on the path to the cancer ward

There's a chemical smell that hits you on the way to the cancer centre. Some bright spark of an architect put the building's main vents just near the entrance doors. Every time you walk up the path, the smell of chemo hits you. Once you've been to an oncology ward, you don't forget that smell.

Every two weeks, we drive to Steve's appointment in heavy silence. We drag our feet up that path while I try not to breathe in. We sit in the chairs in the hallway; he stares into space while I fight back tears and fight down panic. A nurse calls his name, shows him to a chair: a green vinyl recliner, more suited to watching TV than to having poison pumped into your veins. We wait for the slow drip-drip! drip-drip! of the drugs.

The aim of Steve's chemo is curative. Or so they keep reminding us. I think it's to help us "stay positive". It doesn't help much. Doctors are relatively confident about colorectal tumours, and that's how they're treating Steve's small bowel cancer; but no one knows much about this rare disease.

Except God, of course. He knows every cell in Steve's body, and he is not at the mercy of statistics or uncertain prognoses or rare cancers. And so we fight to trust him.

And it has been a fight. Steve grieves the half-life he's forced to live. From days full of active ministry, to days lying on a couch, watching the cricket, and occasionally playing a game with the kids or getting some shopping or going for a slow walk down the street: it might sound like a holiday, but if so, this is no Hawaii.

The side-effects of chemo - nausea (controlled by steroids that give you sleepnessness instead of vomiting), numbing fatigue, brain-fog, peripheral neuropathy (tingling and numbness in fingers and toes), and a throat spasm that turned out to be a rare reaction to one of the chemicals - are hard to endure and hard to watch.

The last month has been easier for Steve. Two cycles ago they took him off one of the two main chemo drugs (he's still on the most important one) and the symptoms have reduced. He's past the worst of the chemo. Two more treatments, and that's the end for now. He is already easing his way back into work, and is coping well.

There will be further tests over the next few years to check if the cancer has returned. Waiting becomes our new normal, and we try to live as if we're not waiting. The kids go back to school, and I enjoy the space and silence. I begin to do more chores and start work on a talk. We plan a family holiday.

I've discovered that grief travels in three directions: past, present, and future. The trauma of what we've gone through; the struggle to accept our changed lives; fearful anticipation of what is to come. Sadness is like a backpack of rocks you carry around: you forget it for a while, stop and enjoy the view, but always it's there, and there are days when it feels too heavy to bear.

In the dark times, when I can't feel my way, I am often surprised by the strong light of God's word. Here's the passage that has lit my way recently:

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 5:7-1)

Humble yourself under God's hand. Cast your fears on him. Resist Satan's attempts to undermine your faith. Remember you're not alone. Remember this is just for a little while. Remember God will lift you up and restore you and make you strong

To God be the glory. Amen.


If you'd like regular updates on how we're going, you can "like" this page on Facebook: Pray for Steve.

psalm for the downcast (3)

Have you ever been burdened with sorrow or fear? You move through the world in a fog, and others' voices come to you as if from a distance. You wonder how they can be so carefree.

Sometimes, there's no lonelier place than a crowd.

I escape to solitude, grass below and a gum tree above. Twigs and bits of bark poke my legs. I stare at trees drawing lines on a slope striped with sun and shadow, a sky so lovely it hurts. I scribble words in my journal: "Oh, Father ...". It's good to write, but I want more.

How do you pray when your heart is heavy? Words seem inadequate. Hurt edges into bitterness. Perhaps the only word you can think of is "Help!" - and there are few better prayers. But you want more. You need, not your own words, but God's word. It has never felt so necessary.

I pull the Bible from my bag and open it to the psalms. I turn, not quite at random, to psalm 63 (someone once said it was helpful in times like this). I start reading a little earlier - psalm 61 will do. It astonishes me, as always, how the words give perfect shape to my need. I write them in my journal:

Hear my cry, O God.

From the ends of the earth I call to you.
I call as my heart grows faint.
Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

How long will you assault me?
Would all of you throw me down—
this leaning wall, this tottering fence?

Find rest, O my soul, in God alone.
He is my fortress, I will not be shaken.

On my bed I remember you;
I think of you through the watches of the night.
I sing in the shadow of your wings.

One thing God has spoken,
two things I have heard:
that you, O God, are strong,
and that you, O lord, are loving.

