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When Knowing is not the Answer

Ethan’s Dad:

HERE’S A STORY ABOUT UNCERTAINTY. In the early 20th Century, technology kept improving and the instruments kept improving and the instruments used for scientific measurements kept growing more precise. So did the clocks, to the extent that train schedules could finally be synchronized across Europe. That different trains in different places could leave their stations at the same time — well, that was very important to the patent office in Bern, Switzerland. But it was also very curious to a clerk who worked there.

‘Albert Einstein said, we used to think we knew what ‘at the same time’ meant,’ says Hans Halvorson, a professor of philosophy at Princeton. ‘It meant “simultaneous.” And the whole relativity revolution was Einstein saying, “Wait, when we have really precise measurements, what we thought of as being the same time breaks down.” We don’t really know what it means to say something happened in New Jersey at the same time as something happened in Sydney, Australia.’

It turns out to be the driving force of the breakthroughs that define modern physics. ‘What happened,’ Halvorson says, ‘was that experimental techniques kept getting better and better so they could pin down things more and more. But what they were finding was that as one thing was pinned down more and more precisely, it was making other questions harder and harder to answer.’

This seeming paradox — more knowledge leading to less certainty — pertains more to quantum physics than it does to relativity. But according to Halvorson, the underlying philosophical questions have never been settled, ‘because there are people who very much hope that this is a temporary thing and we’ll eventually figure out how to beat it and others who think it’s telling us something about how we’re embedded in our reality. We have to figure out what it is about human beings that makes us think we can without limit make our knowledge more precise. Because that turns out not to be true.’

Tom Junod: How the Dez Bryant no-catch call changed the NFL Forever

Why am I starting a post by quoting from a sports article that was all about the vagaries of instant replay in the NFL? Because it unexpectedly contained an exposition about the human thirst for knowledge and, conversely, how that thirst seems cursed because it is never satisfied. To be sure, the philosophy professor quoted in the article does not say humanity is cursed; he describes it in terms of a scientific conundrum because “educated” people are not supposed to invoke primordial ideas like a “curse.” After all, we have evolved beyond such thinking, haven’t we? That was what the scientific revolution was all about as far as the post-modern world is concerned: ridding the world of religious superstitions.

Unless, of course, the “curse” is describing something inherent in the human condition. In the very first book of the Bible, Genesis, there is a story about how the first humans, Adam and Eve — who were special creations made by God in his image and likeness — destroyed their relationship with their Maker. (See Genesis 3). It is a story that, even in our ever-increasing religiously pluralistic society, nearly everyone knows. God told Adam and Eve that they could eat from any tree in the Garden of Eden except the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. With some encouragement from Satan, who was disguised in the form of snake, Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command and ate fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. Satan had told Eve that when she ate the fruit “your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5, NIV). That was partially true: Adam and Eve did obtain knowledge they were previously unaware of, but they did not become “like God” because they did not become all-knowing — far from it. Of course, it was not the fruit that imparted knowledge; it was the act of disobedience, which deprived them of innocence and opened the door to forsaking the good that God intended for them.

It turned out that knowledge of evil was not a good thing. The knowledge Adam and Eve gained caused them to feel guilty, to cast blame rather than assume responsibility, to lie and thus become less trusting of each other, and to feel scared of God rather than feel enveloped by His love for them. Just as menacing, they passed this knowledge on to their offspring, and that knowledge led to anger and jealousy by one brother toward the other, who then conceived the idea of murder as a solution to the problem. (See Genesis 4). People have lived with the terrible consequences of this knowledge ever since.

Thus, one of the lessons of that story from the beginning of human history is that more knowledge is not necessarily the panacea we like to believe that it is. We like to believe that inevitably the more we know, the better off we are; that the answers to our problems are just around the next bend, if only we can see a little further ahead in order to gain more information; that if we seek knowledge, it will reward us with ever-increasing benefits. But deep within ourselves, or at least the more years we spend on this earth, we start to doubt this belief about knowledge.

I write all of that because for a while now I have been pondering how certain situations in my life have been characterized by a lack of knowledge. As Ethan’s Mom wrote in a recent post, I had an accident a little over six months ago that was caused by falling off a ladder. I sustained a severe concussion, I had to go the emergency room (which brings painful memories in itself — especially on this day), and apparently I had multiple seizures while I was unconscious, which was a completely new phenomenon for me. The concussion initially caused some unpleasant after-effects such as sensitivity to noise, extreme tiredness, and some confusion. The fact of the seizures meant I was put on preventative medication and was not permitted to drive at all for six months. On top of all of that, a neurologist showed me an MRI scan that seemed to indicate that there are some potential problems in my brain.

So, throughout this entire period after the accident I have been wondering why it even happened. I do not remember the fall itself, but I know it is likely that the ladder became unstable and I simply lost my balance. I then had the misfortune of hitting the back of my head on something very hard. But that is just the physical explanation for the accident. What I really want to know is why did I fall, on that particular day just before my birthday; why did I have to sustain a severe concussion? Why did I have seizures that prevented me from being able to drive members of my family anywhere for six months? Why did there need to be all those physical scans performed on my body that raised the specter of several things being wrong with me, including with the one instrument I use the most: my brain?

It has been more than six months and I still do not know the answers to those questions. It has felt like a metaphorical parallel to the “dream” I had of me falling backwards off a ladder into nothing but darkness: no ground, nothing visible, just a pit of darkness. There is nothing. No explanation. No clarity. No ah ha moment revealing a purpose for this drastic event that came out of nowhere.

Of course, that scenario has happened to me before, in the worst way imaginable, six years ago today. That event of March 10th, 2017, is one I could never forget. And when it happened, all I felt was agony, darkness, and confusion. It has been six years since Ethan slipped away, and there has been no genuine clarity, no ah ha moment, no revelation of why God allowed that to happen. Oh, our knowledge has increased. We know that Ethan’s heart condition was a factor in his death. We know he was weaker than the doctors thought. We know that something the night before was off with him even more than usual. But those are just bare physical facts. They are not real answers to why our precious boy would be robbed of his life and why we would be robbed of his presence for the rest of our earthly lives. I have no such answers despite immeasurable amounts of time spent pondering, praying, and wondering about it all.

It is not because of insufficient effort that I lack the knowledge. It is not because of a lack of reading or learning or listening that I do not have an answer beyond the fact that some tragedies occur because creation is torn and shattered by a scourge of evil. And because of that, I have been wondering if the notion that having that knowledge will make it better is simply not true. Maybe I do not have the answer because it is best I don’t.

