Where is God when You Know Everything is Going to Change?

 July 17 was the closest I've ever (knowingly) been to death.

As someone raised in the church, I've thought a lot about the mortality of my body. I never shied away from the idea of death, and in a sense-- sometimes healthy, sometimes not-- I even found the idea a comfort. The removal of pain and suffering and uncertainty and hormones and sickness and worrying about food and social anxiety. Knowing my soul will one day be free of the weight of surviving feels like a relief. 

And if this was it, I was ready.

My life didn't flash before my eyes. I didn't think about my regrets or my choices or my dreams I wouldn't get to fulfil. I just thought about my body.

At this moment of urgent need, I felt thankful. 

Thankful that my uterus tried and my heart beat and my lungs breathed and my kidneys and liver and stomach and brain all knew what to do from the beginning. Now, sitting in the hospital, bleeding internally, I knew my body again kept me alive.

That night, I could have dismissed my pain. I'd already wasted money at the hospital a couple days before where my pain was written off because it was quiet. Because it was calm. Because I didn't advocate firmly enough.

Because I let them ignore the results staring out at them from the screen.

There's a weight to things when you know they are true. That night, I knew if I went to sleep off the pain and silence the fear, I wouldn't wake up the next morning. And for that knowing, I was proud of my body. 

When you know everything is going to change, life looks different. Thinking feels different. Better or worse, it doesn't matter, but there's an awareness that it will never be this moment again. You'll never be this version of you again. 

Grief tugs at our anchor to reality, to our foundation. 

We are alive every day. As obvious as that sounds, how often do we wake up, complete our routine, and go back to sleep without letting ourselves feel or think, because it's too scary or overwhelming? We numb ourselves with normalcy and to-do lists and "this really cool new thing I'm trying."

The waves rise, and we feel that anchor tug against us. We can no longer drift idly on the tides, careful only not to disturb the surface. Whether the thing we lose is given up or taken, if it's sudden or slow, when we grieve, that pretense is disturbed. Now we're fighting every second against the waves just to be. 

A lot of people stay here the rest of their lives. Fighting. Always fighting. Fighting to make it calm, fighting to put it back to normal, fighting to ignore it by focusing on other things. Fighting against the real problem.

I've found myself here the last few months. Fighting to go back to normal, to focus on other things.

But the grief isn't mine alone. 

It's my husband's. It's everyone's who has lost a child, who has lost a loved one, who has lost a dream or a job or a friendship or an opportunity or a freedom or an ability or a love that never was. 

We're all anchored. 

The question is, to what?

Anchored to reality, sure. But what truth holds you fast? What keeps you from drifting off or capsizing or being broken up by the waves?

What truth steadies you in the uncertainty and the fear and the pain and the loneliness and the darkness and the anxiety? Is there a truth tethering you to hope and peace and confidence?

I will tell you mine.

In that room, while I sat alone in the hospital bed, knowing my ruptured fallopian tube was still pumping blood into my stomach while the OR techs "took their time," knowing my husband was waiting without update in the other room, knowing what this surgery meant, knowing that tomorrow isn't promised, that 20 minutes from now isn't promised... the truth that anchored me is the same that has carried me through every storm, that transcends this world, anchored in He Who created it. 

The stories about God walking Israel through the Red Sea, about Jesus calming the storm, about the Holy Spirit appearing as a flame in new believers... maybe they feel far away from you. Maybe it all sounds metaphorical. Maybe some of it is.

But I can tell you that His comfort, His peace, His wisdom, His love, they are ever-present. 

I didn't feel scared that day. Not of losing my grasp on this life. Because I know this isn't the best there is. This world and everything you can do here can be amazing. God didn't create a world of nothing, but of life and life abundant. 

Still, it isn't the best there is.

I wanted to stay, and I was ready to go. I knew there was so much more ahead. So much more above. So much more to this moment than random chance. 

And so my soul was at peace.

Where is God in Grief?

