August 19, 2022
During one of our front porch hangs this week, Amy and I found ourselves looking up at the massive ash tree casting its cool shade over her entire front yard. “I can’t wait for its leaves to change,” she says. I quietly nod in agreement. “It is always so beautiful" she adds, "and it will also be so sad.”
That is when it hit me; Amy is collecting her lasts.
We’re coming to the end of what will likely be her last summer. When she sees her tree come ablaze with every possible shade of autumnal color, it will be for the last time. That truth is just starting to sink in. I have always thought she'd beat the odds; she's a badass. Treatments just seem to make everything worse now; I see it wearing on her heart and body.
It was just a month ago that we were celebrating Amy’s 40th birthday under that very tree. To my surprise, Amy felt great that day and everyone who loves her came and shared in libations, laughter, and the amazingly delicious red velvet cake Lucy surprised Amy with. The day was perfect in its simplicity. I distinctly remember Amy crying earlier this year, after receiving more disheartening cancer news, "I just want to make it to 40." To have celebrated this last birthday with all of her people, in her front yard, under her tree, was truly a gift.
And this fall brings the birthdays of her entire family—all three kids and Logan—the last birthdays that she’ll have to celebrate with them. The last birthday memories with their mom and his wife. It will be our last Halloween culdesquad happy hour and trick-or-treat outing. I bet my life savings that she wears her rainbow tie-dyed onesie. Classic Amy. Will she see Christmas this year? The new year? What other lasts is she collecting?
On the good days, when she has the strength and energy, we get to savor the last days of porch visits and walking the kids to school together. Those walks will be hard for me when she is gone; Her porch a place of grief.
I suppose I am collecting my lasts too, bottling them up and saving them. But there will never be enough of these moments, for her or for me.
March 2, 2022
I don't need to remind anyone that we live in a broken world, full of immense pain. Pain is everywhere and the weight of it can be truly numbing, or worse, crushing. This is why I choose Brooklyn Nine-Nine over This Is Us. Every time. I do not need another reason to cry.
Reflecting this morning on the season of Lent, which starts today, had me close to tears. So why do I participate in Lent? Why would I willingly focus on the darkness I usually try to avoid? Because we serve a God who also grieves. When God saw the destruction of his good creation and the deep depravity of humanity's heart, "The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain" (emphasis added, Genesis 6:6,).
Jesus was "a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief" (Isaiah 53:3). Before his arrest, knowing his time had come, Jesus asked his dearest friends to stay present, "My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me" (Matthew 26:38). What a vulnerable request. But they drifted off to sleep.
Can you imagine? You are about to die and you ask your closest companions to remain present with you in your despair. You weep and they drift off to sleep.
Have we fallen asleep to God's despair?
In 40 days we get to celebrate Easter; the light and warmth of new life are around the corner. We don't have to stay in darkness forever because we know how the story ends. God has set in motion his redemption plan. God became flesh to know the fullness of our human experience and to become our salvation. The serpent will be crushed and God's creation will be restored. But to be numb to grief is to be numb to joy.
In her book, Prayer in the Night, Tish Harrison Warren writes from her own experience, "But unless we make space for grief, we cannot know the depths of the love of God, the healing God wrings from pain, the way grieving yields wisdom, comfort, and even joy."
The light is not overcome by the darkness, but rather it is made brighter.
I know Lent can feel like another thing to fail at. Now, maybe more than ever, we have had so much taken away we cannot imagine giving up another thing. My hope for this year is that once a day (or even just once a week) for 10 minutes I make space to grieve. I want God to know the things that are causing sadness, anger, or hopelessness in my heart or in the world. I want God to share what is in his heart too. If I can't find the words, I trust the Spirit will pray for me. By making this small space, I invite hope to enter into my grief – the hope that God's love and presence are truly unending, even when they don't feel that way.
I want Lent to draw us closer to the heart of the one true God who loves us so deeply, and whose heart longs for the world to be set right. I also don't want to stay stuck in sadness because...Jesus. On Sundays, I will find one way to experience joy. Like eating donuts with my family, taking the dogs to the dog park to watch them run around like crazy, or sharing a beer in the cul de sac with the neighbors.
I invite you to consider something similar. Perhaps we can even find ways to express and experience grief and joy together. At the very least, we could share a box of donuts.
How do we respond when events such as the recent shootings in Boulder and Atlanta unfold? We are no strangers to these all too familiar tragedies and yet the shock comes anew every time. The pain breaks away our sense of security leaving us to ask the hard, unanswerable questions. Again? Why? How long? I believe we will find no satisfying or correct doctrinal answer to soothe our hearts’ cries.