So, maybe those philosophers who say that it is inherent in our existence that further knowledge breeds more uncertainty are right. Perhaps the fact that things become less clear the more we know does speak to the human condition. Every time we look further into space we find there is more there than we thought and less we understand about it than we theorized. The further we probe into the smallest particles of existence, the less predictable the behavior of matter seems to be and the less certain we are of how that unseen world operates. As Bono sings in the opening of U-2’s City of Blinding Lights “The more you see, the less you know, the less you find out as you go, I knew much more then, than I do now.” What if that uncertainty itself is purposeful?

To go back to Genesis 3, I believe it is possible that the reason God commanded Adam and Eve not to desire knowledge for its own sake (not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil) was because knowledge is a false god. It tempts you into believing that all you need is to discover the right answer and everything will be okay when the reality is that further probing often just produces futility because there is always another permutation out there. I am not saying that exploration and discovery and learning are bad or pointless. I am talking about treating knowledge as an end, rather than as a means to the right end — as if the answers to life’s fundamental questions lie in obtaining more knowledge, or that if we can just be precise enough, work hard enough, study enough, the answer will reveal itself. I think God was trying to tell us that is not true: In essence, He was saying: “Do not seek knowledge, seek Me. I am the answer you are looking for because you are dependent upon Me.” Adam and Eve were tempted to “be like God.” (Genesis 3:5). In contrast, Paul tells us that Jesus, even though He was God, “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” (Philippians 2:6-7, ESV). We do not need to be God; we need to be with God.

I ask why Ethan died because it is natural for me to pose the question. I know God does not condemn the inquiry. He expects it. But what He does not want me to do is to assume there is an answer that I should be able to find out or understand this side of Heaven. We look for answers because it is inherent in our nature to seek knowledge. We want to solve the problem. But what if we are not meant to know the answer, or even, what if there is no good answer beyond that evil exists and wreaks havoc upon this world? What if we are supposed to sit in that void of uncertainty where knowledge is forsaken because we are meant to be dependent upon the Lord?

That thought is why I despise the saying “don’t waste your suffering.” I certainly believe that God’s purpose in the grand scheme of our lives is to bring us closer to Him — to make us more like Jesus — and that suffering can move us in that direction. But not everything that happens to us occurs for that purpose. When a phrase like “don’t waste your suffering” is glibly thrown around — especially to those who are in the midst of tragedy — it not so subtly implies that there is some “higher purpose” for every kind of suffering a person endures, that we should be striving to ascertain that purpose, and that, if we do not discover that purpose, perhaps we are just not listening to God closely enough. However, God tells us:

‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord.
‘For 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, ESV). Given that disparity, we do not — and dare I say cannot — know all of the answers for why some things happen as they do, and we put ourselves in God’s place, as Adam and Eve sought to do, when we persistently assume and seek such answers.

In fact, Ethan’s Mom pointed out to me earlier this week that the whole concept of “don’t waste your suffering” is a very American way of viewing this issue. It assumes that pain and suffering are some sort of self-help program that we are supposed to be availing ourselves of in order to improve our character. We Americans particularly view ourselves as problem-solvers. Every question has an answer if we just put our minds to it. There is nothing we cannot accomplish if we just keep trying. But that attitude is the exact opposite of what our spiritual lives are supposed to reflect. We are supposed to comes to grips with our constant need for dependence on God. We do not save ourselves: Jesus does. Isn’t that void of knowledge the place where faith resides?

And even if such mysteries bring us to that place of dependence because of unimaginable loss, it does not mean that God intended for that loss to happen. Just because we learn something does not mean that is why it occurs because correlation does not necessarily equal causation. We can thank God for blessings that come out of tragedies while still lamenting the awfulness of the events themselves. Being thankful in our troubles does not mean we must forget about them. After all, the Psalms of lament are just as much a part of Scripture as the Psalms of praise.

We always want this neat little bow on everything, to somehow make it “happily ever after” in the here and now even though God clearly says in both Isaiah (25:8-9) and Revelation (21:1-5) that such happiness will not come until the end of this age. It is the materialist, not the Christian, who desperately strives for and clings to happiness now because for him there is nothing else.

So, to me the proper spiritual response to real, heart-rending pain is not “don’t waste your suffering”; it is “don’t despair in your suffering” because God grieves about it with you and His Son experienced it, and precisely because of that, one day it will be made right. Hold fast in dependence upon Him until then. Do not buy the lie that all is lost because you do not see the good in your suffering. Because sometimes there is no good in an evil thing, which is why we need the One who not only redeems situations while we are here, but who also will restore situations when we are all at last with Him for eternity.

Later in that same U-2 song I referenced earlier, Bono sings: “And I miss you when you’re not around, I’m getting ready to leave the ground.” Every day, and especially on this day, I miss you not being around, Ethan. And through Jesus’ sanctifying work, I am “getting ready to leave the ground” of this physical world where, thankfully, I will see Ethan again. “Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).

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Quick note to end 2022

Ethan’s Mom: Well, I have had a few blog posts rattling around in my head but didn’t get anything written in the last few months of the year. I am hoping to be more intentional with this space in 2023, but before the calendar flips, I did want to share a post I wrote for The Morning that was published this week. I am grateful for this organization, which has been so helpful to me personally, and for the chance to write to a larger audience of grieving moms. “Facing the New Year Without Your Baby” is my second piece for their blog, describing the unexpected grief that comes with New Year’s Eve and Day. Please check out their website for resources including a blog, podcast, and online community for moms who have experienced pregnancy and infant loss. We will be back on our blog in 2023 as we face our sixth year missing our sweet Ethan and honoring his life in this space.

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Bitter & Sweet

Ethan’s Mom: I picked up my copy of Streams in the Desert after several months, turned to the current date’s devotional, August 19th, and found that I had previously circled it. The poem from that entry describes Joy and Sorrow as they are preparing to go their separate ways because they cannot travel the same path. Then they each gaze upon Jesus. Joy recognized him as the King of Sorrow and Sorrow recognized him as the King of Joy. The final verse says,

‘Then we are one in Him,’ they cried in gladness, ‘for none but He could unite Joy and Sorrow.’ Hand in hand they passed out into the world to follow Him through storm and sunshine, in the bleakness of winter cold and the warmth of summer gladness, ‘as sorrowful yet always rejoicing.’

That image stayed with me as I was starting to write this blog about our summer. It started with goodbyes and ended with a very unexpected turn of events but was sprinkled with fun, grace, and love throughout. Bitter and sweet. That is life in the shadowlands every day, but sometimes the tension is especially prominent. So, what have we been up to this summer?