Two dot points form themselves in my mind:

• he is strong
• he is loving.

Those two things are all I need to know.



If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy:

• psalm for the downcast (1)
• psalm for the downcast (2)
• a cry of hopelessness
• praying your tears.

(Excerpts are from Psalms 61-63.)

a visit means more than a text

One of the things I admire about my mother is that she gets involved in other people's lives.

Now that she doesn't have children at home, and is working less, on her way to retirement, she could use her extra time for herself. Instead, she uses much of it for others.

She helps out at the local primary school. She looks after an elderly lady in a local nursing home. She cares for her brothers and sisters. She visits the sick.

She's like those older women - the Bible calls them "widows" (which my mum is not, but I think it's a similar stage of life) - who use their time and energy to serve (1 Tim 5:9-10; Acts 9:36-42). I hope to be like her one day.

Here's a story that encouraged me to get involved too.

It's about a friend of my mum's who lives a long way from her family.

Mum had just received a message from her friend to say her sister had died.

My mother wasn't far away: she was driving near her friend's house. It would have been easy to send a text and go home.

But that's not what she did.

She went and sat with her friend that morning. She hugged her and listened and shared her sorrow.

Her friend said,

"You know, there were lots of people who sent their sympathy via emails and text messages. But you came. You visited.

"That meant more to me than all of those texts put together."

In these days of emails and texts and instant messaging, it's so easy to contact someone and think we've done what needs to be done.

But I hope, next time I'm in a situation like this, that I remember: a visit means more than a text.

If we can, we just need to be there.

grief: a line with three points

There's so much to like about Abe Mysenburg's posts grief and the gospel and a gospel guide through grief.

So much wisdom about responding to suffering and sin as we follow Jesus, who also suffered and wept and grieved.

Here's a bit that spoke to me:

Fixating merely on the hard circumstances of life—past or present—is driven by pride. Effectively, we are casting our cares on ourselves. Casting them on God requires humility, an acknowledgement that life is not ultimately about us, but is about Him and His glory. 

The trials of life can cause us to tell our stories with our eyes pointed downward into our cupped hands, looking at our circumstances as if they were an unintelligible pile of garbage. It’s a line with two fixed points—us and our pile of stuff.

The challenge is to humbly bring your pile to the Father, to hold your cupped hands out and lift up your head, gazing not on your circumstances but on the One who is sovereign over them and present in the midst of them. The line becomes a triangle with three points—us, our pile of stuff, and our perfect Father.

the long pain of grief

John Piper writes about the long pain of grief to a parent grieving the loss of a child:

This loss and sorrow is all so fresh. I hesitate to tread into the tender place and speak. But since you ask, I pray that God would help me say something helpful...

God’s crucial word on grieving well is 1 Thessalonians 4:13: “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.” Yours is a grieving with hope. Theirs is a grieving without hope. That is the key difference. There is no talk of not grieving. That would be like suggesting to a woman who just lost her arm that she not cry, because it would be put back on in the resurrection. It hurts! That's why we cry. It hurts.

And amputation is a good analogy. Because unlike a bullet wound, when the amputation heals, the arm is still gone. So the hurt of grief is different from the hurt of other wounds. There is the pain of the severing, and then the relentless pain of the gone-ness. The countless might-have-beens. Those too hurt. Each new remembered one is a new blow on the tender place where the arm was. So grieving is like and unlike other pain.

There is a paradox in the way God is honoured through hope-filled grief. One might think that the only way he could be honoured would be to cry less or get over the ache more quickly. That might show that your confidence is in the good that God is and the good that he does. Yes. It might. And some people are wired emotionally to experience God that way. I would not join those who say, “O they are just in denial.”

But there is another way God is honoured in our grieving. When we taste the loss so deeply because we loved so deeply and treasured God’s gift — and God in his gift — so passionately that the loss cuts the deeper and the longer, and yet in and through the depths and the lengths of sorrow we never let go of God, and feel him never letting go of us — in that longer sorrow he is also greatly honoured, because the length of it reveals the magnitude of our sense of loss for which we do not forsake God. At every moment of the lengthening grief, we turn to him not away from him. And therefore the length of it is a way of showing him to be ever-present, enduringly sufficient.

