• Death and Dying,  Grief,  My Story

    Older and Wiser Words

    April 7, 2020

    It’s taken me awhile to feel ready to write about COVID-19. I still don’t feel ready. Our society—our world, really—has come face to face with our mortality. Most of us have been thinking about the reality that no matter who is considered at risk all of us are vulnerable to this illness and could die. All of us.

    You’d think that would be exciting for me, as someone who firmly believes this realization is vital to who we are as humans. 

    It is exciting, in some ways. I see so much potential for good conversations among families and friends, I’m hopeful and praying that we would see patterns of renewed and mended relationships, healthier patterns of rest, better relationships between parents and children, and hopefully a greater humility before God and gratefulness for the common graces he’s given us. There is so much of our humanity to be reclaimed in moments like these.

    But on the other hand, this is scary! Who of us doesn’t have family or friends in the “at risk” category? Who of us doesn’t shudder as the unemployment numbers rise? Who of us doesn’t weep for the children and others trapped at home with their abusers? 

    These are serious matters, and I don’t feel equipped to speak into such large-scale suffering. To write as if I have answers would minimize real suffering that’s taking place. There are others, older and wiser, who can speak into this situation. All I can do is listen and weep and pray.

    My words can’t possibly provide enough strength or comfort or grit to get anyone through a crisis of this scale. I am only slowly growing older and wiser, after all, and I don’t write about mortality because I’m good at grief. In fact, I write about it, I think, because I’m not good at it. I’ve tasted just enough suffering to hate it, to avoid it. Recognizing that there is something better for us than fear, though, I write to remind myself and whoever reads that this is, in fact, true. But right now, even though I know that Christ is near us in our suffering, and that we, in his sovereignty, were no safer a month ago than we are now, the weight of suffering feels heavy enough that I’m left mostly without words. 

    There is one word, though, that I’ve been pondering. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the term “microaggression.” Or, not about that word specifically, but about a correlated idea for which I’ve coined the term “micro-grief.” There’s surely a real word for it—I just don’t know it. So, in lieu of that real word, let me just explain that I’m “microgrieving,” and it’s not easy.

    I think a lot of us are feeling this. The fear of getting sick—of this unknown thing that could kill me and anyone I love is one thing. But perhaps even more weighty than that fear are the tiny griefs along the way. Celebrating my two oldest children’s birthdays without friends or family. My daughter missing her preschool teacher and friends. My son missing the childcare workers at the community center. Not getting to introduce my newborn to friends, or have my parents get to know him in his early weeks. Lamenting missing church for the month before lockdown because of sickness and childbirth. Even the loss two-hour grocery delivery, and instead having to wait several days so that Instacart can keep up with new demands. There’s grief in the action of disinfecting groceries, the handwashing after opening Amazon packages, the calendar reminders for cancelled events. And there’s grief in the good things, too—virtual game-nights, eating donuts while watching a sermon, and extra time for reading or hobbies. 

    All day every day I feel the small weight of these micro-griefs. And every now and then, I realize that they have become one giant, worldwide Grief, and it floors me.

    My husband and I caught up with our small group over Zoom the other night. Our time together was happy, with no imminent threats to anyone’s well-being. But after the call, Michael and I both felt exhausted. After hearing of all the little ways COVID-19 has disrupted normal patterns, those “micro-griefs” felt like a giant weight.

    I don’t mind bearing the weights of our friends and family—it’s a privilege. But, as others have pointed out, we need to acknowledge that all of this is real and heavy. Even if no one I know and love gets sick or dies, even if a vaccine is miraculously found tomorrow and not one more person dies from COVID-19 (Lord, let it be so!), these last weeks of suffering will have taken a massive toll.

    So, while creation groans like I’ve never heard it, I myself have no words. Although, happily, the days passing within the four walls of our home are mostly marked by joy, these little micro-griefs pile up and the weight is wearing. So I’m returning to the old and wise words of scripture to form my prayers. If you’re not turning to them already, now is the time. We’re only mortal, after all.