After 10 years, we graduated our last child from our church’s preschool program. Our oldest finished elementary school. There were many special events to celebrate these transitions, but eventually, it became difficult to carry the weight of the grief alongside the joy. I was grieving a change in our family’s season, as we were exiting the stage of babies/preschoolers altogether and taking our first hesitant steps into middle school. I was grieving Ethan’s absence from the preschool graduation ceremony, the kindergarten tours, and the class lists while proudly cheering on our living children through parties, parades, recitals, and sporting events.

Our 15th wedding anniversary fell on the night of our daughter’s recital dress rehearsal. The weekend was full of activities, so there was no time to celebrate. My husband advocated for an anniversary trip right after school was dismissed for the summer. I thought he was crazy but actually it was the best idea he’s had in a long time (and he has good ideas frequently!). We spent time in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, hiking to waterfalls and up mountains together. It was a sweet time to slow down and enjoy each other after passing in the night for weeks.

In June, we had Vacation Bible School, which is always a crazy week.  During VBS, my parents painted the room upstairs that had been the twins’ nursery so that #4 could change rooms with his sister, who needed a room of her own among all the brothers.  This was good and right, but also hard because it involved moving Ethan’s remaining possessions out of the room along with his brother’s stuff.  It is mostly still sitting stacked in my room, waiting for the tough job of sorting through and packing up into storage.   But #2 is enjoying life in her ballerina pink room, and #3 and #4 are having a blast as roommates.  

The next week, #1 complained of a stomachache. Not nausea, not intestinal problems, just an ache in his abdomen. We gave it a couple of days, but when he couldn’t walk upright without discomfort, I took him to the pediatrician. She was slightly suspicious, but not convinced, that he had appendicitis. Later that afternoon, an ultrasound technician took one look and confirmed he had a raging case of appendicitis and also a high pain tolerance. We ended up at the emergency room of the local children’s hospital, the place where five years earlier we had heard the words, “there is nothing else we can do” and the entire world shattered into a million pieces. I have prayed we would never have to return to that ER. I have alternate plans for where to go in the event of a broken arm, etc., but when your child’s appendix is about to rupture, there is no other option. Thankfully, the doctors and staff, particularly the Child Life Specialist, were so kind and patient with us as we tried to calm our anxious 11-year-old and hold it together ourselves. The surgery went smoothly, he stayed the night, and we all went home the next day. Upon arrival, we had to throw away the contents of our refrigerator, as our power had been out for 20 hours starting the night before all the action, but there is nothing like an emergency surgery to put food waste in perspective.

Aside from a few camps, we spent most of our time at the swimming pool. Three kids did swim team, one did dive team, and we all enjoyed playing together in the water. There are many things I miss about having a baby or toddler in tow but taking very little people to the pool is not one of them. #4 really grew into a solid swimmer early in the summer, so all four are now strong swimmers who do not have to be within arm’s reach at all times. They can swim off and enjoy playing with friends. This is the season for the pool (past swim diapers and not yet too-cool-for-the-pool), and we lived in it. No regrets there.

We also looked forward to our family reunion in Michigan. My in-laws plan and host one every other year at various locations. This year, we had two neighboring cabins on the shore of Lake Huron, and it was an absolutely wonderful trip. There are 15 cousins on that side of the family, ranging from 5 years old to young adult, and they were all there, except Ethan. It is amazing to watch that crew reunite and pick up like no time has passed, even though it is months or years between our gatherings due to geographic constraints. We enjoyed catching up and being together while boating, swimming, and playing games – everything from corn hole to ping pong to Uno. But even this very sweet time is touched by bitterness. My sister-in-law had a life-threatening stroke soon after our first reunion in 2015, and the effects of the stroke continue to fundamentally affect her daily life. Seeing her adapt to the challenges in person is both inspiring and heartbreaking. Every time we are together, I am struck anew by how much she has lost, how hard she has fought to rebuild her life, and how thankful I am that she is still with us.

Which leads me into the “grand finale” of our summer, and it is not easy to relate. My husband was out working on a ladder in the yard the weekend before school started and took a major fall, resulting in a loss of consciousness. I found him very disoriented and called 911. For the 3rd time in 5 years, the fire department rushed to our house in response to a medical emergency. He was admitted to the hospital, spent one night in the ICU, moved to a regular room, and was discharged with a long list of unanswered questions. The following weeks have been very difficult, and it is still too raw to write about most of the details.

However, I will end with this thought. Sometime in the early hours of the morning in ICU, I suddenly realized that if my husband spent more than a few days in the hospital, he would miss the first day of school and be completely devastated. Thank God, he was discharged in time to walk #4 to his first day of kindergarten and give him a big hug at the door. Then we watched one little kindergartener walk through into the “big school” when there should have been two. Ethan wasn’t there to walk in, but their Dad was there to hug his twin brother goodbye. That was the end of our summer in the shadowlands – bitter and sweet.  Sometimes it is just plain exhausting trying to hold them both.

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Blessed are the Pure in Heart

Ethan’s Mom: We have participated in baby dedications for each of our five children. Our church allows for special moments to present the new baby, acknowledge the family’s commitment to teach the child about God, and ask that the congregation participate in the spiritual formation of the child. Some of the details differ based on the pastor or children’s minister involved, but they always included a presentation of a certificate and a tiny New Testament. Early on, I asked our children’s minister at that time if Ethan could still get a New Testament, and she assured me he could and suggested we do a full baby dedication for both boys, just as we would if Ethan was still living.

One thing we had to decide in preparing for the dedication was what Bible verses we wanted to designate as special “life verses” for each baby. This can be a bit intimidating under normal circumstances, but finding an appropriate verse for Ethan’s dedication was even more daunting. Ethan’s dad was the one who came up with the one that felt right:

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

Matthew 5:8

As with many things in the Bible, there are multiple layers to this verse. The Beatitudes in particular are more complex than they appear. This verse reminds us that Ethan, being pure in heart, is in the presence of God right now. He can see God.

But I hadn’t considered how this verse might also speak to another way Ethan’s life and death has changed me until studying the Beatitudes at BSF earlier this year.

I believe I have written before about counseling and how that has been an important part of healing for me. One thing that I particularly appreciate is how my counselor pushes me to grow more comfortable with the mystery of God. She has helped me work through anger that was preventing me from seeing ways that “heaven and earth collide,” as she says. While anger is an expected and understandable emotion, getting stuck in it leads to bitterness. When bitterness was taking root in my heart, I was blinded to the miracles that were happening around me, even in the darkest of valleys.

