• Death and Dying,  Dust

    Life, Death, and Limitations

    December 21, 2019

    This week, Christian Twitter has been alight with the hashtag #wakeupolive. Bethel Church leaders have been holding services pleading with, or even demanding, God to raise a little girl from the dead. Christian leaders from all the expected ministries, and a surprising number of people I wouldn’t have expected are joining in the plea that God would do this miracle.

    Meanwhile, I have been mulling over a YouTube series put out by The Guardian called Death Land for a few weeks now. In it, reporter Leah Green seeks to confront her own fear of death. For the first episode, she travels to a conference in Las Vegas called RAADfest—a conference for people who believe (or want to) that we are on the cusp of scientific breakthroughs that will allow for “radical life extension,” if not immortality. It’s both fascinating and unsettling to watch. 

    Both of these cultural phenomena point to our basic fear and avoidance of death: If we can’t avoid it altogether, we want to control it. This seems natural in some ways, but it also misses what I think is a gift and provision from God to his creation.

    It’s tempting to think that the things that are truly “good” are things that are the least limited in beauty, strength, intelligence etc. But all of that seems to stem from a forgetfulness or even open rebellion against the reality that Adam and Eve were created with limitations, rules, weaknesses, and were still called “very good.” They were limited and humble in their bodies—they were created from dust. They were limited in their authority—God gave them nearly free reign in the garden, and dominion over it, but they were still asked to submit to him by not eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, or the Tree of Life. They were clearly limited from the start.  

    This seems really important for us to remember, but we seem to forget it more often than not, don’t we? I do. 

    This tendency isn’t new, though, is it? Adam and Eve, after yielding to temptation and eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, looked at their weak bodies and hid them with fig leaves. They did everything in their power to cover their weakness out of prideful shame, or even a feeling of need. Weakness and vulnerability was a problem for them—and when they had the chance to turn toward God and receive his care and protection, they instead tried to cover themselves and hid.

    Death—either our own or a loved one’s—is a sort of testing grounds for Christians. It asks us if we will submit with humility to the limitations and weakness of our dust-made bodies. Death is our greatest enemy, it is true. But it was also given as a means of protection.  

    Adam and Eve didn’t think their limitations were good, but God did. Adam and Eve probably would have eaten from the Tree of Life as well as the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, presuming it would help them live happily ever after. But God saw that it would have an ultimately harmful effect and exiled Adam and Eve from the garden (Gen 3:22–23). His desire was for them to live with him forever in a restored relationship, not a broken one. So with the end in mind, he withheld what Adam and Eve would have probably thought was a good—immortality and the fruit of the Tree of Life.

    In that way, while death is a consequence of sin and a great evil, it is also a provision. Trusting God’s goodness and love for us means trusting that the limits put in place by our nature as creatures are good for us too. This includes, and I want to say this carefully and sensitively, death. Death does not feel good—for the dying or their loved ones. And these words are not a balm to those walking through raw grief. Death is an enemy, and loss should be mourned. Full Stop. 

    At the same time, death is a God-ordained weakness. So our struggle against the weaknesses of our body, including death, should not look like the shame-filled reaction that marked Adam and Eve’s response to their bodies. Can we instead respond to our limits without shame? Medicine is a gift and a tool that we should use. But when the tools start to cause more harm than good, can we accept the limits that God placed on the bodies as a good? God can certainly raise anyone he chooses to life from the grave. But shouldn’t our faith in his resurrection power recognize that his ways are not our own, and life and death come on his terms, not ours? Our hope, after all, is not immortality on this side of the grave, but in the God who, “veiled in flesh,” defeated death itself. 

    In the second segment of Death Land, the reporter follows Dr. Sunita Puri, a doctor of palliative care, as she makes rounds with patients who are dying. The contrast between Dr. Puri and the events at RAADfest and Bethel Church is glaring. At one point, Dr. Puri says something really profound: “Without mortality, I don’t know what humanity would be.” We don’t know what would come of living eternally in our fallen state, but I don’t think most of us truly want to see that. Our salvation, our eternity in right relationship with God will come through the trial of death if Christ tarries. We don’t know exactly why God ordained death as a consequence for sin. But do we believe in his goodness enough to know that if this was his plan for us it can only be for our ultimate, final good? 

    Believing this is hard—really hard. Maybe impossible in the micro, close-up view, when we see the evil of death up close. But as Christians we need to work hard to develop both macro and micro lenses—we need to somehow develop the ability see both the close-up, short-term and the long-term. Why? Because the God incarnate who wept at the death of Lazurus and his sisters’ tears, also tells us that he is working good for those who love him. The long-term view doesn’t make evil less evil in the short-term. But trusting that our limitations can be both painful and good can provide stability for us when our faith might otherwise be destroyed by the evils in this world.

    Aslan said in Prince Caspian that our existence as humans is “both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor in earth. Be content.” Our weakness is a chance to turn, again and again, to the one who formed man from dust. Instead of striving foolishly for the removal of created limitations, let’s aim to be more like the apostle Paul, who boasted in his weakness and rested in the all-sufficient grace and power of his creator who called his creation “very good.” 

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  • Grief,  More Stories

    Where Is Thy Sting?

    March 26, 2019

    Someone passed this blog post on to me, and it seems appropriate to share here, as well. Anyone who has lost someone “before their time” can probably relate to the question “What kind of God would take my loved one?” This particular blog post was written by a mother who has lost two infants. She knows the question well.

    But her answer is just two more questions: “Oh Death, where is thy sting? Grave, where is your victory.” And those questions provide a good answer, even when given through the tears of a broken heart.