    Matthew 11:28–30

    Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

    Psalm 71:17–20

    O God, from my youth you have taught me,
    and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. 

    So even to old age and gray hairs,
    O God, do not forsake me,
    until I proclaim your might to another generation,
    your power to all those to come. 

    Your righteousness, O God,
    reaches the high heavens. 

    You who have done great things, 
    O God, who is like you? 

    You who have made me see many troubles and calamities 
    will revive me again;
    from the depths of the earth 
    you will bring me up again.

    Isaiah 40:28–31

    Have you not known? Have you not heard? 
    The LORD is the everlasting God, 
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.  He does not faint or grow weary;  his understanding is unsearchable. 

    He gives power to the faint, 
    and to him who has no might he increases strength. 

    Even youths shall faint and be weary, 
    and young men shall fall exhausted; 
    but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; 
    they shall mount up with wings like eagles; 
    they shall run and not be weary; 
    they shall walk and not faint.

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  • Grief,  My Story,  Stories and Songs

    Their Span is But Toil and Trouble

    November 5, 2019

    “For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh. 
    The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty;
    Yet their span is but toil and trouble;
    They are soon gone, and we fly away.
    Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you?

    So teach us to number our days
    That we may gain a heart of wisdom. 
    Return, O Lord! How long?
    Have pity on your servants!

    Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
    That we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
    Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
    And for as many years as we have seen evil.”
    Psalm 90:9–15

    O, Lord. Who am I, but dust and ashes?

    Sometimes the fragility of life just seems overwhelming. Our false hopes come to light, our co-worker’s stillbirth didn’t mean that our pregnancy would be healthy. Our good news is overshadowed by someone else’s bad news. That’s what happened to me today, and I am feeling my fallen, dusty nature. 

    After two weeks of uncertainty and anxiety, yesterday I came home from the doctor feeling relieved and hopeful. Today, I found out that someone in a parallel phase of life received devastating news and had her life turned upside-down.

    Sometimes, life feels like an affliction, either ours or someone else’s. Our lives are destined for death, either before or after “seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty” years of suffering and toil. Sin must be really terrible to deserve this sort of curse.

    Of course, all of the other parts of the gospel story are still true. This curse is the one that Jesus bore. This curse is the one that he conquered on the cross and in the tomb. This curse is the one that will be forever made right when he returns. 

    And yet right here, right now, all I can do, and maybe you too, is cry and say with the psalmist: 

    “Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on your servants. 
    Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
    That we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
    Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
    And for as many years as we have seen evil.”

    Amen. Let it be so.

    I know this is an incredibly vague post. It’s vague for privacy, both mine and the other person mentioned here. I’m fine, really. Grief is good, and so is lament. It’s good to sit here for awhile.

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  • More Stories,  Scholarship,  Scripture

    Your Redeemer Will Keep You—Part 3

    June 19, 2019

    This post is the third part of a presentation I had the opportunity to give on Ruth 1 at a women’s Bible study at my church. If you’d like to catch up, this link will take you to Part 1. The last post left Naomi destitute, but, despite her best efforts, not alone! After trying to send her daughters-in-law home before her journey back to Bethlehem, Ruth has pledged to remain with her. This post reflects on Ruth’s remarkable decision, and what it means for Naomi, and God’s covenant promises.

    This point of the story gives us is one reason, among many, to be grateful for the word of God. Here, we can see the stories of how God worked in the lives of those who came before us. We have a great cloud of witnesses who each bore the weight of sin and suffering, and yet ran with endurance.[1] Naomi could not see what was happening, as we often cannot.

    But looking back through the lens of scripture and history, we can see that God was at work in Naomi’s story, even when she couldn’t see it. He did not let Naomi go alone. Despite her best efforts to leave Ruth, she stayed by her side, remaining faithful to the covenant she had made with Naomi’s family. I can only imagine that Naomi was not ready for or expecting this from Ruth—after so many losses, the text seems to indicate that she had no expectation to have anything but loss and grief follow her. 