When giving his BSF lecture on Matthew 5, my brother-in-law compared looking for God with sin in our hearts to looking through a dirty windshield. When we repent of the sin which clouds our view, we can see God more clearly. That illustration has stayed with me because it was such an accurate description of my own experience. The BSF notes beautifully describe what it is like to see through a “clear windshield”:

“The pure in heart will see God today. They find Him in the Scripture they read daily. They look for God’s handiwork in daily events and nature. They recognize God’s image imprinted upon their neighbor, their spouse, their child, and themselves. They recognize God’s Spirit moving in the seemingly mundane and in miraculously life-changing moments.”

Here is a particularly mundane example from recent memory. One day during the heavy season from January to March, I went on a much needed walk. It was one of those walks that ended up having a lot of running portions to work out some pent up emotions, and I was getting low on both energy and hope as I huffed and puffed up a hill at the end of my route. A fellow runner approached and called out to me, “This hill sucks, but you’re doing great!” Maybe it sounds strange, but I immediately had a feeling that this message of encouragement was not really about running up a hill, nor was it really from a fellow runner. I truly believe it was a message from God to encourage me through the coming months of intensified grief, which it did.

Being a mother to Ethan has taught me more about seeing God than any other single experience in my life. I cannot look at the falling leaves, seeds, flowers, dragonflies, or lightning bugs in the same way again. I catch my breath when a train whistles at the exact moment I need to hear one. There are simply too many examples to list.

A precious baby with a hole in his heart has helped me learn about the importance of being pure in heart and looking for God everywhere, even in the deepest pain and darkest nights. Truly, this is our Father’s world, and God does “shine in all that’s fair” — if we have hearts to see.

“This is my Father’s world,
And to my list’ning ears
All nature sings, and round me rings
The music of the spheres.

“This is my Father’s world:
I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas—
His hand the wonders wrought.

“This is my Father’s world:
The birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white,
Declare their Maker’s praise.

“This is my Father’s world:
He shines in all that’s fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,
He speaks to me everywhere.

“This is my Father’s world:
Oh, let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the ruler yet.

“This is my Father’s world,
The battle is not done:
Jesus who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heav’n be one.”

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Living in the In Between

Ethan’s Dad: Particularly since we recently celebrated Easter, I want to pick up a thread of what Ethan’s mom talked about in her last post. If you are a Christian, there can be a palpable tension about the subject of death. We are taught from early on in our Christian walk that the existence of death is a consequence of sin that began with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It signifies the seriousness of the separation between God and humanity sin produces. Yet, we are also taught that death is not the true end of the story of life: that yes, Jesus came and died, but also that He rose from the grave, and because He conquered death, we will be reunited with God — and with everyone who has died believing upon Jesus — in the age to come. Thus, for the Christian, death is simultaneously understood as the ultimate enemy of God’s original design for creation and also as an obstacle that Jesus has overcome, and so it should not be feared. At times, you will even read or hear Christians — wrongly I think — attempt to meld those two ideas into a lesson that death is really just a natural part of life.

The theme of Ash Wednesday is sometimes twisted into this idea that death is a natural part of life. Ash Wednesday asks us to ponder the fact that we are dust. From dust we came and to dust we shall return. (Genesis 3:19). The Psalmist prays for God to teach us to number our days. (Psalm 90:12). Paul reminds us that we are the clay and God is the potter. (Romans 9:19-21). So, this idea runs throughout Scripture. On Ash Wednesday, the fact that we are dust is said solemnly — with a sense that we prefer not to think about death, that we avoid the fragility of life, that we distract ourselves from reality.

But what about those of us for whom death is all too real? Each week, I take time to sit at Ethan’s grave, and death is all around me. I carry Ethan’s death with me every day. I do not have to will myself to ponder the fleeting nature of life here on earth because I helplessly watched it slip away from a two-month old. So, for me, Ash Wednesday does not conjure anything that I strive to avoid. And saying that we just need to accept that death is part of life feels like asking me to be okay with Ethan’s death. But I cannot do that. No matter how much I contemplate the inevitability of death, or the lack of control over when it comes, or the fact that it affects everyone, it does not quell this knot within me that screams that this is wrong, that it is not the way it should be, that a theft has occurred which cannot be restored.

Moreover, the idea that we are “just dust” does not tell the whole story of who we are. Scientists will tell you that our bodies are made primarily of carbon and water. But in the Bible, dust and clay are used as metaphors to give us pictures of our relationship with God, not as scientific observations. The Bible is full of exhortations about our souls, the spiritual part of our being.

  • Deuteronomy 6:5: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”
  • Psalm 23:3: “He refreshes my soul.”
  • Psalm 35:9: “Then my soul will rejoice in the Lord and delight in his salvation.”
  • Psalm 84:2: “My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.”
  • Matthew 10:28 (Jesus speaking): “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
  • Hebrews 6:19: “We have this hope [of salvation by Jesus] as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.”
  • 1 Peter 1:9: “For you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

Thus, the Bible teaches that when our bodies die, our souls do not. Furthermore, the Bible tells us that the birth of sin into the world did not just result in physical death; it caused spiritual separation between God and humanity. In fact, this is deemed to be the more serious aspect of sin’s consequences. And when Jesus died on the Cross, He did not just take our deserving physical punishment for sin; He also endured spiritual separation from God. This is why He says on the Cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).

That takes us forward to Easter because when Jesus rose from the grave, He unequivocally conquered physical death, but He also restored the spiritual gap between God and humanity. The central message of Christianity is that “God so loved the world” — that is, humanity, we physical and spiritual beings who bear His image — “that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16). That eternal life is both physical and spiritual. Revelation ends with the resounding proclamation that one day Jesus “will wipe every tear from our eyes. There will be no more death, or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:4). Paul also tells us that when “the end comes, [Jesus] will hand over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For Jesus must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” (1 Corinthians 15:24-26).

So, death is the enemy that Jesus has overcome. Yet, for us, physical death is still here. It lingers, and it hurts. And that accounts for the tension I mentioned at the beginning of this post. The tension exists because, if you are a Christian, you live in the “in between”: the “already but not yet” context of knowing and believing that Jesus came, died, and rose again to save us from sin and death, but that He has not yet come again to place all things under His feet.

