This Is Not The End

I think it was when we were driving back from Seattle in October.

We were listen to Gungor's Ghosts Upon the Earth and - without any warning or context - Marie blurts out "I want this song played at my funeral."

Yikes.

Not exactly conversation starter material.

The lyrics are simple enough, yet a soothing reminder of what is to come. There is life - real life, greater life - on the other side of death.

Thus, we grieve and lament in absence as we hope and trust in reunion. For in Christ there are no good-byes. Only see-you-laters. 

And by the way, Marie was totally right. This would be the perfect song to sing at any funeral where the hope of heaven is found.

This is not the end
This is not the end of this
We will open our eyes wide, wider

This is not our last
This is not our last breath
We will open our mouths wide, wider

And you know you'll be alright
Oh and you know you'll be alright

This is not the end
This is not the end of us
We will shine like the stars bright, brighter

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Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.
~ 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed — in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
~ 1 Corinthians 15:51-52

Happy Listening

- Andrew

Just Another Sad Day Among Many Sad Days

Today is one of those days that is just tough slogging.

I'm miserable. I wanna hide in a hole. I don't want to talk to anyone. Everything it seems makes me want to cry. Just a no good day where grief has completely infiltrated every mundane part of my life.

These are the days where I just wait for the bubble to burst. A change of pace, an unexpected grace, a divinely appointed conversation, a weep-fest. Something - anything - that will bring me out of this debilitating despondency and into something serene, still, and life-giving.

For three nights in a row I've been up late, unable to sleep. I journal, I read, I watch a movie, but I am restless, mopy, and curfuffled, unable to get to sleep until exhaustion finally overcomes me late into in the evening.

I feel utterly ruined.

I go about my day, shuffling and sweeping the broken pieces of me from one place to another.

Broken pieces. My inward state is more than just an overturned box of puzzle pieces. A pile of puzzle pieces - no matter how many or how difficult - is still orderly. Each piece has purpose and a consistent form.

Instead, I liken my inward state to a porcelain figure dashed upon the rocks, shattered and scattered, jagged pieces without any uniformity, each piece unsightly and fragile, needing to be handle carefully lest it breaks further or wounds with its sharp edges.

This is what grief does to the inner person.


But. I still have things to be grateful for.

God's mercies and blessings are near even now as I live in shadow and darkness.

These are quiet comforts that do not still the storm that rages around and within me, but they are treasures to remind me that I am not alone and that this is not the end.

---------------------------------

Today, a friend of a friend had the worst of days, the worst day of many many worst days.

Unless the LORD intervenes, she is going to die.

Unless the LORD says "This shall not be", the cancer will win.

A young life will be extinguished, a chapter closes (prematurely in our eyes) and another chapter begins in the really real life found in God's presence.


My mopiness all of a sudden looks quite small and selfish. Real, valid, yet quite insignificant in the present moment.


And so tonight becomes the fourth night in a row that I'm up much too late with my thoughts and my grief. But this night, I have put aside my sorrow to bear the sorrows of the many others who are waiting to see what the LORD will do.

And as I pray I've listen to Casimir Pulaski Day by Sufjan Stevens. The tone, the words, the tension of it all ... the song places me right in the very center of this unfolding tragedy, as if I am watching a play move from the second to final act.

What will the LORD do?

A glance at the title will tell you little about what the song is about. It's a love song, but a lament. It begins and ends with sadness, for despite the fervent faith of many, the beloved passes away.

It's beautiful, it's terrible, it's brutally honest. There is very little good news in it. Yet the words have been a solace and a guide to me on my path of grief. Maybe you can relate. Click the link for the full lyrics or you can listen to it below.

Tuesday night at the Bible study
We lift our hands and pray over your body
But nothing ever happens
....
All the glory that the Lord has made
And the complications when I see His face
In the morning in the window

All the glory when He took our place
But He took my shoulders and He shook my face
And He takes and He takes and He takes

 ~ Sufjan Stevens "Casimir Pulaski Day"

Oh God have mercy.

G&P
- Andrew

Delivering Christmas Gifts to BC Children's Hospital

Gemma and her parents, a family we've gotten to know!

Something you gotta know right off the top: I have a pretty amazing family.

For the last couple of years, our family has been purchasing gifts in memory of Josiah which we donate to BC Children's Hospital. This is something Marie and I have done on our own (as well as providing a gift at Josiah's birthday) and our extended family has picked up on it as well. This year we added a second gift in memory of my dad who also gave to BC Children's during - and after - his grandson's time there.

Our niece - ever the entrepreneur at the age of six - has been finding creative ways to buy gifts for the children who are hospital-bound during the Christmas season. This summer she started raising chickens on the farm, collecting and selling the eggs, and then using the money to buy gifts for kids.

Wow. Just wow.

