“Be near me when I’m dying, O show Thy cross to me.”
(from “O Sacred Head, Once Wounded”–you can listen to it here.)
Category: suffering & death
Those thorns on Thy brow . . .
My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine;
For Thee all the follies of sin I resign.
My gracious Redeemer, my Savior art Thou;
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.
I love Thee because Thou has first loved me,
And purchased my pardon on Calvary’s tree.
I love Thee for wearing the thorns on Thy brow;
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.
I’ll love Thee in life, I will love Thee in death,
And praise Thee as long as Thou lendest me breath;
And say when the death dew lies cold on my brow,
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.
In mansions of glory and endless delight,
I’ll ever adore Thee in heaven so bright;
I’ll sing with the glittering crown on my brow;
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.
William R. Featherstone
To hear it sung, you can go here.
“An unparalyzed faith”
This is such an astounding story–a great one for the Year of Faith:
On July 3, Robert Shelby wanted to show one of his children how to avoid belly-flops when diving. When Shelby demonstrated at a neighbor’s pool, he slammed his head on the bottom.
He tried to swim. He couldn’t.
“None of my body is moving,” he said. “So, I go through my feet, my toes, my legs and knees, go through my arms. I’m trying every single part of my body that I thought might get me there, tried dog paddling, but I’m absolutely paralyzed. There’s nothing moving.”
He could hear his children playing, apparently oblivious to his plight. Holding his breath, he realized they might not notice until it was too late, and he would drown.
About 10 years earlier, Shelby had become a Christian. In addition to his full-time job in industrial sales, Shelby is a pastor at Trinity Baptist Church in Baton Rouge. Suspended between the surface and the bottom of the pool, Shelby pondered how to handle his last moments on Earth.
“I prayed just a moment about it, and what came to me was that (since) I praised God for the last 10 years of my life, I should praise him now,” Shelby said. “So, I began praising him for his grace, for saving me, sending his son, those type things, praising him for the privilege of raising up a family and ministering to people. I prayed that he would watch over my family and provide for them.”
As he prayed, Shelby blacked out. When he regained consciousness, his life was radically altered.
You can read the rest here: “An Unparalyzed Faith”
“I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”
A follow-up by Larissa on yesterday’s post: Learning Contentment through Suffering. I want to be like these people when I grow up!
“How are you doing?”
Yesterday was the sixth anniversary of my brother Tim’s death. He would have been 60 this year. As many of you know, he took his own life and the impact on all of us who loved him was devastating. What I want to share here is a set of e-mails between me and my spiritual director from three years ago at this time of year. Fr. Dan, remembering that Tim’s anniversary was coming up, had sent me a short e-mail, simply asking “How are you doing?” My response is very frank. I share this with you for a few reasons.
One: it means so much for people to remember, to remember anniversaries. Every year since she found out, a friend always shows up on my brother’s anniversary with a plant. I, of course, do not expect her to do that every year for the rest of my life, but she obviously knows enough about the pain of a suicide to know how much this touches me. Just saying those four words: “How are you doing?” can make a world of differences. Even if my answer is “I’m really doing fine,” I am still so touched that you have remembered.
Two: Losing someone to suicide is a grief that never goes away and is very paimnful for years. It is unlike any other grief.
Three: I hope that both my frankness and my sharing of how God meets me in my pain and Fr. Dan’s response to me may bring hope to someone out there who may be struggling in a similar way. . .
(I am editing some of this.)
Dear Fr. Dan,
How am I doing? It really depends these days on when you ask. But, if you have the time, I am going to try to verbalize a few things. I am suffering. I am suffering most acutely from Tim’s death, but also the many other losses in my life: at the end of my first of college: the tragic death in a car crash of a very close friend; my parent’s divorce and subsequent disintegration of my family; my brother Paul’s death in a car accident at the age of 24; my mother’s death; Tim’s violent death. They all kind of rush in upon me sometimes. . . . Some days I want to run away. Some days I just want to shout out: “My brother put a gun in his mouth and killed himself!” Most days I don’t even know how to pray. I get irritated by stupid questions people ask me about things. And I have to keep leading us [as Superior of our order] and making decisions and answering stupid questions with love and kindness. I feel alone and afraid a lot. Friends I have depended on are not there as they were. I could cry at the slightest kindness shown me.
And yet in the midst of the suffering, there’s a desire to offer it up, to kiss this Hand from whom it all comes. . . . There’s also a slight hope that I will come to know Christ and His love through it in a way that I would never know otherwise. There are pinpoints of light. Last night as I was going to sleep and dealing with fear and pain, I starting thinking, I’m walking through the valley of the shadow of death, the valley of deep darkness. And the words from Psalm 23 hit me: “I will fear no evil”–and I knew that Satan couldn’t touch me there. And then this morning when I woke early and was encountering the same things, the rest of that verse came to me: “because You are with me.” And that brought back to mind Dr. Regis Martin’s article on Christ’s descent into hell which, as you know, has spoken eloquently to my soul. Paul of the Cross (among others) counsels us to join our sufferings to the different mysteries in Christ’ life: “I will try with all my strength to follow the footsteps of Jesus. If I am afflicted, abandoned, desolate, I will keep him company in the Garden. If I am despised and injured, I will keep him company in the Praetorium. etc.” Perhaps Christ is inviting me to “live” in the mystery of His descent into Hell, to walk with Him through the valley of the shadow of death. I am once again re-reading Dr. Martin’s article, and once again it clarifies and strengthens me. There’s some experience this morning of His having entered through the ‘barred doors” of my heart, my own little “hell.” The pain is still there, but there”s also a knowledge that He’s there and I’m not alone.