We are not unique in living in an “in between” age. The Israelites lived for hundreds of years in between the promise of a Messiah to come and His arrival. In fact, if you date it from the first implicit reference to Jesus in Genesis 3:15, they lived for thousands of years before His coming. Micah 7:7 echoes the sentiment: “I will watch in hope for the Lord. I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me.” Certainly, our “in between” age is better than theirs because, by the grace of God, we know who the Messiah is and what He has done, and even what He will do at the appointed time. But it is still not an easy time because there is pain, separation, and loss that exist in abundance in this world.

When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden, could God have separated them (and by extension us) from Himself spiritually without imposing physical death as a part of the equation? In the sense that God can do anything, I suppose this was possible. But as I said earlier, the Bible tells us that to be human means that we have a dual nature: physical and spiritual. This is why, in order for God to experience everything as we do, He had to become fully human; God is spirit (John 4:24), but through Jesus He also became flesh (John 1:14). For us, committing sin means spiritual separation from God, but it also ultimately entails physical death. So, one reason Jesus had to physically die on the Cross and not “just” experience spiritual separation from God the Father was because the consequences of sin for human beings involves experiencing both, and then His saving humanity required reuniting the physical and the spiritual for eternity though a physical resurrection.

In other words, Jesus died not only to restore the communion of our spirits with the Lord, but also to redeem our bodies. To put it simply, matter matters. Sometimes I think we Christians lose sight of this fact because Jesus talked so often about how His “kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18:36). Christians get caught up in thinking that Jesus meant that His kingdom is just spiritual rather than physical, but it is not quite that simple. Jesus is the King of both heaven and earth.

“For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.”

(Psalm 95:3-5). God’s creation of this world and of us as dual-nature beings, Jesus’s incarnation, His physical death and His resurrection — they all resoundingly demonstrate that our physical world, this flesh-and-blood life, is important. This is precisely why death is a profound event: the cessation of physical life — especially the deaths of the His creations made in His image — is no trifling matter to God. It is not just “the natural way of things”; it is a blight that Jesus came to reverse.

So, death is wrong, it is the enemy, because our lives are sacred and precious. But there is this part of me that keeps wondering if there is some other kind of purpose to death than just being a foil — the desolation that we praise Jesus for overcoming — while we Christians live this “in between,” which, in the personal sense, means we have been spiritually reborn (John 3:3), while we await the physical resurrection. During this “in between” we live with the loss of those who go before us and face our own physical deaths. Why?

Is it, at least in part, that it serves as a way for us to measure what is to come? Romans 8:18 reminds us that we should “consider the sufferings of the present time as not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed to us.” In a sense, that is asking us to do a comparison of our lives in the present physical world and our lives in the future in God’s restored kingdom. Are we only capable of measuring the bounty of eternity by facing, possessing, and living with a temporal ending to our own lives and the lives of those we love? Isaiah 51:6 commands us to:

“Lift up our eyes to the heavens, look at the earth beneath; the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment and its inhabitants die like flies. But the Lord’s salvation will last forever, the Lord’s righteousness will never fail.”

Will we only grasp the permanence of God’s saving grace through Jesus after having lived, loved, and lost in this time of mortality? We would only be able to do this because of the unique creations God made us to be. That is, because an integral part of us is physical, we experience the agony of death — both those around us and ourselves — but because our souls are eternal, we will be able to remember our physical lives, the loss that death brought, and how Jesus rescued us from that despair. This is perhaps part of what Peter meant when he said that “even angels long to look into these things” that pertain to the salvation of our souls,” because they do not experience this dual life. (1 Peter 1:12).

The loss of Ethan honestly would be soul crushing without the hope of the resurrection. Living with this loss forces me to surrender what is beyond my control to God in a way that nothing else is probably capable of doing. So, it just may be that through experiencing the devastation of death that we grow to understand that life is only truly lived through and for our Maker.

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Death is Wrong

Ethan’s Mom:

Written September 2020:

“What is your most persistent thought about facing death?”

That was a question in our BSF study last week. Yep, it was.

The context was a discussion of the end of Jacob’s life in Genesis 49. After Jacob blesses and prophesies about his sons and their descendants, he reiterates his desire to be buried in Canaan, in the same cave as his father and grandfather. We have walked with this man through the last several chapters, watching him evolve from a deceiver who took what was going to be given to him to a father who played serious favorites with his family, to an old man who seems to have finally grown into the faith of his fathers. He has lived quite a life. Although there are some outstanding promises, He is “gathered to his people” in the best way possible — in his old age, surrounded by his family, confident in his God.

People in the leader meeting and my discussion group took the bait so carefully laid out by the question writers in the preceding questions. There was lots of talk about looking expectantly towards heaven, leaving the troubles of the world, and being with Jesus. One leader even threw her hands up and used a word like “ecstatic” or something similar in describing what her response to a fatal diagnosis would be.

Excuse me?

To be fair, the question was written about facing one’s own mortality, not death in general. It’s not that I haven’t thought about my own mortality. After all, I have my very own, paid-in-full cemetery plot. Sometimes I stand on it when visiting Ethan’s grave, but it can feel really weird to touch your final resting place when you’re only 40 and in good health. In contrast to my pre-2017 self, I actually think about death a lot. I talk about it more than I ever dreamed, especially with my children. Several times a week, Ethan’s twin will say how he wants to go visit Ethan in heaven or ask when Jesus is bringing Ethan back to earth. And yes, my persistent thought about facing my own death now is that I am following a path that Ethan has already traveled and at the end of that path comes a reunion that I long for every day.

But not until I was doing my exercise video of the day and kickboxing with unusual vigor that I realized something was seriously bothering me about all of this. I still couldn’t articulate exactly what until Greg asked me at lunch “how did the death question go in your group?” Then it hit me. The bigger question that I would have rather answered is “what is your most persistent thought about death?” And for that question, I definitely know my answer:

IT’S NOT RIGHT.

IT’S SO WRONG.

IT’S NOT FAIR.

March 9, 2022:

Recently, I read an article that made me revisit this post I started over a year ago and could not bring myself to finish. The author expresses what I was struggling to put into words that day as she considers the overwhelming death rate over the course of the pandemic (note: this article was written before the tragic events in the Ukraine started to unfold, which further underscores her point).

“I worry that, as people whose eternal fate is good news, we forget death is still bad news. God gave us life as a gift. Death isn’t our chance to level up into the presence of God; it’s the end of something God delights in and calls good on its own terms. Death is wrong.”

Death is wrong. Period. Whether a person lives a long and full life or a baby is stillborn or an anti-vaxxer dies of COVID, death is a separation, a punishment, a curse. We all deserve it, but we weren’t designed for it.

