A Lament

As we teeter on the edge of a new year today, I feel fairly certain many people are looking back on 2013 and considering whether or not it was a good year. I have been. I will say it was a rough year for me. I wanted this New Year’s message to be different than the one I am going to write, but my heart hurts and I am finding it very hard to “count it all joy…” as Peter instructed the early Christians.

This year began so promising. Work was going well, the family was healthy, and I was stable. Every Sunday I looked forward to helping lead worship at church as a part of the praise team. Daily I could look at the blessings God poured out on me and lift up a grateful heart in prayer and praise. There were some bumps in the road, but they were minor.

But then I lost a friend and coworker to a fast moving rare cancer. She died within eight weeks of her diagnosis. It was a blow to me and to my work place. I really wrestled over it. She was young, and left behind a grieving husband and three children under 14 years of age. For reasons only God knows, not more than two months later, I began a slow downward spiral into deep depression.

Medication adjustments did little to help as each day my mental health deteriorated. By August, I was suicidal and with prompting, admitted myself to the hospital my psychiatrist directed me to. I was so demoralized by that point and I felt defeated, hopeless, and helpless. More medication changes, a week of intensive therapy and the start-up of ECT treatments (Electro Convulsive Therapy) and I was released feeling I was on steadier ground. The strong suicidal feelings abated and I felt like I still had a place in the world. But I was off work for thirteen weeks and it took every one of them to climb back up to where I felt I was strong enough to return.

Then my mother fell and broke her upper arm, requiring surgery. Within the month she fell again and broke her hip, requiring more surgery. At 93, it was just too much to take and she began to lose ground. She was three hours away where I could not just drive to the hospital and visit daily. Not being there was difficult.

I went to be with her for a weekend and then made arrangements to get off work and went back down for what would be her final week on earth. We moved her to my brother’s home where she could be surrounded by family and a vigil was kept around the clock. What time was left I spent telling her how much I loved her, and watched and waited with my brother and sister as she slipped first into a coma, and then into eternity. Her memorial service was four days before Christmas.

Stable, healthy, sorrowful, depressed, suicidal, heartbroken, and now it’s New Year’s Eve. The year is over and I am looking back too weary to even ask why. My only prayer is Psalm 61:1-4a.

“Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer. From the end of the earth I call to you, when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I; for you are my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy. Let me abide in your tent forever, find refuge under the shelter of your wings. Selah.”

I suppose this blog entry would be aptly called a lament. I have poured out my soul and complaints in the presence of God and his people. There isn’t much more to say. If anything can be pulled out of this that may be uplifting perhaps it is that God has not abandoned me and I do know that. But I feel raw, broken on the wheel and hurt too much to say more than that.

This is longer than I generally write and if anyone has read it completely, I thank you. You have given me a gift to begin the New Year: friendship, care, and a sense of not being left alone in this maze of pain. You are the face of God toward me that I can see and touch. I earnestly hope when I get back on my feet, I will be the same toward you.

A Time of Tears

There is a wonder about Christmas. The anticipation of Christmas Day causes children to hope to find that desired gift under the tree, whose lists for Santa parents hope they can afford. It’s a time for family to gather for sharing joy. For Christians, the Advent season is a time of remembering the true reason for the celebration. The Son of God, Jesus, the Eternal One, stepped into time in the incarnation. Gathering together in worship just adds to the joy of the coming of Christ, the Messiah.

But for some, the time of Advent is a time of sadness and depression. They are the ones who have suffered the death of a loved one. It’s hard to celebrate when the heart is broken, especially if the loss has come during the Christmas season. There is a pall cast over the day and instead of celebration, there is sorrow and grief. The empty place at the dinner table is a source of pain. The “Merry Christmas” greeting hurts and rings hollow.

Jesus came into the world to save sinners, but he also came to bring joy and hope that only God can bestow. Paul said believers do not grieve as the world grieves because we have the hope of resurrection and eternal life. When a Christian dies, it is merely a transition to another life in the presence of God. If we truly believe Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life, then we know the separation is only temporary. But while there is a joy in the journey, the truth is death is a part of our experience.

I lost my mother just a week ago and right now I am numb. It is the only way I will make it through the season. There will be a family gathering and we will share in a common loss. But I also know my mother would want to us to celebrate the coming of Jesus, to care for one another and share fond memories rather than gather to weep. There will be a time to grieve, but my mother is seeing the face of God and that is reason to celebrate. As Ecclesiastes 3:4 says, there is a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance.

I am straddling the fence between grief and joy, trying to find a balance that honors the Lord. He understands my grief. I am neither scolded nor expected to be pain-free. I am only asked to remain faithful and trust in the promises of a loving and merciful God. Grace is not meted out in small doses; it flows abundantly from the bottomless vessel that is the heart of the Father. I do have hope of seeing both my parents again. I said goodbye to my dying mother, but knew she was only a shell of what she is now.

All I ask is to be allowed to grieve in my own way, to be prayed over and to be loved in this place. God meets us where we are. He is near us in our pain and our joy. The day will come when loved ones will say goodbye to me. I don’t want them to lose sight of what is true, that though our vessels of clay will break down, the resurrection will bring life again, a life that will never end. I will remember that when the tears fall. 

The Legacy

Two days ago, my mother quietly slipped into eternity. It wasn’t a surprise.  We knew she was nearing the end of her life on earth. More importantly, she knew she was dying and was at peace about it. She was ready to go home. She was longing to go to her life in heaven and to be with my father who preceded her in death eight years ago. 

My mother lived ninety-three years, and I had the great blessing of knowing her for fifty-eight of them. She was a kind and loving mother, who loved her three children, her nine grandchildren, and seven great grandchildren.  She treated her sons-in-law and daughter-in-law like they were her own children. Indeed, my husband called her Mom because she was so accepting.

My mother was a rock throughout her life. Strong and intelligent, she was someone to emulate. I learned much from her about how life should be lived. She was not a complainer, even during the times of recovery for multiple broken hips and an arm in her later years. She kept her sense of humor and showed our family how to live through hardships without losing faith in a gracious and merciful heavenly Father.

My mother will be richly rewarded in her new life because of the way she lived life while in her earthly vessel. She served the Lord faithfully throughout her years and loved him. She was genuinely grateful for the blessings God showered on her, and remained faithful even in the hardest of times. It is her legacy to me and the rest of my family. There is an estate left behind, but my true inheritance is the gift of faith she instilled in me. I was reared in the church and have believed in the Savior of my soul throughout my life, thanks to my mother and my father.

She honored God and trusted him for everything. And during my years of wandering, she loved me and prayed every day for God to bring me back into the fold. God answered her prayers and I returned to the faith I had been raised in.

Her very favorite scripture verse was Micah 6:8. “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” My mother lived by that verse. Her walk of humble faith with God taught me the same. It is what I strive for.

In her last lucid moments, I read that verse to her, along with two other favorites, Psalm 23, and John 3:16. My mother knew she was going to see the Lord face to face and had no fear of death. I believed that about her, too. Some of my final words to her included asking for forgiveness for all I had done to hurt, and to tell her how much I loved her. And the most difficult thing I whispered to her was also the most loving gift I could give. I told her it was okay to let go. She said, “Thank you”, and passed away soon after.

My heart aches and my grief is in the beginning stages of a process I will have to live through. But I take solace in the truth that I will see her again someday. We will rejoice in the presence of the Lord forever, because a shared faith and that is my mother’s legacy to me.