that and think, “Oh, how misguided. What weak faith. Of course, God is always with us, He says so.” Beggin’ your pardon, but if you have never buried a child, you have no idea what it takes to choose every moment of every day to keep trusting in a loving God who could have saved your baby in a hundred different ways but did not.

That is the paradox. My really thoughtful and deep husband addressed this in a blog post already. I guess this is my version of coming to terms with this, a little later on.

The Bible study leader encouraged us to lean into the paradox, to wrestle with God, to “pour out your heart like water before the Lord’s presence” (Lamentations 2:19). And throughout the rest of my messy, tearful, heart wrenching prayers during the weekend, I started to lean in. He spoke to my heart in a non-saccharine, non-loving-arms-of-Jesus way that He was here, and even though I couldn’t even see or acknowledge Him, that He has been here all along. He told me that it was time to stop flailing and fighting His love, that it is real and near even though it hasn’t felt like that at all.

And in that revelation, I rested. My soul rested, just like my overtired bundle of sweat and tears fell asleep in my arms as I rocked and sang over him.

I do not mean to imply that I was “fixed” this weekend or that I don’t have sadness and doubt, longing and heartbreak, and all the other emotions that can weigh so heavily on those of us who walk through the valley of the shadow of death. But I do know in a way I didn’t before, that He is with me in the valley. His rod and staff comfort me. I believe He will give me provisional grace for this messy life and have decided to trust it from here on.

I want to share the lyrics to a song that describes what I am trying to express in this post.  Jesus loves you, always, and I am praying that you can rest in this truth today.

I hear You say
“My love is over, it’s underneath
It’s inside, it’s in between
The times you doubt me
When you can’t feel
The times that you question
“Is this for real?”
The times you’re broken
The times that you mend
The times you hate me
And the times that you bend
Well my love is over, it’s underneath
It’s inside, it’s in between
These times that you’re healing
And when your heart breaks
The times that you feel like you’ve fallen from grace
The times you’re hurting
The times that you heal
The times you go hungry and are tempted to steal
In times of confusion
In chaos and pain
I’m there in your sorrow under the weight of your shame
I’m there through your heartache
I’m there in the storm
My love I will keep you by my power alone
I don’t care where you’ve fallen or where you have been
I’ll never forsake you
My love never ends
It never ends.”