In these heavy days, when our hearts are breaking and words fail us, when the darkness feels like it is winning, and when the world is speaking too loudly, we have beautiful inspiration from God himself. We look to Jesus who “radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God...” (Hebrews 1:3) How did he interact with those experiencing pain and suffering?
Throughout the gospels, we see Jesus allowing his spirit to ache and be moved. We see Jesus move into people’s pain and address their needs with gentleness and compassion. He weeps. He is present and makes even the lowliest of strangers feel seen and known. He doesn’t minimize suffering ("it could be worse") or serve up false positivity ("you’ll be fine"). He doesn’t question anyone’s pain ("it couldn’t have been that bad") or change the subject out of discomfort.
Knowing his own death was drawing near, Jesus doesn’t cry out about the unjust crime being committed against him, but in those final days he feels deep anguish and still uses his final breaths to comfort those he loves. When Mary Magdalene discovers the empty tomb, she is overcome with grief, believing Jesus’s body has been stolen. Jesus appears to her and his very first question is “why do you weep?” He sees her pain. He addresses her suffering.
To be present to other people in their grief or anger, we might first need to learn to sit with our own.
How do we do this? First, feel what you feel. It seems simple enough and yet we are masters at ignoring and denying pain. Practice extending compassion to yourself as you actually feel your emotions. What is your pain telling you? Then, ask God to enter into those hard emotions with you. King David does this very thing throughout the Psalms. We can use his words as a script or meditation. Or we can simply use our tears.
“How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?” (Psalm 13:1, NIV)
Once we can allow God to walk alongside us in our own sorrow, we can do the same for others.
Pray and grieve your own pain. Pray and grieve for all the victims. Invite Jesus into the pain. When tragedies happen, the tide of grief that echoes outward touches more people than we often realize. There are the victims who actually experience the event (some who die and some who survive), but there are also the families who lost loves ones, the first responders who experience secondhand trauma, the families of the shooters experiencing a different type of loss, the communities shaken by fear, and even past victims who are forced to relive their own moments of terror.
May we be a church family that imitates Jesus by sitting with hard emotions, extending gentleness and compassion, and weeping with all who weep. Of course, none of these things magically answers the hard questions or prevents future suffering, but this is holy work. This work brings us hope and community, drawing us nearer to the heart of God and nearer to each other.
In these heavy days, when our hearts are breaking and words fail us, when the darkness feels like it is winning, and when the world is speaking too loudly, we have beautiful inspiration from God himself. We look to Jesus who “radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God...” (Hebrews 1:3) How did he interact with those experiencing pain and suffering?
Throughout the gospels, we see Jesus allowing his spirit to ache and be moved. We see Jesus move into people’s pain and address their needs with gentleness and compassion. He weeps. He is present and makes even the lowliest of strangers feel seen and known. He doesn’t minimize suffering ("it could be worse") or serve up false positivity ("you’ll be fine"). He doesn’t question anyone’s pain ("it couldn’t have been that bad") or change the subject out of discomfort.
Knowing his own death was drawing near, Jesus doesn’t cry out about the unjust crime being committed against him, but in those final days he feels deep anguish and still uses his final breaths to comfort those he loves. When Mary Magdalene discovers the empty tomb, she is overcome with grief, believing Jesus’s body has been stolen. Jesus appears to her and his very first question is “why do you weep?” He sees her pain. He addresses her suffering.
To be present to other people in their grief or anger, we might first need to learn to sit with our own.
How do we do this? First, feel what you feel. It seems simple enough and yet we are masters at ignoring and denying pain. Practice extending compassion to yourself as you actually feel your emotions. What is your pain telling you? Then, ask God to enter into those hard emotions with you. King David does this very thing throughout the Psalms. We can use his words as a script or meditation. Or we can simply use our tears.
“How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?” (Psalm 13:1, NIV)
Once we can allow God to walk alongside us in our own sorrow, we can do the same for others.
Pray and grieve your own pain. Pray and grieve for all the victims. Invite Jesus into the pain. When tragedies happen, the tide of grief that echoes outward touches more people than we often realize. There are the victims who actually experience the event (some who die and some who survive), but there are also the families who lost loves ones, the first responders who experience secondhand trauma, the families of the shooters experiencing a different type of loss, the communities shaken by fear, and even past victims who are forced to relive their own moments of terror.
May we be a church family that imitates Jesus by sitting with hard emotions, extending gentleness and compassion, and weeping with all who weep. Of course, none of these things magically answers the hard questions or prevents future suffering, but this is holy work. This work brings us hope and community, drawing us nearer to the heart of God and nearer to each other.