I feel this very keenly during the season between the twins’ birthday in January through the month of March. Conscious and subconscious manifestations of grief increase in frequency and intensity. Hurts that have scabbed over are raw again, and triggers seem to be everywhere. There is sadness but there is also anger. I find myself with a much shorter fuse with people around me, especially my kids.

What is the root of this anger? Why does it all seem so incredibly unfair when I know intellectually that my family isn’t exempt from tragedy? I think it’s because death is unfair. We were created for relationships, for eternal fellowship, for life. Whether those relationships are marred by sin in this world or severed by death, we know deep down in our core that things aren’t supposed to be like this.

A wise friend told me something on the first anniversary of Ethan’s death that I will always remember this time of year: “There is nothing good about a death day.” March 10th is a day for mourning, not celebration. There is nothing good about a death day – because there is nothing good about death.

But as hard as it is to remember this evening, five years removed from cradling my child for the final time, death doesn’t have the final word. Tomorrow, I will pray “A Liturgy for the Loss of a Child” from Every Moment Holy: Volume II at Ethan’s graveside. Included among the stanzas of lament are these strong words of resistance:

Do not let my love turn bitter. Let it turn fierce instead — fierce in its defiance of death, fierce in faith, fierce in its resolve to seek first the Kingdom of my God, tenacious in pursuit of that which is eternal, tender in compassion toward the suffering of others, invested in acts of kindness, mercy, creativity, reconciliation, and restoration — convinced that all lost joys mourned in this life are but pale preludes of the fullness to come.

I do not know how this can be true. If I listed all the lost joys that I mourn in this life, I would still be typing on March 10, 2023. How that pales in comparison to the fullness to come, I just cannot fathom. Even still, these words reverberate deep within my soul, in the place where I know Christus Victor is coming to vanquish my ultimate foe. He must.

Until then, “Let us linger in sorrow long after those around us deem it acceptable. Let us refuse to minimize the pain of losing our relative, our friend, our neighbor, our coworker. We may mourn for the rest of this life knowing that in the next, our God who conquered death will wipe away every tear.”

Come Lord Jesus.

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A Birthday with Bereavement

Ethan’s Dad: We have just concluded the Christmas season, pondering Christ’s coming to us as one of us, born as a baby in a stable. The very One who is above all things lowered himself to become a human infant, with all the confusion, helplessness, and utter dependence on others that entails. Five years ago today, our twins, Noah and Ethan, did the same thing, in a precarious way, no less, being born in an ambulance being driven to a hospital in an ice storm. Little did we know at that time how vulnerable Ethan actually was (though his mother always had an inkling that he was somehow different). Jesus did not have Ethan’s health issues when He was born, but the fact that He experienced the general vulnerability of infancy helps me when I think about Ethan on this day.

Identification is not everything: no matter how similar another person’s experiences may be to our own, everyone experiences life in a unique way, and it is good to keep that in mind whenever you think you know what someone else is going through. But shared experiences are integral to bonding and to persevering through difficult experiences. The Creator of us also became one of us, and so there is no corner of our being of which we can say He is unfamiliar or does not understand. I have always believed that the Lord was with us on that anxious (and for my wife, extremely painful) ambulance ride, just as the Lord was with Joseph and Mary in that stable on that cold night so long ago. But then He showed up in the flesh for them, and, in the ultimate reversal, He needed them just as much as they loved Him. My wife brought ours into the world on this cold day five years ago, we nurtured them the best we knew, and Jesus said, “whoever cares for the least of those among you has cared for Me.” (Matthew 25:40).

But the book of Matthew also recounted another event that occurred within a couple of years after Jesus’ birth that rarely receives notice. In modern Bible translations, it is referred to as the “Massacre of the Innocents,” and it comes to mind because, as hard as it is to think about, I also have always believed that the Lord was with me on another ambulance ride with Ethan that occurred two months after the twins’ birth, and that ride always also accompanies this day.

At the time of Jesus’ birth, King Herod ruled over the Jewish province for the Romans. Herod was, by any standard, an abjectly evil king who never hesitated to employ violence in order to preserve his grip on power. During his reign, he murdered his wife, three of his sons, his mother-in-law, his brother-in-law, and many others who he perceived were threats to his position. Matthew does not provide that background; instead, he relates the event in short order. The wise men had failed to return to Herod after finding Jesus — despite his request that they do so — because God had warned them in a dream not to go back to Herod. In Herod’s twisted mind, Jesus was a threat to his power because the wise men had told Herod that a messiah, the “king of the Jews,” had been born within the past two years in Bethlehem. “Then Herod, when he realized that he had been outwitted by the wise men, flew into a rage. He gave orders to massacre all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, in keeping with the time he had learned from the wise men.” (Matthew 2:16). Joseph and Mary fled with Jesus to Egypt before this massacre occurred because God warned Joseph about Herod’s plan.  But no such warning came to the rest of the families in Bethlehem, and Herod’s order of infanticide was carried out with precision.

The details of this event render it apparent why it is not often dwelt upon in churches or Bible studies. Matthew tells the story in passing to explain why Jesus ended up in Egypt, which fulfilled a messianic prophecy. But such a traumatic event deserves some pondering because, for the parents who remained in Bethlehem, it involved what is every parent’s worst fear: that one of their children would suddenly face death, and there would be nothing they could do about it. The Bible recognizes this by having Matthew pause to acknowledge the pain of those families who became collateral damage in this tale of the Christ, by quoting Jeremiah 31:15:

“This is what the Lord says:

‘A voice is heard in Ramah,
mourning and great weeping,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.'”

There is more to that reference than just another fulfillment of Scripture. There is pain and suffering and senseless loss caused by the sinful desires of a cruel king whom God allowed to be on the throne. Many reasons can be produced as to why Herod was there, such as his grand building projects — one of which included the new Temple in Jerusalem — his interest in the Jewish king that helped the wise men find Jesus and spurred Joseph and Mary’s flight to Egypt, and, thinking ahead, so that Herod’s son could be involved in Jesus’s trial before the crucifixion. But the excruciating pain and loss caused by Herod’s rule also deserves notice. We may not be able to understand why God allowed this ugly abhorrence against innocent children, but we do a disservice to truth and faith if we just ignore that difficulty.