    Do we see what is happening here in verses 16–17? We are beginning to see God filling Naomi’s emptiness. God is bringing Naomi and Ruth out of exile. Naomi may not realize it, but this is a movement of grace in her life. Not only is he bringing Naomi home to a belly-filling harvest, he is deftly bringing about the fulfillment of the promises he gave to Abraham, through Naomi’s exile, suffering, and return. And this seems to be the author’s aim in chapter one—to show his audience that God’s love never fails. His covenant-keeping faithfulness is constant; it is our vision that is faulty. 

    We can see that God is working to fulfill his promises to Abraham for Naomi and even for us without even spoiling the story by telling what comes in the next few chapters—it’s all here in Chapter 1. All we have to do is watch Ruth. 

    The first hint that we should connect this story with God’s promise of a coming, is Ruth’s decision to stay with Naomi.

    There are at least three signals here in these verses:

    1. She is leaving her home.
    2. She is choosing a family—one that she did not have to choose, who could offer her nothing in return.
    3. She is pledging to stay with and love Naomi forever, to death.

    Who else might we know that does this? 

    Ruth’s actions were actions of emptying herself of every hope she could claim by returning to her family. She was foreshadowing for Naomi, and telling us, of a Redeemer whom she had not yet seen—one who would empty himself to make good all the promises of God to Abraham and his descendants. A redeemer who would bring his people from exile, and, as the heir to Abraham, rule for all eternity. 

    But Ruth probably didn’t realize that this is what she was doing. So what was she tryingto do here? What was she actually choosing? Naomi? I doubt it. Naomi had nothing to offer Ruth. Ruth had every reason to expect that it would be better for her to say a tearful goodbye to Naomi and go home. As a Moabite, she had no reason to expect a warm welcome from Naomi’s family and friends in Bethlehem. Moabites were descendants of Abraham’s relative Lot, in fact, they were the descendants of an incestuous encounter between Lot and his daughter-in-law. There was generations-deep bad blood between the Israelites and the Moabites—violence, persecution, idolatry. The law in Deuteronomy prohibited Moabites from worshipping with Israelites. Numbers 25 tells of violent deaths at the hands Moabites (and violent revenge), and plagues on the people in consequence for men marrying or having other sexual relationships with Moabite women. With this context, Ruth certainly could not expect protection, marriage, and children. So what could Ruth have been thinking? What could Ruth possibly gain by staying with Naomi? There was only one gain. YAHWEH. He was her only gain in choosing to remain with Naomi. “Your God will be my God,” she says. What does that say about Him? If, like Ruth, we were given the choice between God along with physical and economic insecurity, or physical safety, provision, and family without him, what would we choose? Oh, that we would have faith like Ruth’s. 

    So Ruth, forsaking everything, followed YAHWEH and remained with Naomi on the long journey back to the land of promise. She did not leave Naomi to suffer alone, but shared the burden of her friend’s suffering. Like the coming Christ, at great personal cost, she cared for her chosen family with tender affection and loyalty.

    Despite this, Naomi continued on in her despair, as if nothing profound or important had just happened. The pair resumed their journey to Bethlehem, the town full of prophetic potential. And when they arrived, in verses 19–22, we see that Naomi is, as I titled the next section, Kept by the Redeemer. 

    Are you getting tired of the despair yet? Me too. So keep reading! I’ll post the next section soon.

    [1]Heb 12:1

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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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  • Books,  Death and Dying,  Grief

    “A Letter of Consolation:” An Introduction

    March 17, 2019

    The first book I read after I finished my MA program was A Letter of Consolation, by Henri Nouwen (no, I still don’t know how to pronounce his name).

    The book is a published version of a letter that he wrote to his father six months or so after the death of his mother, about their shared grief. It’s a moving book, and a helpful one. Also, notably, it’s short. My copy is only about a hundred pages, with large font and wide margins.

