Archive for December 2013
Good news of great joy
Posted on: December 22, 2013
It has been interesting to note the varying reactions I am receiving to the news that my mother has terminal cancer.
Some people find my own reaction a bit disconcerting. I cannot remember a time when I did not know quite certainly that my parents were not going to live forever. They never shied away from talking about their eventual deaths, and always made sure they had prepared the practical documents necessary – wills, funeral preferences, and so on. My dad dropped dead of a massive, unheralded heart attack 22 ½ years ago at the age of 68, in all other respects hale and hearty. Ever since that day, I have been even more aware of the certainty of my mom’s eventual death. As her age has crept up into her 80s, each year as I prepare my calendar and write down the birthdays, I have wondered if she would still be here when her next one rolled around. So the mere fact that my mother is dying isn’t earth-shattering to me.
The suddenness of it is a bit of a shock. The shortness of breath came on rapidly – over just a period of weeks, without her even quite paying attention to how bad it had gotten until she could no longer walk from room to room without huffing and puffing. Some people seem fixated on the fact that she’s always been so healthy, as if that should somehow preclude her getting sick. The fact that she’s never smoked makes getting lung cancer seem inconceivable to others. Neither of those factors makes me blink. Cancer – all types – is an equal opportunity disease, striking the healthy and the sick, the old, the young, and though certain types of cancer are more common from certain types of exposures, any cancer can show up in anyone, no matter how well they take care of themselves.
The reaction that I least can relate to, though, runs along the lines of, “What a bad time to get this kind of news! Sure must spoil the holidays for you.” “This Christmas must be so bittersweet for you!,” or even, “I guess you won’t be doing much for Christmas this year, will you?” (Note that I didn’t say I don’t understand those reactions, just that I don’t relate.)
“For behold! I bring you good news of great joy which shall be to all people!” In this season of Good News, getting the news that this is my mother’s last Christmas with us is NOT bad news. Christmas is not just about “little baby Jesus.” Christmas is just Act One of Easter! Jesus’ suffering for us began the day He emptied Himself of Heaven and took on the form of a man so that He could be a High Priest Who can fully sympathize with us in ALL we go through. In Jesus’ life, He lived every life. In His death, He died every death. There is nothing we go through of which He cannot say, “Nope. No idea what that’s like.” Getting the news of Mama’s cancer right now, in this season when we celebrate the birth of the One Who came to be our Savior keeps us focusing not on Mama’s coming death, but on HIS death and resurrection already accomplished, and His second advent yet to come.
There are advantages and disadvantages to the different modes of each of my parents’ death. It was a blessing not to watch my dad suffer, but it was hard not to get to say good-bye, hard not knowing those “lasts” that we were spending together. We will watch my mom dwindle, and there will probably be some suffering, and, yes, it will be hard, but at least getting the news now means we get to cherish this last Christmas together, making every opportunity count – not for HER so much as for us. Once she’s in Heaven with the Lord, those memories will pale in any significance compared to the joy of being in His presence, but for us, those memories will be dear and sweet to carry forward until our own times come to join her in that Church Triumphant.
There have been, and will be, tears during this season. Knowing this is our last together adds a poignancy to each decoration, each carol, each card. I know when I next get out my decorations, Mama won’t be here to see them. But as a Stephen Curtis Chapman song that I have always loved, but which now has even more meaning to me, says, she’s going to be Home for Christmas next year – and since when is going Home bad news? Sad for us who will be left behind awhile, yes. But not BAD.
Mama’s house is decorated to the nines just like always. It’s taken her all month to get things out, and she’s had to have some help with some things, but while she’s still living, nothing on earth could stop her from celebrating Christmas! The GOOD News has trumped and triumphed over any bad or sad news. Even in our sadness, we still have great joy! JOY TO THE WORLD! THE LORD HAS COME!
Check
Posted on: December 7, 2013
Most of those who know me know that I am a planner. I always have (at least one) Things to Do list going. If I am planning an event, I may have multiple lists. If we are planning a trip to see our kids across the state, I will set out a box a month, or even two, ahead of time so that as I think of things that need to go over to them, I can put those items in the box, knowing that they won’t then be forgotten.
Anyone who knows my mom knows where I got this trait from. Mama is an organizer par excellence. When we moved from Texas when I was 12, she packed every box herself, assigning each a letter and number, and keeping meticulous track of the contents of each. When we unloaded in Utah, each letter designation went to its assigned room, and by box number she knew exactly which boxes she needed to unpack in what order. (The designation I remember most was “NNI” – “not needed immediately”. You know, for those things you keep in the attic or storage closet. I’m not sure how many years it may have been before the last one of those got opened!)
Actually, though, we both got that trait from Someone Else. God’s a planner. I started reading again through the book of Joshua recently, going a paragraph a day, looking for something to really cogitate on. Early on, I hit the story about Rahab hiding the two Israelite spies, something jumped out at me.