Unfortunately, the pain and loss described Jeremiah 31:15 is all too familiar to us. Our baby was not murdered, but he was taken from us suddenly and without explanation after he had been preserved through that perilous delivery and was to undergo surgery to repair his broken heart. The fact that God sees and acknowledges the pain of such losses is not an answer to why it happens, but it is worth something to know that God is not entirely aloof or detached from our personal tragedies that, in the larger scheme, seem to become mere footnotes in history. In fact, God’s identification goes well beyond acknowledgment, because He experienced the loss of His only Son in an excruciating and unjust manner.

The implication of fulfilled prophecy also offers some solace because such fulfillment means that God knows the future and arranges affairs to accomplish His grand design. The whole story of Jesus’s life is a testament to that truth, and while we cannot fully comprehend how the vagaries of evil come into that design, knowing that the evil does cannot derail God’s ultimate purposes is a lifeline for faith when our circumstances are dire.

A third, somewhat unexpected, balm comes from a further reading of Jeremiah 31. The chapter is actually relating a prophecy of joy, containing such lines from the Lord as “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness,” (v. 3) and “I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow.” (v. 13). But most interesting to me is what comes immediately after verse 15:

“This is what the Lord says:

‘Restrain your voice from weeping
and your eyes from tears,
for your work will be rewarded,”
declares the Lord.
‘They will return from the land of the enemy.
So there is hope for your descendants,’ declares the Lord.
‘Your children will return to their own land.'”

In the immediate context, of course, the passage is talking about a return from exile for the Israelites, but the broader application is to the final promised land “the better country — a heavenly one.” (Hebrews 11:16). Thus, God does much more than just acknowledge the torturous agony that comes with losing a child; He promises that one day our children will return to us in the new place He has prepared for us (just as His Son returned to Him in glory). (John 14:2; Hebrews 11:16). And, of course, this is why Jesus came as that helpless baby: so that this seemingly relentless evil that haunts our days on this earth would not be the end of the story. The Massacre of the Innocents reminds us that great sadness and pain remained in the wake of the immense joy of Jesus’ birth, but it also proclaims to us of the hope of glory. (“Through Christ we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand, and so we boast in the hope of the glory of God.” Romans 5:2).

And so it is for me on this day. I rejoice in the joy of celebrating Noah’s birth and presence with us. He is adorable and maddening, brilliant and confounding, silly yet sometimes deeply serious, boundless with energy and appetite for dessert. Our lives our infinitely better because he joined us five years ago. Yet our hearts ache for his missing brother, who may have been like Noah in some ways, but undoubtedly would have contrasted in other respects. Like those parents in Bethlehem so long ago, we are left to celebrate this day of Ethan’s coming without him, while holding on to the truth that one day he will return to us because this is what the Lord says. It is an incomplete celebration that awaits that joyful morning of reunion made possible by Immanuel. Happy Fifth birthday, Ethan! We love you always and forever.

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Counterfeit “Resurrection”

Ethan’s Mom: Tacky skeletons hanging out of windows or lounging in Adirondack chairs.  Kitschy faux tombstones in front yards.  A larger-than-life inflatable Grim Reaper on the corner.  A house just down from my parents actually has a full tableau that includes 4 skeleton pallbearers carrying a fake coffin into a full fake cemetery.

This is Halloween 2021, and I cannot wait for it to be over. Because the sooner it arrives, the sooner people can pack all that mess up for another year and I can go back to walking or driving around my neighborhood without Death mocking me.

For the past 4 years, I have tried to figure out the appeal of this decor and the overall fascination with the macabre.  Every year I remain completely flummoxed as to why I see even more skeletons waving from the yards in my perfectly nice neighborhood, why people who cannot even acknowledge death in its real context go all out to celebrate a cartoon version of it, and why the easy and fun neighborhood trick or treating of my childhood has turned into… this?   

The only new thought I had this year is that maybe this is all another example of Satan taking something that has a basis in truth and twisting it into something false, taking something that has real, eternal meaning and cheapening it to the point of casual “fun.”  In the process, he is able to desensitize and damage our very souls. 

Yes, the dead will rise again – but not as creepy skeletons or disgusting zombies.  

Our family recently planted fall pansies in Ethan’s garden at our preschool.  In the spring, we planted flowers with the students, but the garden needed a freshening up for fall after all the spring/summer annuals faded.  At the end, I read the Liturgy for the Planting of Flowers, just as I do every time we work in the garden.  I got choked up on this line, just like I do every time I read it aloud.

Though our eyes yet strain to see it so, these tiny seeds, bulbs, or velvet buds we have

planted are more substantial than all the collected evils of this groaning world.

They are like a banner planted on a hilltop,

proclaiming God’s right ownership of these lands

long unjustly claimed by tyrants and usurpers.

They are a warrant and a witness,

each blossom shouting from the earth

that death is a lie,

that beauty and immortality

are what we were made for.

Every Moment Holy by Douglas McKelvey

Death is a lie, not a joke.

The fake cemetery in the yard down the street may have headstones with funny inscriptions, but my baby’s name is inscribed on a real marker in a real (and actually quite beautiful) cemetery where his real body lies waiting for the resurrection of the saints.  And on that day, their creepy, bony arms won’t shoot out of the ground like those tacky skeletons.  They will be raised imperishable, fully embodying all that God designed for us to be.   Until then, it is a struggle to believe that His promise of resurrection is true, especially in October.  All the decorations make it hard to follow the command found in Phillippians 4:8.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable— if anything is excellent or praiseworthy— think on these things. 

Phillippians 4:8

I’m doing my best over here.  So can we just stick to pumpkins next year?  Please?

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What is in a Name?

Ethan’s Dad: We are studying the book of Matthew in Bible Study Fellowship this year, and right near the beginning when Matthew is relating the angel’s revelation of Christ’s birth to Joseph, the angel commands Joseph to name Christ “Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21). This signified God’s plan from the foundation of the world to enable humanity to spend eternity with God. Matthew then comments that Jesus’s birth also took place to fulfill a prophecy (from Isaiah 7:14) about the Messiah which said: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means ‘God with us’).” (Matthew 1:23). This indicated that Christ would walk among us and experience our humanity in all its highs and lows.

This idea that Christ is both with us and saves us is a vital truth. A lot of times we tend toward either/or thinking: things are all one way or all another. We do this because it is easier than seeing nuance in the people who cross our path and in comprehending the issues that confront us in our lives. That is one of the many reasons this COVID thing has been so difficult; there are no clean answers to how we live with it. But Jesus is sufficient for our needs, and that is reflected even in His names.