    So please go read the post. Here’s an excerpt:

    Sometimes the enemy tries to offer me the lies that death and the grave have won, and that God isn’t able to be trusted. And sometimes, I reach for those lies because I don’t always understand. What kind of God takes children away from their mommy while her body is still freshly bleeding from birth? What kind of God watches a father comfort a grieving mother at their baby girl’s graveside? What kind of God sees the secret places of a mama’s heart, the parts that know the exact location in the corner of the closet of her baby boy’s ashes and yet, after almost three years, she still cannot bear to peek inside that little box? What Author of life can snatch life away before it has even begun? What Abba Father can take a child away from a mother? What kind of God would do that?

    Sarah Reike, on Risen Motherhood March 21, 2019
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  • Death and Dying,  Grief,  My Story

    Days to Remember

    March 25, 2019

    This is it, you guys. This week marks the anniversaries of car accidents, suicide, and my first miscarriage. 

    I sang with the congregation in church yesterday, and tears welled up and overflowed as we sang of death and resurrection. Most of my losses this week are from over a decade ago, but this week still marks most of the darkest days of my life—the loss of four teenage peers and one tiny baby. This week is worth crying over.

    I used to mark it well, taking some time off to sit and contemplate the losses I’ve experienced. To remember the people who have died, and intentionally grieve their loss, pray for their families, and let sorrow lead me to prayers of “Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!”

    The last few years have been, simply, busy, and I’ve let that be an excuse to let this practice fall by the wayside. But it’s worthwhile, I think, to take the time to mark loss, and my lack of planning is unfortunate. One reason I want to continue this practice (maybe I’ll have to shift the date to next week this year) is that I don’t want to miss out. I think there’s real gain in grieving.

    2 Corinthians 4:7–16 has been influential in my thinking in this regard. There, Paul speaks of the treasure we have—”the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Our bodies, in the metaphor, are jars of clay. As these bodies, these jars, suffer and become cracked, the light of Christ shines out with greater and greater brightness, being “renewed day by day.”

    So I remember, consciously, the times when I have felt the most cracked, the most worn. I remember the cracking so that I remember, too, the strengthening of the light within me and the comfort of the Holy Spirit.

    And I also remember for the sake of what Paul speaks of in 2 Corinthians 1:3–7, a passage I stumbled upon in my reading the morning after I learned of my cousin’s suicide: “For as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort…Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.” I remember for the sake of my empathy. If I remember my own suffering, and my own comfort, I can more easily enter into the suffering of those around me for the sake of their comfort. Taking time to grieve renews my compassion for those whose grief is fresher than mine, and allows the comfort I have received to flow over into the lives of others.

    So, what does this time look like for me?

    Usually it involves some time spent in quiet remembering—literally just thinking back on those days, and reliving them. I put together the timeline of events, remembering the conversations of the day, and stepping back into the emotions of the day. 

    I like to take some time to journal and pray, too. I try to remember the people who were most affected by loss in those days, and pray for them. Grief for sons and daughters never goes away. The loss of children can have an enormous impact on marriages, jobs, and all of life. Trauma in adolescence is powerful for good or ill. I never want to assume that 12 or more years later friends and family are “over it.” So this is my day to remember to pray for the people that I know who have been impacted the most.

    Usually this takes just an hour, maybe two. It feels like a short time to remember such life-altering events, and mourn lives of sons and daughters, people made in the image of God.

    Life is precious, and death is catastrophic. Two hours of grief a year doesn’t seem like enough. 

    For those of you who have lost friends and family, I’d love to hear from you. Do you take days of remembrance for losses you’ve experienced? How do you enter intentionally into grief as the years progress and the open wound of loss becomes scar tissue?

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  • Death and Dying

    The “Why” Question

    March 8, 2019

    Every now and then I’m struck by how weird it is that I am so interested in death and decay. I don’t think I’m a morbid. I don’t think I have an unhealthy interest in or attraction to the macabre. But still, I seem to continually circle back around to this topic, admittedly with some intention, but often without even realizing what I’m doing. And then I stop and look around and notice that not very many others are here with me. 

    What seems obvious to me though, is that the question shouldn’t be “why am I so interested in death,” but rather, “why isn’t everyone else as interested as I am?”

    My life experience has taught me that death is something that none of us can expect to be free of. Some of us come into contact with it sooner than others, but we will all see the deaths of loved ones—parents, spouses, friends, even children. And that’s not to mention the loss of acquaintances, or friends of friends, whose loss can usher in a rather confusing form of grief. 

    This is why it is important for human-kind in general to care about death—it impacts every single one of us, and is perhaps one of the most painful experiences in human existence to both experience and observe. Who of us doesn’t have questions about death? 

    For Christians, it carries perhaps an even greater weight. We claim to know the truth about the eternal destinies of human souls—not so much that we have confidence in any particular person’s eternal destiny, but that each human has an eternal destiny. Death, we believe, is a sort of checkpoint. A border crossing where we transition from one state of being into another. And more than that, it is the place where we move outside of time to join the God who created us, his son who has prepared a place for us, and whose presence we have been longing for since the first day we met him.

    So, the question is—if death is such an important time for humanity, and for Christians specifically, why would we not spend time seeking to understand and prepare for it. Why would we not think about it, so that when we lose loved ones we are prepared to answer the questions and inevitable grief that comes at their loss?

    This blog, then, is primarily, and for the foreseeable future, dedicated to this topic. My aim is to read a lot, and then process my reading here. Alongside my reading, I will share my own stories of loss and grief. 

    Would you like to come with me? If the answer is yes, go ahead and enter your email address in the sidebar to subscribe. I’d love to have your company!

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