Remember that the story had begun well over 40 years before. Recall the history of that journey: The ten plagues to convince Pharaoh to let them go, ending with the death of the firstborn sons. (That included adults as well as children, remember. How many of Pharaoh’s fighting men may have fallen in that harvest?) The parting of the Red Sea. The drowning of the Egyptian Army. The pillars of fire and cloud. The bitter waters turned sweet. Water from the rock. Manna from heaven! Miracle after miracle after miracle. God affirmed to them again and again that He was giving them the land He had promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But when God told the people to go in to take the Promised Land, they didn’t trust Him. They said, “Unh-uh. No way, Jose. No can do.”
God wasn’t just pretending that He wanted them to go in and take the land. He meant it. But He didn’t abandon them because they disobeyed Him. Instead, He sent them on a 40 year detour until all those who had refused to trust Him had died, and the next generation would be ready to take up the challenge. That detour wasn’t God’s original intent, but what did those 40 years accomplish? God wasn’t just using them to mark time waiting for the older generation to die. He used the time to keep proving Himself faithful to that next generation, raising up a generation who would trust and obey His leading. Very importantly, though, He wasn’t just working in the Israelites. He also used that time to prepare the Israelites’ enemies in the Promised Land. During those 40 years of wandering, God was with the Israelites and gave them victory over other enemies outside of the Promised Land. They wiped out several kings of surrounding territories – not just beat them, but utterly destroyed them.
When Rahab hid the spies who came to Jericho, she told them her people had heard how the Lord had dried up the Red Sea and brought the Israelites up out of Egypt (which was over 40 years earlier, when she would have been but a small child, if even born yet.) She said they had heard what the Israelites had done to the neighboring kings. The people’s hearts had already melted away in fear because they knew the Lord had already given the land into the hands of the Israelites. (Although the Israelites weren’t looking for a word from an innkeeper of Jericho as a “fleece” from the Lord about whether or not to try to take the city, hearing her words about the quaking-in-their-boots status of the Jericho people had to have nevertheless been a very heartening extra affirmation to them that the outcome was already assured!)
One of the great “both/ands” of Scripture is God’s sovereignty and man’s choice. God is sovereign, yet He is no mere puppeteer, no programmer of automatons. Man chooses his actions, yet still cannot surprise God and upset his plans, forcing Him to formulate some “Eternal Plan B”. The Israelites SHOULD have gone up to take the land the first time He told them to. Yet even in their disobedience, He was preparing to use the consequences of their disobedience to bring about the victory for their children. Had the Israelites gone up when they first should have, they would have faced an entirely different cast of characters. The Israelites would have won, because God has promised so – but we’ll never know just precisely how it would have played out. (Or maybe God will show us the alternative ending in heaven?) Since the Israelites were disobedient, though, God raised up Rahab. He had her in just the right place at just the right time with just the right courage.
I can just see God ticking off items on His “To Do” list to set this whole scenario up – going back years and years and years before the events we read about. The same is true of our lives. The events we are going through now, the people we are encountering – things have been set in motion, wheels in wheels, for years and years, to bring things together at just this time, just this place.
I was acutely conscious of this over the last couple of days. You see, on Thursday I took my mother to see our family doctor, who sent her for a chest x-ray, then straight to the hospital. They removed 1.3 liters of fluid from her right lung. Further CT scans and study of the fluid drawn off have given a definitive diagnosis that my 84 year old mother has cancer. She will not seek treatment other than palliative care. The estimate is that she will not be with us past this summer.
All those technologies that were in play didn’t get created yesterday. They have been years and years in the making. All those people attending to Mama didn’t suddenly appear at the hospital yesterday. They’ve been training for years, practicing their profession for years. One of the nurses has been a nurse for 40 years. The oncologist is far from the start of his career. Wheels intersecting with wheels, all in motion for years and years to bring people and events together at just this time, just this place.
One of my earliest memories is a ride at Disneyland where you are going on a track through a cavernous building with no lights, and random figures suddenly light up and appear as you approach or pass. It is a vague memory, but it is terrifying. The randomness of the appearance of the figures gives such a helpless feeling of being at their mercy. It is just what I imagine it must be like to face a situation such as my mother and the rest of our family now face, if you believe that all things are simply random cosmic events, the product of a capricious, mindless, pointless universe.
I am so thankful that the universe is not that Disneyland ride! No, and again, NO. Satan is actively working for evil, and seeks all that is destructive, rejoicing in all pain and suffering – but God is greater, and no matter what Satan may machinate, always and ever God is the Master, and it is HIS plans that prevail to bring about HIS purposes. We do not need to – and should not expect to – understand what God’s specific purposes are. We already know His ultimate purpose: the good of those who love Him, which is to be conformed to the image of His Son. No matter how random events may seem, they are not, in fact, random. No matter how purposeless or pointless things may seem, they are, in fact, neither.
God has been planning for these moments Mama’s whole life. We have no idea how many boxes have already been checked off, but I am confident of this: not one item on God’s “To Do” list for her life will be left undone. On earth as it is in Heaven. Amen!
the susie solution 