The fact that Jesus came to save His people from their sins demonstrates that the here and now is not everything. The people who live as if it is misunderstand the purpose of this life, which is a staging ground for eternity. So much of what Christ talked about referred to His Kingdom, which is not of this world (John 18:36), and which must be comprehended through the lens of eternity. For example, when Jesus said “the meek will inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5), He did not mean they would possess this earth; indeed, if anything, the truly humble are mocked for their refusal to “get while the getting is good.” No, Jesus meant that the humble will inherit a place of honor in eternity. The same is true for several statements in the Old Testament. Many Christians like to quote Jeremiah 29:11, which says in one translation: “‘I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you; plans to give you a hope and a future.'” This verse is so popular that you see it on t-shirts, on coffee mugs, on bookmarks, and on Bible covers. There is an assumption among some Christians that this passage somehow means that God is going to make sure your life on this earth goes swimmingly. Some even use it to claim that God intends to make them rich. But if you read Jeremiah chapter 29 in its entirety, you discover that the Lord says this to the Israelites at the same time He is telling them that they will be in exile in a foreign land for 70 years. So, why would God make a promise like the one in verse 29 if most of the Israelites were going to be in captivity for the rest of their earthly lives? It seems obvious that a life of captivity in a foreign land was not a recipe for a prosperous life. But that is because God was not just talking about the immediate here and now – which in itself required patience for those who would live beyond the 70th year — but the future: God did indeed have a plan to prosper His people — for all eternity. And so on it goes for many of the promises in the Bible. Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33). In other words, our comfort for troubles in this world is knowing the Jesus has ultimately defeated sin and death, and we can look forward to that triumph.

But that does not mean this life is nothing, or an illusion, or not worth investing in. Jesus, Immanuel, came to be with us, in this life, on this earth. This part of life has significant meaning too. “By His will we live, move, and have our being.” (Revelation 4:11). We are purposefully here, living these lives to become more like Christ and to bring others to a saving knowledge of Him. I am reminding myself of that in writing it. Sometimes I want to fly away to Ethan, to leave behind the questions, the difficulties, and the drudgery that accompanies this existence. But “the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world and all who dwell in it.” (Psalm 24:1). So as much as salvation for eternity is a gift, this life is a gift as well. This is why Ethan’s life being cut so tragically short is so immensely hard to live with and to understand. Yet, the fact that Jesus is “God with us” proclaims that presence on this earth — no matter how short — is a treasure. Thus, Ethan’s conception, his birth — as crazy as it was — his short two-months of frail, struggling presence with us, mean more than just the bare facts of their happening. They mean God wants him, that Ethan is a part of the vast image of God we all reflect, that we are meant to be part of Ethan and he of us, and that Jesus was, and is, with Him too.

“Great are the works of the Lord, they are pondered by all who delight in them.
Splendid and majestic is His work, and His righteousness endures forever.
He has caused His wonderful acts to be remembered, the Lord is gracious and compassionate.” (Psalm 111:2-4).

I confess that sometimes I can get so wrapped up in Ethan’s death that I forget the loving kindness of his life. The name “Ethan” is Hebrew, and it means “strong,” “safe,” “solid,” and “firm.” We did not pick it because of its meaning, but I truly believe that Ethan was strong to stay with us as long as he did. I will always long for his presence and wonder why he could not have stayed with us. But because he was here, he was a splendid and majestic work, and he is remembered. And because Jesus is both “God with us” and the One who “saves His people from their sins,” that is not all there is to Ethan’s story. In Jesus’ arms he waits for us, where we will continue life in the Kingdom, together.

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Round Two

Ethan’s Mom: “Many people find that the second year is harder than the first.”

I remember hearing these words from a grief counselor at the Amelia Center after the first anniversary of Ethan’s death, and they knocked the wind out of me. How could anything be harder than the year we had just (barely) survived? How could anything be harder than the confusion upon waking, the fog throughout the day, and the extreme fatigue brought on by just doing the basic activities of living each day?

I am not sure that it was more difficult, but only because it is one of those apples vs. oranges comparisons. I can say with absolute certainty the second year was extremely difficult in different ways. I thought I was past being in shock a long, long time before I really was, and I had no idea how much it served as a protective barrier against the full weight of grief. The whole first year was a bad dream. Every “first” was horrible and surreal. At the end of all those firsts, I felt like we had earned a reprieve. Does the offseason start now?

No. No, it doesn’t.

Because as soon as you get past all the “firsts,” you immediately start in on the “seconds.” Then it hits you: the seconds are followed by thirds and fourths and you never cross the finish line. I had been so focused on getting through the milestones, not realizing that things weren’t going to feel any better on March 11, 2018. Nothing was going to be the same for the rest of my life. In the second year, our loss felt more permanent and even more profound than it had before.

I have been thinking about that a lot in the last few weeks as the news of the delta variant and its resulting surge in COVID-19 cases is at the forefront of everyone’s mind. It’s another facet of the pandemic that has seemed eerily familiar to me. Over the past 18 months, we have grieved individually and collectively, and while grief is wildly individual, it is also strangely universal.

Loss of control. Heightened anxiety. Confusion at how people don’t understand how completely the world has changed. Questions without answers. Worrying about how this will affect your children in the short and long term. Anger that their childhood is being affected by this thing at all. Anger in general. Chafing at the new restrictions you are living under. A deep desire that things would just go.back.to.normal. The crushing realization that they never will.

Does any of that sound familiar?

As we are looking at another surge, we are seeing all the “seconds” coming right on the heels of all the “unprecedented” events of 2020. All of the sudden everything seems more permanent and more profound to me, and I don’t think I am alone in that. We are all dealing with an unsettling awareness of the fragility of human life and our lack of control over ourselves, our environment, and other people. As my counselor says, “no one is the best version of themselves right now.”

Beyond that is where we start to see different reactions. I think part of all the conflict and craziness is that people are grieving our collective losses in very different ways. Reminders that everyone grieves differently show up in all the books, podcasts, and blogs related to this topic. Fathers and mothers can grieve very differently, even when they both lost the same child. Some can’t get out of bed, and others have excess nervous energy. Some want to return to work as soon as possible, and others don’t want to return at all. Some need to talk more, and some need to think more. I could make a long list of very different behaviors, all of which would be considered normal for grief, although almost none of them are normal behaviors in and of themselves.

I don’t really know what to do with this realization, but I felt better after having thought about all the craziness in these terms. I am not suggesting public policy should be shaped by emotions or science should be ignored. There may well be correct ways to proceed at this point, and we may need to do things we do not want to do. I think my point is that we are all doing things we don’t want to do. Again. So let’s all just be kind to ourselves, love our neighbors, and know that “many people find the second year is harder than the first.”