by jphilo | Oct 7, 2009 | Daily Life
My heart was heavy Sunday morning. Our dear friend Lyle died Saturday afternoon, leaving behind a wife and two high school-aged sons. My heart grieved for them, even though Lyle’s Christian faith had been his confidence, hope, and joy since his lung cancer was diagnosed a year ago.
When my mind wasn’t on Lyle and his family, I thought about another dear friend. Her birthday was Saturday, the day her daughter was supposed to get married. But the previous weekend, her daughter called and said there were problems. My friend and her husband rushed to the city where she lived to counsel the young couple. In the end, they called everything off. My friend spent her birthday helping her daughter move into a new apartment.
Why did God allow such suffering and disappointment, especially to people like these, good people who serve Christ wholeheartedly? Why is he allowing young people such heartache so early in their lives? Angry questions whirled inside my brain as I trudged down the road. My head bowed under the weight of my doubts. My eyes stared at the muddy road, soft after three grey days of almost constant drizzle and rain, and my feet slipped.
Then a noise, I don’t know what, maybe a bird or a car driving by, lifted my head, and I saw the moon. It waited, full and bright, on the east horizon in the clear, pale morning sky, and it’s sad beauty spurred me to prayer.
Lord, let my friends see this moon, too. Show them the beauty behind their storms. Show them your face and heal their broken hearts. Be their ever-present hope in times of darkness. Amen.
Did God answer my prayer? Did the widow and her sons, the couple and their jilted daughter see the October moon? Did he show them his face? I don’t know. But one day, when God wipes away their tears and collects them in a bottle, the moon will still be there. And they will look up.
by jphilo | Mar 12, 2008 | Reflections on the Past
In the past forty-eight hours, three friends have emailed with news of the death of a parent. In each case, the death was a quiet end of a long illness and decline. My friends knew the deaths were blessings. Their families knew it.
I know it, too, for my own father’s death came after a prolonged decline in a nursing home. He and all of us were ready for him to go. We wondered why God waited so long to set Dad free. I spent fourteen years before his death grieving for the loss of the father I’d once known. So I was surprised by how much I grieved the loss of the man he’d become, confined to bed and a wheelchair, a man who hadn’t recognized me or remembered my name for a decade.
It took a while for me to understand the object of my grief. I wasn’t so much mourning the loss of my dad as the loss of my identity as a child. When Dad died his memories, like his memory of the birthday when my friends and I swam in a tiny inflatable wading pool in our back yard, died too. (I’m the hatted one furthest to the right. My little brother is in front of me, and my little cousin is in the bottom left corner.)With the loss of his memories of my childhood, I became an adult, whether I wanted to or not. I didn’t see that coming.
Those of you who have lost a parent know what I’m talking about. You know what my three friends are facing in the weeks and months will experience. I’ll be praying for them and asking them, now and then, if they’ve been surprised by grief.
And since I’m pretty sure what they’re answers will be, I’ll keep the Kleenex handy.
by jphilo | Jan 10, 2008 | Current Events
“Do you ever think about death?” A friend asked the question in an email this morning. He thinks his son, who has been ill for a very long time, may be dying.
Yes, I told my friend, I think about death every day. It started when I was a kid, and I looked at pictures of my dad in his younger days – showing cattle, playing football, goofing around with his friends. That young man didn’t look like my dad. My dad sat in a wheelchair, weakened by multiple sclerosis. He grew weaker for thirty-eight years before his body died, but even as a kid, I knew that little bits of him died every single day.
When my son was born, my husband and I confronted death often. It almost tore me apart until God showed me the depths of His love for our baby, and I learned to hope in His promises.
Sure, I think of death every day. But I think a lot more about life when I face choices about what I believe and what I do based on my beliefs. Will I concentrate on the little bits of me that die every day or will I focus on the new life I receive? Will I fear death or love life? Will I ignore evidence of God at work in or will I acknowledge and submit to it?
As I think about death and life, the truth becomes clear. I can’t stop death. But I can choose to live in a way that honors the gift of life, the life God gave my father, the life he’s given my son, and the life of my friend’s child.
Every day, I think about death. But I choose hope.
