Letting go...

This is a season, for me, of long distance grief. A friend who lives thousands of miles away is in the last few days of her life, as her dear husband and family and friends accompany her on the last steps of her journey to heaven. I know she will be with Jesus soon, but, I regret to acknowledge, that barely lessens the pain.

Indeed, I almost feel guilty. As if the 'joy set before' her should obliterate the pain of suffering and all that accompanies dying.

It doesn't. While death itself holds no fear for a Christian, it is the process of getting there that is so painful for us all, dying or living. As Woody Allen said: “I'm not afraid of death; I just don't want to be there when it happens.”

(And I wonder if more has been written about death - the only certainty in life - than about anything else except, perhaps, love, which is the most important thing in life. Because Jesus IS love.)

I am far away. Lyn is - was, perhaps, even as I write - a dear friend who reached out to all who knew her with love. I didn't know her well enough, close enough, dearly enough to comprehend the completeness of her love, but feel privileged to be journeying with her, albeit at a distance, in these last times of her life on earth.

But it hurts. And if it hurts for me, I can not even BEGIN to imagine how it hurts for her beloved husband and family.

And once again, I live, uncomfortably, with the reminder that life on earth is temporary. 
I live with fear and apprehension.
Fear of loss.
Fear of suffering.
Fear of grief.

i have not fully grasped the 'joy set before' me.

So I know that, in fact, the only way out is to pursue knowing and loving God. It is only in the struggle and the rest and the silence and the talking that I can begin to grasp how 'wide and long and high and deep' is Christ's love for me and mine and all those others.

As Whitney says: "We crave happy. He craves holy."

I need to keep a perspective. That death is not a 'storm of life'. It is not trouble that comes when we don't expect it, a difficulty to surmount or work through.

Death is an inevitability, to be accepted, planned for, embraced.

Life is to be lived in preparation for death.

And so I know - oh how I KNOW - that Lyn has done this. I think of others who have gone before and shown the way, too.

And I am encouraged to "Run to God’s Word. Look for opportunities to see God at work. Pray, expecting to hear from heaven. Tell about God’s faithfulness. Commit to the process, knowing that He who started a good work in you will be faithful to complete it…"

I am still puzzled as to how we can hold pain and joy in our hearts simultaneously. Bittersweet does not even come near it.
I fear to write a comment on Lyn's facebook page - who knows which words will be helpful and which will cause more harm?
All I can do is pray for comfort and ease and close encounter with our Lord.

In the eye of the storm

I've been closely following the monster super cyclone Pam, as it has wreaked more havoc and destruction in Vanuatu than any of us should have to bear.

The devastation numbs the heart and mind.

As I looked closely at the infra red satellite imagery, as Pam bore inexorably down on the tiny island nation, I noticed the eye of calm in the middle. Where wind barely was. And yet on its edges was the worst of the storm - winds of up to 200mph. Unimaginable.

And so is life. I spent the morning in a seminar examining 'Growing With God in Difficult Times'. Graham Archer from CPAS led us to examine our responses to different life crises.

I felt as if I was in the eye of the storm. Because, as I considered how, at times, I feel unbearably crushed, I took heart from the apostle Paul's own experiences which were, in fact, far worse than mine: "My friends, I want you to know what a hard time we had in Asia. Our sufferings were so horrible and so unbearable that death seemed certain. 9 In fact, we felt sure that we were going to die. But this made us stop trusting in ourselves and start trusting God, who raises the dead to life." 2 Corinthians 1:8 - 9

We listened. We talked. We considered the many, many survival mechanism we humans use to respond to a crisis.

We pray; search the Bible for wisdom and comfort; read other Christians' wisdom in books and blogs;
We face up to the implications, or we 'park' the problem until we can deal with it;
We rationalise, thinking it through;
We look back at past difficulties, looking at how God has carried us through

And so we seek the prayers of others; try to see the problem as a growth or ministry opportunity; get on with life, hiding in busyness; and we fight worry and anxiety, fear and stress.

And I learnt. I learnt of the crisis of pain and fear, physical and emotional. And how important, in it, it is to give myself

• time
• information
• the opportunity to talk.

And when the crisis comes, it brings with it the crisis of meaning, of identity. If I am ill/unemployed/bereaved...then who am I? Do I matter any more? Am I worth the same amount as when I can write a list of my achievements and 'possessions' - even relationships?

• then the only solution is in the spiritual disciplines: prayer, fasting, reading, worship...

The crisis of death invites me to keep in perspective who I am: remembering that we pray that the 'body of Christ will keep us in eternal life'. ETERNAL life.

And then there is the crisis of life. The criosis of living NOW, of keeping close to God, in difficulties, and in calm. 

Because life is cyclonic. We find ourselves on the edge of the storm where there is barely a rustle of wind to disturb our peace; or caught up in the maelstrom, as difficulties seem to grow, like the winds, ever stronger; or even in an unnatural calm and peace when right in the middle of it. But everywhere, throughout the storm, GOD IS THERE.

We need no satellite image to remind us.