Archive for August 2014
His mercies never come to an end
Posted by: the susie solution on: August 17, 2014
- In: Christianity | dying | intentional living
- 1 Comment
When I was a college student at Seattle Pacific University back in ’80-’81, I was part of a small group of friends who hung out a lot. We did a weekly Bible study together, and one of my favorite parts of that time was singing. April would play her little three-quarter sized guitar, and we’d sing one song after another. We sang John Fischer songs. “Love Him in the morning when you see the sun a-risin’…” We sang a lot of Keith Green. Second Chapter of Acts, Phil Keagy, Larry Norman. All the usual suspects of the day. (And all of whom I still listen to!) My favorites were always the Scripture ones. I have a little notebook where I have them all handwritten with their chords, although I don’t need the book for just singing them. I love it when I’m reading through the Bible in the course of my daily reading and suddenly find myself singing what I’m reading. It is a tragedy that actual Scripture songs – the “psalms” of Paul’s exhortation to “speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” – are by and large no longer sung – not even in church services or Sunday schools.
Anyway, I still sing the songs for my own pleasure and blessing. Some of the songs, of course, have extra special meaning. “When I am afraid, I will trust in You, I will trust in You, I will trust in You/When I am afraid I will trust in You, in God Whose Word I praise” is a favorite for times of fear, and I used to sing it to my little ones after a bad dream. “Peace give I to thee/Peace give I to thee/Not as the world gives, give I to thee/Peace give I to thee” is one I often use singing myself to sleep. (I sometimes substitute the word “sleep” for peace; I don’t think He minds, as they bear a certain similarity in meaning.) One of my favorites for comfort comes from Lamentations 3:22-23. (You can find several versions of it on youtube. The Maranatha singers one is reasonably well done.)
“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases/His mercies never come to an end/
They are new every morning, new every morning/
Great is Thy faithfulness, O God/Great is Thy faithfulness.”
That’s what we often say of my dad’s death. He died of a massive, unheralded heart attack back in 1991. I said something to the coroner about how at least I hoped he hadn’t suffered too much. The coroner said, “Oh, no. He didn’t even know he’d been hit! One second he was here; he blinked; and he was at the pearly gate, wondering how he got there.” That’s the kind of death Daddy always prayed for. It was hard on the rest of us not getting to say good-bye, of course, hardest on those far away who hadn’t seen him for some time. All those last times that we didn’t know were the last, so we didn’t savor them as we would have and wish we had. But for Daddy himself, we were thankful. We said it was a mercy.
My mother’s cancer is claiming more and more of her now, requiring more and more medication to try to keep her comfortable – and even safe. She gets so restless that she will pace until she is staggering if not given enough sedative to knock her out. She hates it. She hates taking all these pills, and she often blames the pills for her problems rather than her disease. But it IS the disease, sapping her strength, stealing her mind, distorting her senses, super-charging her emotions. I believe there are still a very few in the circle still praying for a healing miracle (what for I don’t know – why wish her to stay HERE rather than go to Heaven?) The vast majority of us, including Mama herself, pray every night that she won’t be here in the morning. We say, “It would be a mercy.”
My sister’s mother-in-love has severe dementia. It’s not my story, so I’ll give no details, but it’s not so different from that of the millions of other families dealing with what is called the living death of dementia. My dad’s older brother died of Alzheimers, the younger is dying of it. The details of the stories differ, but the plot’s the same. We all shudder at the thought of ending up there ourselves, losing ourselves a piece at a time, knowing we’re losing it and unable to do anything about it, until finally the day may come when we’ve lost so much we don’t even remember that we’ve lost anything. I’ve told my sister many times that I’d rather go through what I’m going through with our mother than what my sister is going through with her dear mother-in-love.
Lately, though, I’ve realized that that’s really a skewed perspective. There are not gradations to God’s mercy. He was not most merciful to Daddy, less so to Mama, and being least of all so to Barb. Either His mercy is the same for all, or He is cruel. Either His love is steadfast for all, or He is indifferent. Either He is faithful, or He is capricious and untrustworthy. We accept all three attributes as equally true across all times and all situations, or we reject them all together. They’re a package deal.
There will be times of emotional turmoil when we will cry out, “Lord, I believe! Help Thou my unbelief!”, and in His forbearance and tender-hearted mercy, He will do just that, but at some point we have to face the question of whether we will choose to trust God’s mercy or not. He doesn’t OWE us any explanations for His actions. If you think He does, then you have set yourself up as HIS judge, which is a pretty ludicrous place to be. Even if He were to give us a full explanation, our finite minds are not capable of understanding His infinite reasons. Occasionally He may give us a glimpse, but if we predicate our trust on God defending Himself to us, then we don’t actually trust Him at all. We believe God is merciful because He says He is, or we believe Him to be a liar.