So trust him deeply and let your heart be your guide whether you honour him one way or the other. Everyone is different. Beware of blaming your husband, or he you, for moving into or out of grief at different paces. It is so personal. And what you may find is that the one who seemed to recover more quickly will weep the more deeply in ten years. You just don’t know now, and it is good not to judge.

May God make your grieving a bittersweet experience of communion with Jesus. Matthew tells us that when Jesus heard that John the Baptist had been beheaded, “he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself” (Matthew 14:13). So he knows what it is to go with you there.

We do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize. He was tested in every way as we are — including loss.

You can read the rest here.

little acts of kindness

Macca writes about how little acts of kindness help people who suffer in big ways:

Sometimes people’s problems don’t go away. Bereavement and loss. Chronic pain or fatigue. Depression or anxiety. The serious illness, such as cancer. It may seem like there isn’t much we can do.

But, let me encourage you to think again. Maybe there’s something you could offer that would just make things a little easier. In fact, it might make all the difference in the world. It could be as simple as popping over for a cup of tea. Maybe you could offer to read the Bible with them or pray for them. If you offer anything, please make sure you follow up on it.

Little things show that you are still thinking of them. They indicate that you care. They demonstrate commitment. They’re not hard to do. Little acts of kindness can make a very big impact.

I thank God for the little things that people have done for us. For the gifts, the visits, the calls, the practical help, the messages. And the prayers. A little prayer to our awesome God is a kindness of huge proportions. Thank you.

You can read the rest here.

with the Lord forever on the other side of cancer

My friend Bronwyn Chin died last Sunday. It was Easter Day, the day we celebrate Jesus' resurrection from the dead, which seemed so fitting! For Bronwyn was always full of joy in her Saviour, and this was the day she joined him in life on the other side of death.

I only met Bronwyn last year, when I was blessed to be in a prayer group with her at a weekend conference. She was alarmingly skinny, with what she called "rock chic" hair; but she was still full of enthusiasm and laughter! We prayed for her neighbours, whom she invited over regularly so she could talk with them about Jesus. I was inspired by how she served God with all her small reserves of energy.

The day I heard the news I discovered that jogging when you're crying isn't easy. I couldn't stop thinking about and praying through tears for her husband Richard and their four children. My heart is heavy for them because I know that grief is hard. That aching absence always feels so final, even when you know it's not.

Today I'm re-reading a wonderful article Bronwyn wrote last year. It's called Thank God for the gift of cancer. In it she writes,

So I thank God for this gift of cancer because he is good and he is using it for his purposes. The plans of the Lord are perfect even if I don’t know the reasons for everything. All I know is that soon I will be with the Lord forever because Jesus alone has saved me through his death and resurrection.

I hope to see you all there!

 I'd love to encourage you to read the rest here.

what I'm reading: congee for the grieving from Emily Post and Joan Didion

If you're not sure how to help someone who's grieving, Joan Didion directs you to the practical wisdom of an earlier time: the chapter on funerals in Emily Post's 1922 Book of Etiquette (which you can read for free on line here). She writes,

The tone, one of unfailing specificity, never flags. The emphasis remains on the practical. The bereaved must be urged to "sit in a sunny room", preferably one with an open fire. Food, but "very little food", may be offered on a tray: tea, coffee, bouillon, a little thin toast, a poached egg. Milk, but only heated milk: "Cold milk is bad for someone who is already overchilled." As for further nourishment, "The cook may suggest something that appeals usually to their taste—but very little should be offered at a time, for although the stomach may be empty, the palate rejects the thought of food, and digestion is never in best order."...

A friend should be left in charge of the house during the funeral. The friend should see that the house is aired and displaced furniture put back where it belongs and a fire lit for the homecoming of the family. "It is also well to prepare a little hot tea or broth," Mrs. Post advised, "and it should be brought them upon their return without their being asked if they would care for it. Those who are in great distress want no food, but if it is handed to them, they will mechanically take it, and something warm to start digestion and stimulate impaired circulation is what they most need."

There is something arresting about the matter-of-fact wisdom here, the instinctive understanding of the physiological disruptions...As I read it, I remember how cold I had been in New York Hospital on the night John died...Mrs. Post would have understood that. She wrote in a world where mourning was still recognized, allowed, not hidden from view...