I must thank you for your kindness in asking me how I’m doing. Four small words, but when sincerely said can make such a difference for people. And I don’t mean to complain by anything I’ve said here. Many people have been very kind to me these days, but the suffering continues.
It’s funny, isn’t it–when you’re in the middle of suffering and pain, it just seems like there’s no end, that it just has and always will be this way, and then a few little words: “You are with me” can open up a whole spiritual perspective that makes all the difference. The wounds are still there, but there’s a little balm. The mental torment can continue, but I don’t fear that I’m going crazy. Hell becomes the place where Christ descends and meets me in the scariest places in my life, where one one else can really go but Him.
Fr. Dan’s reply:
Peace be with you.
As you tell of your experience in these days, Paul’s words in Rom 8:38-39 seem so apposite: “For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Christ grasps you firmly. He is walking with you, unobserved by your, through the valley of the shadow of death, and sustaining you by the banquet He has prepared for you. The reality of the fear and terror of events you describe, which leave a remnant of their foul odor in your memory even long after the events themselves have passed, only prove the more the reality of what you hope for. That hope is your anchor in Christ, which allows him–like a great heavenly winch!–to draw you through (not around!) those very terrors into the Kingdom. The psalm says that the banquet is set for you, but “in the presence of my enemies.” The greatness of these enemies is infinitely surpassed by the greatness of His mercy, which is always for you. Keep doing what you know to do: relying on yourself for nothing, and on Him, and His infinite mercy, for everything.
Christ walks with each of you through whatever valley you are in right now.
“To suffer and to be happy although suffering . . .”
To suffer and to be happy although suffering, to have one’s feet on the earth, to walk on the dirty and rough paths of this earth and yet to be enthroned with Christ at the Father’s right hand, to laugh and cry with the children of this world and ceaselessly to sing the praises of God with the choirs of angels: this is the life of the Christian until the morning of eternity breaks forth. ~St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross
St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross, pray for us.
“God never wastes His children’s pain.”
For those of you who seem to be suffering fruitless pain, a word from Amy Carmichael:
But to what end is pain? I do not clearly know. But I have noticed that when one who has not suffered draws near to one in pain there is rarely much power to help; there is not the understanding that leaves the suffering thing comforted, though perhaps not a word was spoken; and I have wondered if it can be the same in the sphere of prayer. Does pain accepted and endured give some quality that would otherwise be lacking in prayer? Does it create that sympathy which can lay itself alongside the need, feeling it as though it were personal, so that it is possible to do just what the writer of Hebrews meant when he said, “Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body“?
. . . What if every stroke of pain, or hour of weariness, or ay other trial of flesh or spirit, could carry us a pulse-beat nearer some other life, some life for which the ministry of prayer is needed, would it not be worth while to suffer? Ten thousand times yes. And surely it must be so, for the further we are drawn into the fellowship of Calvary with our dear Lord, the tenderer are we toward others, the closer alongside do our spirits lie with them that are in bonds; as being ourselves also in the body. God never wastes His children’s pain. (Rose from Brier, p. 124)
“Perhaps his sorrow is splendor”
From a profound book, Lament for a Son, written by Nicholas Wolterstorff on the death of his 25-year-old son from a mountaineering accident:
It is said of God that no one can behold his face and live. I always thought this meant that no one could see his splendor and live. A friend said perhaps it meant that no one could see his sorrow and live. or perhaps his sorrow is splendor.
And great mystery: to redeem our brokenness and lovelessness the God who suffers with us did not strike some mighty blow of power but sent his beloved son to suffer like us, through his suffering to redeem us from suffering and evil.
Instead of explaining our suffering, God shares it.
“Our wounds are part of who we are”
Two songs are coming to mind today. One was written by a friend of mine, Kitty Donohoe, on 9-11 which she was later invited to sing at the dedication of the Pentagon Memorial. The name of the song is “There are No Words.” Michael Card in his book, A Sacred Sorrow, talks about the importance of lament in our lives, the need to struggle through our griefs to God, as Job did. In listening to Kitty’s song (which you can do here), you may wonder where God is in it. My take on it is that it’s the beginning stage of a lament, trying to begin to grieve. In the beginning, Job himself cursed the day he was born . . . but he stayed in the struggle with God, and we know the ending. And we know there is “a balm that can heal these wounds that will last a lifetime long.”
The second song is by Michael Card: “Lift Up Your Sorrows”, an encouragement to true lament, to stay in the pain and grief, wrestling through it to find the Lord.
And one more here, another by Michael:”Underneath the Door.” It is in a sense a testimony to his own struggling through pain in his life to meet God in it. “But our wounds are part of who we are and there’s nothing left to chance/And pain’s the pen that writes the songs and they call us forth to dance.”
Darkness is not dark to thee . . .
On Tim’s first anniversary, I was still on crutches (from a broken ankle), but all the sisters in my house drove me up to Tim’s grave. They even brought a folding lawn chair for me to be able to just sit at his grave. I read aloud from Psalm 139:
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there you hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Let only darkness cover me,
and the light around me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to thee,
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with thee.
Witnesses to Hope 