This past Monday Marie and I (with the help of our Aunt Chrystal and our cousins Rachel and Denver) delivered gifts to BC Children's Hospital. It was a good and sad thing. A few familiar faces, lots of familiar sounds and smells that bring back so many memories.

Marie and I have learned to brace ourselves for our inevitable responses that come from returning to the hospital: irritability, solemness, echoes of past anxieties, and alike. We warn each other about how we might respond, try to be gracious with each other and be quick to forgive when we lash out. Some days we do better than others.

Return visits have not become any easier, but they are fewer now since now we only return to bring gifts. The families we got to know have all been discharged - praise God! - yet there are a few staff members that we consider friends and try to remain connected with.

As difficult as it is - and it may sound odd to others who also grieve - but we have found meaning and healing by 'forcing' ourselves to keep BC Children's as a part of our seasonal rhythm. A part of stepping forward - for us at least - is to maintain 'markers' and traditions throughout the year that remind us of our son and what God has led us through. But keeping links to our past - thus, as a result, re-entering the grief and the pain each time - we move forward with hearts that are heavier but healthier. This may not be how all people grieve, but this has been our experience.

To all those who are - out of consideration for our grief - praying for our family this Christmas, we give you our humble and sincere thanks. There is much I am dreading as Christmas Day approaches. Yet, I am reminded that Christ's birth points us to his return, and so I lift my gaze forward to anticipate our Savior's next coming when all will be made new.

Hope and Comfort, Grace and Peace.
- Andrew

Telling Stories of Josiah to Joelle

 Marie and Joelle looking at photos of Josiah after breakfast. Happy / sad moments. 

She never sits this still and was just soaking it all in.

G&P
- Andrew

Judy Martens - "Strong Enough"

This is belated, but it came to mind again last night so I'm linking to it this morning. My friend Judy posted some thoughts for me the day after my dad died. You can read it all here.

via Flickr

You must. You must think I'm strong, to give me what I'm going through...

~ Matthew West "Strong Enough"

G&P

- Andrew 

Not Feeling Christmasy at Christmas Time

via Flickr

Misery loves company, as the saying goes.

With Advent upon us and Christmas accelerating towards us, I am again drawn to the sad and lowly and tragic parts of the Christmas story. I caught myself doing this when Josiah died and I'm on that same path again this season.

Christmas and sorrow. They go together more likely than we think. Most of our holiday rhythms have drubbed out any hint of sadness, for it is after all supposed to be the season of perpetual joy. And so we put on a seasonal sheen to fit in and a festive glow is projected in all that we do. We cloak ourselves with holiday goodwill and merriment, and yet within, our souls are aching and the Christmas season is just making it worse.

Loneliness. Pain. Heartbreak. Grief. Shame.

Christmas sometimes comes at the worst time of the year.

And yet, it is the story of God coming to us. To us. It is the beginning of the slow renewal of the world. It marks the return of God being with man for the first time since He walked in the garden with His creation.

God chooses to be with us.

In sadness. In sorrow. In suffering. God comes.

To suffer with us. To suffer for us.

This is Christmas.

... Advent is not just remembering how the world waited for the coming of the Messiah, but how we still wait for His coming. It is a time to embrace the ache of our lovesick hearts, to rejoice in our hunger pains, to survey the broken mess of our world and know that, because God fully entered into it, He will also fully redeem it.

As we sit in our suffering and know that the God of the universe decides to sit with us in it, we have a truth that is weighty enough to answer our heavy hearts, our loneliness and disillusionment that are intensified during the holidays. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that while God wants us happy as little children, it is the grown-up knowledge of God’s desire to always be with us, the fact that “we are no longer homeless; a bit of the eternal home itself has moved unto us,” that brings true joy. “Therefore we adults can rejoice deeply within our hearts under the Christmas tree,” he said, “perhaps much more than the children are able. We know that God’s goodness will once again draw near.”

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She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel,
which means ‘God is with us.’
~ Matthew 1:23

Because of God’s tender mercy, the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
and to guide us to the path of peace.
 ~ Luke 1:78-79

[via RELEVANT]

G&P
- Andrew

Shane Hipps - Does God Suffer Like Us?

via Flickr

 
A wonderful post by Shane Hipps, a pastor and author serving at Mars Hill in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Somewhat fitting of a read for me, coming off the heels of my preview post.

Here's a snippet of what Shane's getting to:

But when pain finds purpose or meaning it transforms from mere hurting into suffering.  We could use the word Suffering to describe pain with purpose.  Suffering is pain set in a larger context.  Suffering is what happens to a woman giving birth.  The labor pains are extraordinary, but the pain becomes mere memory when the child is born (so I’m told). The pain is matched only by the clarity of purpose.

Discovering that pain may have a purpose doesn't alleviate - even a smidgen of - the grief or insult, but it can help put the pieces of your life back to better. Better to have a God that spends sleeplessness nights tending to us than a God who falls asleep on the job.

G&P
- Andrew