No, God is being just as merciful to Barb now as He was to my dad then. God will be just as merciful to Mama whether He takes her Home tonight, or she has to endure weeks more of suffering. His purpose for Mama and for Barb is just as Good and Righteous as His purpose was for my dad. His presence with their spirit is just as real whether their mind knows it or not. Our spirit is given us at the moment of conception, long before there is a cognitive mind to comprehend anything about the world. (Remember how John the Baptist leapt for joy in utero at the presence of the Lord, also in utero?) Our spirit endures as long as we have the breath of life, whether our cognitive mind comprehends anything around us or not. Barb’s spirit is still alive and well inside her crumbling frame, and God is still working on perfecting her, conforming her to the image of His Son. We cannot SEE this, yet God’s Word tells us that that IS God’s purpose for us in this life; Scripture doesn’t contain an exception clause, “…. Unless something happens to your mind or body to screw you up.”
Suffering is a result of sin being in the world; it wasn’t God’s idea. Yet somehow in His divine Providence, He still causes all things, even our suffering, to bend to the task of accomplishing His purpose for the good of those who love Him. What my mom is going through, what Barb is going through, what all those around them are going through because THEY are going through what they’re going through (got all those antecedents?) is all – ALL – consistent with God’s love, His mercy, and His faithfulness.
If Mama is not here in the morning, it will be a mercy. If she is here in the morning? It will be a mercy. His mercies are new EVERY morning. Great is Thy faithfulness, O God! Great is Thy faithfulness.
The Shadow Lengthens
Posted by: the susie solution on: August 5, 2014
- In: Christianity | dying | family
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And so it is coming. We’ve known since December 6th that Mama is dying. But knowing in the theoretical doesn’t really prepare you for the reality. Having never been present during the dying process, it is all new territory. And although she was present for both my dad’s mother and her own father’s slow journeys to their deaths, this is new territory for Mama as well, of course. You don’t get a practice run for dying.
She stopped her cancer drug about a month ago now and officially entered hospice care. The drug was more or less holding the lung tumor at bay, but doing nothing for the brain tumor, and though it was keeping her alive, it wasn’t giving her a LIFE. The decision to stop was not hard. She knows her destination and is eager to reach it. It’s the dying process itself that scares her – a not unreasonable fear given the likely symptoms involved.
The doctors promise that you don’t have to die in pain and discomfort, but they don’t always make clear that to do that, you will have to be on massive amounts of drugs, and that the side effects of those drugs can be as difficult to manage as the symptoms of the disease itself – especially if, as with Mama, you can’t tolerate some of the best drugs for the symptoms.
In the last month, and especially in the last week, Mama has deteriorated noticeably. Quite probably the brain tumor is exacting a high price by now, and the lung tumor is also likely to be far more vicious. The cancer may have even spread further. Certainly she has more frequent and worse pain, has absolutely no energy, and now is dealing with some mental confusion. It doesn’t seem likely that she can go on for too much longer. None of us would want her to.
Yet it still comes as something of a shock, this adjusting to constant new realities, this realization that change will be the new “normal” from here on out. For all the grieving I have already done, I keep finding new depths to plumb – and I expect it will go on until, and after, she is gone. I dread her being gone, even while I pray for the Lord to take her quickly. It’s such an odd mixture of emotions.
But what I’m going through is nothing new. Children have been helping their parents through death since Seth and his siblings watched Adam and Eve die. Being at the tail end of the Boomer generation, many, many of my friends have already lost their parents, or are in the same process, or expect to be there before long. In one way, it is irrelevant because no one else has gone through MY loss, and yet, in another, it is a huge comfort to me to know that I share my lot with others. It was the same when we lost a child to miscarriage between our 4th and 5th children, and I discovered at my women’s Bible study that of the 12 women there, only two had not suffered the same loss – and of those two, one had not married until after her child-bearing years were past. What I am doing in taking care of my mother is nothing extraordinary, either. It has been done by millions of children, is being done by millions of children, and will continue to be done by children until the Lord comes.
In his first letter, Paul tells the Corinthians that “nothing has overtaken you but what is common to man.” Although he was talking specifically about temptation, in reality, the same thing applies to all of life. None of us goes through anything really and truly unique. The exact circumstances may vary, but the kind of trauma, the kind of loss – in these, too, there is nothing new under the sun. Most important of all, in His temptation in the wilderness, in His suffering and death, Christ somehow experienced every human experience. There is no trauma or loss that Christ cannot relate to. He is not standing by watching what we are going through and saying, “Man, I wish I knew how to help, but this is beyond Me.” No, He is ever-present, sure and steady, our Rock in the midst of the flood. As He wept at Lazarus’ tomb, weeping at the destruction brought about in His creation by the entrance of sin, He shares our grief at the death of our mother, but beyond that He stands with us to give us the strength to bear up, the peace that even this is one of the “all things” that He is working together for good for those who love Him, and the sure and certain Hope of the Resurrection to come. What blessed comfort!!
“Jesus walked this lonesome valley
He had to walk it by Himself
Oh, nobody else could walk it for Him
He had to walk it by Himself.
You and I must walk this valley
But we don’t walk it by ourselves
No, He gave His live to walk it for us
So we won’t walk it by ourselves.”
the susie solution 