    After reading through it once, my copy is full of underlining and marginalia. He said a lot of things I have either thought before or experienced but have never thought coherently or put into words. Things like: 

    “Real grief is not healed by time. It is false to think that the passing of time will slowly make us forget her and take away our pain. I really want to console you in this letter, but not by suggesting that time will take away your pain…I would not only be telling a lie, I would be diminishing the importance of mother’s life, underestimating the depth of your grief, and mistakenly revitalizing the power of love that has bound mother and you together for forty-seven years. If time does anything it deepens our grief. The longer we live, the more fully we become aware of who she was for us, and the more intimately we experience what her love meant for us. Real deep love is…very unobtrusive, seemingly easy and obvious, and so present that we take it for granted. Therefore it is often only in retrospect—or better, in memory—that we fully realize its power and depth. Yes, indeed, love often makes itself visible in pain.”

    p 16

    And: 

    “The same love that forms the basis of our grief is also the basis of our hope; the same love that makes us cry out in pain also must enable us to develop a liberating intimacy with our own most basic brokenness. Without faith, this must sound like a contradiction. But our faith in him whose love overcame death and who rose from the grave on third day converts this contradiction into a paradox, the most healing paradox of our existence.”

    p 33–34

    And:

    “Death indeed simplifies; death does not tolerate endless shadings and nuances. Death lays bare what really matters, and in this way becomes your judge…Long-forgotten events [return] to memory as if they had taken place only recently. It seems as if we could put our whole lives in the palms of our hands like small precious stones and gaze at them with tenderness and admiration. How tiny, how beautiful, how valuable!”

    p 41–42

    And this one too:

    “What makes you and me Christians is not only our belief that he who was without sin died for our sake on the cross and thus opened for us the way to his Heavenly Father, but also that through his death our death is transformed from a totally absurd end of all that gives life meaning into an event that liberates us and those whom we love… [Mother’s death] is an event that allows her altruism to yield a rich harvest. Jesus died so that we might live, and everyone who dies in union with him participates in the life-giving power of his death… each of our deaths can become a death for others. I think that we need to start seeing the profound meaning of this dying for each other in and through the death of Christ in order to catch a glimpse of what eternal life might mean. Eternity is born in time, and every time someone dies whom we have loved dearly, eternity can break into our mortal existence a little bit more.”

    p 60

    I didn’t intend to fill this post with quotes. But maybe that’s the best way to introduce you all to the book. I’m hoping to write a follow-up post with some more developed engagement with some of his words, but I’ll leave you with a quote that resonates with the purpose of this website:

    “I am writing you this letter in the firm conviction that reality can be faced and entered with an open mind and an open heart, and in the sincere belief that consolation and comfort are to be found where our wounds hurt most.”

    p 17

    I share Nouwen’s hope and conviction. This is why I’m studying and writing. If this is true, if our consolation is be found in our most painful wounds, then bandaging our wounds with greeting card sympathy and resurrection-talk before, or maybe “without” is a better word there, we have examined their depth is a mistake. And to be honest, it’s a mistake I don’t want to make. 

    I think this is why I found A Letter of Consolation helpful. He doesn’t shy away from a deep examination of what happens when someone dies. He digs, looking for the diamonds of hope God intends for us to find as we plunge down into the depths of grief. I’m glad for Nouwen’s introspection, and that he was willing to publish such personal reflections. I think they’re well-worth reading.

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  • My Story,  Stories and Songs

    An Introduction

    March 16, 2019

    In the last months of grad school, I got the same question grad students everywhere answer countless times: “What is your thesis about?” 

    Now, what is the least-shocking way to tell people that you’re interested in human death and decay?

    I couldn’t just tell them that I was studying dust in scripture—seriously, is there anything less interesting-sounding than dust? So I would explain it in the context of a larger philosophical/theological question, and the fact that it’s neglected by nearly everyone who will, in fact, return to dust.

    It wasn’t always a comfortable moment to share stories of grief and loss, but the truth is that there’s more to my interest than merely academic curiosity. In fact, I’ve been contemplating death from a young age. 