Though I write this from the perspective of losing a loved one, I know there are many grieving now. A chronic condition. An unexpected firing. A loss of normalcy. A system, touted to protect the people, set against them. A society that responds to their cry of, "I do matter to you, don't I?" with a patronizing, "Doesn't everyone?"

Grief.

A topic I've shared ad nauseum. But you write what you know, and grief is a path I've walked and felt and been drastically altered by. Sometimes I feel like the person I was before, during, and throughout the many years since, is so incredibly different that if they all gathered in one room, they'd feel shy and uncomfortable and they'd grasp at small talk straws with little success at finding common ground.

Grief changes you. It hurts, and yet in some ways, it fills you. It guides you. It gives meaning to everything-- a song you sang together, a joke they made about a street sign, a food they loved. Suddenly everything leads back to them. Nothing is just itself anymore.

It's all accompanied by that gnawing feeling. The questions. The numbness. The echoing pain in the pit of your stomach.

It's hard to define. There are so many emotions tied together and plated as "grief".

Grief is fear. As a female raised in the Christian church, a lot of my time growing up was filled with dreams of marriage. There were approximately zero days in middle and high school in which I didn't have romantic feelings for someone. Then, grief. My sister's husband dies. The walls go up. I didn't know I was building them, and I didn't really even notice them until I met someone that started turning this hidden key, and I was terrified and pulling away, and I'm yelling at myself like don't you dare let someone in that could be ripped away from you. Please. Not that again.

Anything else.

Grief is recklessness. I rebel against my insides by antagonizing my outsides. I run until my chest feels like it's collapsing. I throw myself at adrenaline. I'd rather risk everything else. At least it'll just be physical pain and not this emotional/mental/spiritual barbed wire I find myself wrapped up in. Constant movement, constant noise, constant distraction. Get up from my desk one morning and quit my job. Anything. Look outward, focus on the surface. Compartmentalize the deep.

Grief is disappointment. A lot of the loss felt when grieving someone (or something) is this sense of disappointment. You've lost a part of your future that you were really looking forward to. Like you're left standing there, holding the remnants of your dreams in your hands thinking it'll never be enough, it'll never go back together. Everything's tainted. All your plans have a huge hole running through each of them. Now what?

Now what?

Grief is anxiety. It'll never be enough. How can I face this? Was this my fault? What if I did something different? What if I'd called them back? What if I spent one more day with them? How is this fair? Can I ever be normal again? What will that look like? Can I really be happy whatever that is? And what if this happens again? What do I do tomorrow? What do I do in ten years when they're still not here? How do I cancel their mail? Are all these other people okay? Did all these other people already forget? Should I bring it up? Am I the only one still hurting? What if...What if...What if? And all the answers take time.

Grief is loneliness. It's like being stuck down a well. No matter how many people surround you, you're trapped deep down inside yourself. There's darkness everywhere you look. You get little glimpses of friendly faces and their words echo down to you, but by the time it reaches you, it doesn't sound real anymore. All you see are the empty places left behind. It's isolating.

Grief is anger. We want to blame something and when we can't determine what that object should be, it can cause us to lose sight of reality. We hide in our anger, give ourselves over to it. It focuses the hurt elsewhere, keeps it outside. We make up stories in our head and push everyone away because maybe it was their fault, maybe it was mine. Hate can creep in. It can force the good from our lives in search of the root of the bad. Anger at who we lost, anger at those left behind, anger at our reaction to it, anger at other people's reactions to it. Anger is grief's mask, because anger is easier to look at than all these other things hiding behind it.

Much of the grieving process takes place in our subconscious. On the surface, I'd try to play strong and positive for my family and friends. I wanted to be a rock, an encouragement, a reminder of God when they were tempted to forget. I tried to reframe everything in my mind to be optimistic and happy, but my body still grieved.

Exhaustion.

Tears.

Bereavement brain.

Grief is physical. No matter how far you push grief from your mind, it will still show up in your body. Studies have shown that the brains of people experiencing grief have an increase in activity on nearly every neural network. Grief affects every system, from simple things like remembering something someone literally just said to you, to your digestion or posture or heart beat or speech.

