Hard Times Hope

I have a friend who is very angry with God right now and with good reason. She is struggling to reconcile her anger with a powerful loving God who seems to dish out suffering and then stand by to watch what happens. Telling her to read the book of Job is not a good answer. It only proves her anger. To tell the truth, I have no easy answers for this timeless question. Better minds than mine have explored and written about God’s presence, or lack thereof, in a world filled with pain.
As a certified bookaholic, I turn to reading in times of great need. After Tim’s death, I read “A Grief Observed” by C.S. Lewis written about his wife’s death. In him I found a tough minded writer who did not suffer fools or foolishness gladly. His writing served as a staff in the valley of death while he reworked what he believed about God. When my sister committed suicide, someone gave me a copy of “Brother to a Dragonfly” written by Will Campbell. The story of his faith journey through the aftermath of his brother’s suicide helped me find new paths to travel. And always, always, I read the Psalms. Those ancient words sing my sorrow in ways that honor my grief and anger without the sop of easy answers. “How long, O Lord? Wilt thou forget me forever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all the day?”
I am not the first person to question God’s presence and loving care in the face of unbearable, unimaginable pain and suffering nor will my friend be the last. As one of my favorite therapists used to remind me, “It is not just about you, Peggy.” Crucifixion happens every day to those we know and love and to those far away. It is as much a fact of life as birth and death. The difficulty comes when we feel singled out as if the universe created by God should be fair and just. My daughter Alison had a standard reply to all of life’s perceived injustice, whether being made to go to bed early or having to do homework… It isn’t fair. Now her son echoes the same observation as he begins to learn how to live in a world filled with discrepancies.
All I know about God is this… God is love. God loves me. When bad things happen, it is not God’s fault nor is it God’s responsibility to fix it. We are all finite creatures and when our time of ending comes, we have choices to make. After the pain and anger subside, we can choose to find meaning and a deeper, truer way of believing or we can choose to be consumed by loss. Either way, God is with us as much as we can stand it. And, sometimes, we can’t stand it for long. I cannot imagine a world where death is the final word, where endings have no new beginnings or a universe without a loving Creator. In the midst of my darkest times, somehow, somewhere, God has come to me in other people, books, the Psalms, animals, and silence. And I know, I know even if just for a moment, that I am not forsaken or forgotten. That memory sustains my hope in this Advent darkness.
Today, Lord, I pray hope will be a companion for those who are angry and hopeless in this season of joyful anticipation. Let hope light the hours of the dark days and nights of sorrow and grief. And somehow, Lord, could you let hope lead us to a blessed assurance that you are present when our hearts are breaking? Please?

It isn't Narnia, you know," sobbed Lucy. "It's you. We shan't meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?"
"But you shall meet me, dear one," said Aslan.
"Are -are you there too, Sir?" said Edmund.
"I am," said Aslan. "But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Lessons Learned in the Land of After... Advent Hope

Grandma and Granddaddy were extra special for the cousins. When we were there, they had all the time in the world for us in the midst of their busy days. Trips to the Post Office became an adventure when Granddaddy hit the bump at the top of the hill just right so our stomachs would fly up. Chinese Checker games with Grandma were lessons in losing and winning with passion. When one cousin needed a Sunday dress for church, it was no problem. Grandma made the pattern and the dress, lavender lawn with little white flowers, in one day. I asked her for a matching dress but she had used all her material. We amused ourselves on the farm and in the house, showing up for meals and falling into the old iron beds at night worn out from the sheer pleasure of being at Cloverly.
When Granddaddy died, our family made the long journey to Virginia from South Georgia to a new place, Cloverly without him, a world without him. My soft spoken, tender hearted Grandaddy was gone. This was my first experience with death and Grandma gave me a never forgotten lesson on how to live in the Afterward. We arrived at the funeral home in Walkerton, Virginia and walked into the chapel where an open coffin lay at the front. Afraid of the unknown, my sister and I sat in a pew, watching and waiting. After a little while, Grandma came and took us by the hand to lead us to the front. Talking in her normal voice, she began to explain death to us so when we reached Granddaddy’s body, the fear had subsided.
Her generation grew up with death a visitor to the home. Her mother died at home as did most of the people in her time. The rituals and practice of death began early for her and she had the words we needed to hear, the hope we longed for without even knowing what our hearts were aching for. Granddaddy’s body was a shell, she said, a shell that gave him a home to live in while he was here on earth. When his body died, all that was left was the shell but Granddaddy was still alive. He was in our hearts and he was with God. We were comforted and learned to live in a land without Granddaddy present in body. The true lesson she taught us that day was hope… death is not the final word nor is it endless separation. It is both ending and beginning but the love flows on without ceasing.
“We who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us…a sure and steadfast anchor for the soul, a hope that enters into the inner shrine behind the curtain where Jesus has gone before…” Grandma helped me see beyond the curtain that day, lifted the hem a little so I could hope again, gave my soul an anchor that has held steady all the years since as other losses came my way.
Thanks be to God for the sustaining gift of hope, a clear eyed, no nonsense hope that knows the odds and hopes anyway. This hope has lifted the hem of the curtain and sees beyond the grief and loss to a new day, a new life, and Love that knows no end. In this dark Advent season, I seize hope again as I wait on the Lord… not so patiently but I wait nonetheless. My lantern of Hope is dim and flickering this year but it still lights my path as I wait. Help me hold on, Hope of the Hopeless, abide with me until I find rest in you. Amen.

Before and after...Advent Hope

In my life… in everyone’s life… come moments of before and after. The before moments, the moments when life is normal as you know it, disappear like morning mist evaporating under the warm gaze of the rising sun. One minute it is there, solid ground, and the next minute solid ground is gone, replaced with quicksand. Before Tim died, before Gayle died, before Daddy’s diagnosis, before Michael’s heart stent, before… I experienced a seismic shift in my ground of being once I heard words that could not be taken back.
I do not stand alone as a survivor of before and after. All of us, if we have not yet felt the ground move under our feet, will someday know the feeling of time standing still as our world changes forever. In those moments, what we believe, who we believe in, how we live what we believe, becomes the skeleton for our new life in the land of after. This skeleton will be fleshed out in the blazing light that evaporates the soft, misty edges and reveals what is true, what is necessary, what is real, what is absolutely essential for survival afterward. We are born again and in the birthing, we are stripped naked, forced to change, grow or die for lack of understanding.
My friend Judy Herring said it best when presented with her diagnosis of ALS. “Not why me,” she said, but “Why not me?” None of us are completely protected from struggle, pain and heartbreak. God does not carve out a safe place, a cocoon for those who live for God in this world. Our response to the unbearable, the unthinkable determines who we become as we walk through the valley of the shadow. And there, in that place of choosing, one can find power, strength, hope, grace and joy. One can live in Lamentations or sing a Psalm, see only darkness and loss or search for light and a different life. Quicksand becomes solid rock as life, the precious gift of life, is celebrated in spite of, because of its limits.
Dear friends hit the wall last Friday, the wall that leaves you grief stricken, bewildered, lost and sinking. They are moving on now, making choices, living in their altered world, trying to remain upright as they walk over this stony ground. For them and for all those who walk in Advent darkness, I pray the light touch of hope to come and rest in their souls. I pray the rough places will be made smooth as hope becomes the wind beneath their eagle wings. As they live with uncertainty, I pray for an abiding assurance of new light yet to come, for new life yet to be born, for beginnings in the midst of endings and for the strong, strong Love That Knows No End to surround them. Help me be a part of your Loving Face, O God, for those who need to feel and see you in their time of Advent darkness.