    I won’t go into too much detail here—partly because some of these stories don’t feel like mine to share, and partly because I’ll probably say more about them some other time. But I want to give you a picture of my experiences so that you can understand a little of why I am the way that I am. 

    It started in high-school. 

    High School

    My family moved to Minnesota in June of 2002—the summer before my freshman year of high-school. I started at a new school that fall, and to be honest, that first semester (okay, the whole year) was pretty rough. It was a small school. The kind of school where you “know” people without even necessarily talking to them—you have most of your classes together, so even if you never have a one-on-one conversation you still have an idea who they are and what they’re like.

    In the spring semester, one of my classmates became ill and missed a lot of school. I remember hearing updates occasionally, and then learning finally that he had cancer. We continued to hear updates, positive and negative, throughout the school year. Sometime mid-summer, he passed away. My grief was different from my classmates. I had only known him for a few months—most of them had known him their whole lives. Even so, close proximity, with or without a relationship, to the death of a peer at 15 is not something to discount.

    The following spring I was a sophomore, a little more secure in my new school, though still in the “new kid” category—something you never quite lose when everyone else has grown up together. In the early morning, before my sister and I went to school, my parents received a phone call. I didn’t hear it, but my sister came downstairs, knocked on my door, and told me that our cousin had committed suicide. He was just a few years older, and we weren’t close. But there’s still something profoundly shaping about losing family, another peer, in an unexpected and violent way. My sister and I went to school anyway, not knowing what else to do with ourselves, and knowing we’d be missing school to travel back home to Montana for the funeral.

    Within days of the one-year anniversary of my cousin’s death, compounding my grief, a school-mate in the grade below me, was killed in a car accident. My junior year was nearly over, and I had yet to have a year of high-school not marked by loss. 

    My senior year rolled around and I think we were as hope-filled as any senior class. You never think catastrophe is coming. But then one day three of our class-mates never made it to school. They were planning to meet before driving to attend, if I remember correctly, the state basketball tournament. After a stress- and rumor-filled morning, our principal confirmed to us that there had been a car accident and two of our classmates, weeks from graduation, had died in an accident just a few miles from school.

    And then we were adults…

    Fast-forward through happy college years—where I began to let go of the expectation that the last week of March would bring unexpected news of loss. And since 2006, it hasn’t, thankfully. 

    This week has been filled with joy for the last nearly-four years—it’s the week of my daughter’s birthday.

    But even her birthday is a reminder. Before my daughter was born, we lost her older sibling in a miscarriage. An unexpected loss in a season that we had reason to expect to be filled with joy—for us and many of our friends.

    My son’s birthday is in March too, a little earlier. He just turned one this week, actually. But even so, I see the age gap between him and my daughter and remember that there is indeed enough space in there to have been filled with the birth of a second child lost through miscarriage.

    Heavy Weights

    Do I make more sense now? The last fifteen years of my life have brought significant sorrows nearly every year. I haven’t even included the stories of my aunt and uncle, and various others from slightly more distant circles whose loss I’ve grieved. Each new grief adds a little weight to the others, an extra dose of empathy for the closest mourners. 

    And do you see why this matters? None of us are above this sort of experience. We don’t think about it often, but we, and everyone we love, are one speeding car, one bad decision, one illness away from a close encounter with grief, death, and decay. No one is exempt—age, health, and habits are no guarantee.

    Are we prepared? Do we have the tools in our belt to deal with loss? Can we answer with confidence that even in our weakest, saddest moments that God is still love, and that he is still kind? I

    I’m not encouraging fear or paranoia. But my own experiences have taught me that we should be ready to undertake the task of grieving and dying well. And it is a task—there is nothing easy about it. But, like muscles grow able to bear heavy weights with practiced motion, I think we can prepare our souls to bear greater weight as well. Great weights never get lighter; great griefs will always be heavy. But we can practice so that just as weight-lifters perfect their form, we know how to bear them when they come.

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