There were times I couldn't speak without stopping to regroup and remember how to physically say a word. I'd make that face, like the person in the horror movie that abruptly stops talking, goes blank in the eyes, and falls over to reveal there's a knife in their back, and they just literally died mid-sentence. And that's really as confusing as it felt. Like abruptly my body would just forget how to do things.

And I never attributed it with grief. I spent a lot of time at the doctor's office the year following Jake's death trying to convince them I had some crazy brain tumor. I wanted it to be a crazy brain tumor. In a weird way it made me feel close to him, because I knew he'd find it fascinating and ironic because we always hyperbolically misdiagnosed everything as a brain tumor.

It wasn't a brain tumor. I was just really sad.

All of it adds up to this: grief is confusing. It's hard. It's a weight on your chest.

But it doesn't have to end there.

I like organization. I like timelines. I like knowing what to expect. And that is not grief. Grief changes. One day it's laughter, the next it's crying in the bathroom at a party almost a decade later over a memory mentioned in passing.

It changes, but in that change I saw so so clearly that God did not. His Word did not. His grace did not. His wisdom did not.

In grief, I saw the kindness and the goodness and provision of God. In that darkness, I saw His light. His steady, hopeful, peace-giving light. I felt His compassion. His friendship.

When I faltered, I felt His strength. I could see Him leading me, holding me up.

Grief is a blessing.
Grief is clarifying.
Grief is renewing.

He turned my eyes from my pain to His plans, His Gospel, His Son.

His suffering.

Imagine, the grief Jesus went through on the cross. The grief God went through when He gave up His Son. The grief we cause the Holy Spirit when we fill the hole in our hearts with the world instead of with His presence.

We do not serve a God unfamiliar with grief. Instead, He joined us in it. Willingly.

Where is God in grief? Right beside us.

The Samaritan

White Christians, it's time to stop putting patriotism over people. 

It's time to replace, "That would never happen here," with, "That doesn't reflect my experience." Because it doesn't, and that's the point. 

Then, listen. 

To real, individual people. Go on Twitter, look up the hashtags you think are "unnecessary" and read. Read what they post. Read the news they share. Read the ideas they have. Read their stories of being pulled over for "looking like they were about to start speeding" or not having their headlights on in the afternoon because they "should have anticipated it getting dark." 

If they're all lying, you've wasted a couple hours, and you may continue on, proud of yourself for doing the work. 

But if they're telling the truth and you refused to listen, then you will stand before God that final day, as we all will. Are you ready for Him to say, "All these people asked for your help, and you scoffed at them. You 'crossed to the other side of the road' because you were too busy, too patriotic, too afraid to care for the wounds of your neighbor"? Will you, as the Pharisee, "seeking to justify himself, ask Jesus 'And who is my neighbor?'" Or will you have compassion and put your own security on the line for the sake of love and mercy and justice, even if you haven't personally seen or experienced the injustice? 

Jesus chose the cross over Caesar. Do you really think fighting for the Constitution, the second amendment, your freedom of speech (and while you're at it, your denial of climate consequences), aligns more closely with what He asks of us than taking up the cause of the downcast and the oppressed? Of the hurting, the widow, and the fatherless? Of your brother, your friend, your enemy? 

Because if you think waving the American flag makes God happier than laying down your life for your friend, I fear for you. 

I fear for the congregation that sends missionaries abroad but ignores the cries of the people within its own city streets. 

I fear for the congregation that thinks the notion of holding our government accountable for the actions and character of the individuals in power is a conspiracy. 

I fear for the Christian that shrugs in the face of a weeping Black mother forced to eulogize her son and says, "I heard he got caught shoplifting a couple years ago."  

I fear for the Christian that thinks it wise and meritous to never change your mind, to talk over opposing arguments with smug deafness.

I fear for the Christian that thinks they follow Jesus when America is their god and comfort their king.