In the end Emily Post's 1922 etiquette book turned out to be as acute in its apprehension of this other way of death, and as prescriptive in its treatment of grief, as anything else I read. I will not forget the instinctive wisdom of the friend who, every day for those first few weeks, brought me a quart container of scallion-and-ginger congee from Chinatown. Congee I could eat. Congee was all I could eat.

Joan Didion The Year of Magical Thinking 59-60

image is by rickyqi at flickr

what I'm reading: hiding death and grief from Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking

Something that struck me as I read Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking was how attitudes to dying and grief have changed. Death once happened at home and touched every household, and every adult was expected to know how to deal with it; now it happens in hospitals, away from public view, and grief is something to be hidden. Joan Didion writes,

Philippe Aries...noted that beginning about 1930 there had been in most Western countries and particularly in the United States a revolution in accepted attitudes towardes death. "Death," he wrote, "so omnipresent in the past that it was familiar, would be effaced, would disappear. It would become shameful and forbidden."

The English social anthropologist Geoffrey Goer, in his 1965 Death, Grief and Mourning, had described this rejection of public mourning as a result of the increasing pressure of a new “ethical duty to enjoy oneself”, a novel “imperative to do nothing which might diminish the enjoyment of others.” In England and the United States, he observed, the contemporary trend was “to treat mourning as a morbid self-indulgence", and to give social admiration to the bereaved who "hide their grief so fully that no one would guess anything had happened.”

One way in which grief gets hidden is that death now occurs largely offstage. In the earlier tradition...the act of dying had not yet been professionalized. It did not typically involve hospitals. Women died in childbirth. Children died of fevers. Cancer was untreatable...The average adult was expected to deal competently, and also sensitively, with its aftermath. When someone dies, I was taught growing up, you bake a ham. You drop it at the house. You go to the funeral.

image is by José Goulão at flickr

what I'm reading: Joan Didion The Year of Magical Thinking

When my friend lost her father, she shared with me some books about grief. One of them was The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion's account of the year after her husband died. It's not a Christian book, but it will help you understand what it's like to grieve and may help you when you grieve.

The Year of Magical Thinking is a stunning book, a picture of grief from the inside. It's written with unflinching, sparse language that won't let you look away. The 'magical thinking' in the title refers to the way grief disorders your thinking: how there's an irrational conviction that if you do this, or don't do that, the person you grieve for will be able to return.

Here is an excerpt - a desciption of grief.

Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an imagined event. We misconstrue the nature of even those few days or weeks. We might expect if the death is sudden to feel shock. We do not expect this shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind. We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe that their husband is about to return and need his shoes. In this version of grief we imagine, the model will be 'healing'. A certain forward momentum will prevail. The worst days will be the earliest days. We imagine that the moment to most severely test us will be the funeral, after which this hypothetical healing will take place...We have no way of knowing that the funeral itself will be anodyne, a kind of narcotic regression in which we are wrapped in the care of others and the gravity and meaning of the occasion. Nor can we know ahead of the fact (and here lies the heart of the difference between grief as we imagine it and grief as it is) the unending absence that follows, the void, the very opposite of meaning, the relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaninglessness itself. (pages 188-189)

a question for you: a book for someone who's grieving

Penny has written in with a question for you:

I just wondered if you or your readers knew of a good christian book I can give a friend? She is in her late twenties and her husband has died. She is a new christian (has no children) and would love a book addressing her situation from a Christian perspective.

Does anyone know of a book Penny could give her friend?

a letter from Meredith

Here's another great way for women to encourage women: letter-writing.

I was tidying the enormous pile of papers near my phone recently (including an alarmingly large number of forms I haven't filled in) when I found a letter from Meredith, written 6 months before she started blogging in January 2009. I also found a plastic packet full of cards and letters sent after my father-in-law died.

It seemed an appropriate (re)discovery, since Meredith's letter says she'd decided not to start a blog so she could use her spare moments to write letters (a decision she revised a few months later) and since she's just written her last blog post so she can get on with writing letters.

Letters. They're an increasingly uncommon way to encourage people, but they're more meaningful than an email and more personal than a blog. They show someone has made the effort to put pen to paper, and I've seen again and again how they bring comfort and encouragement during times of hardship or grief.

Near the end of Meredith's letter she wrote out the words to this wonderful hymn by Horatio Bonar (1808-1889):

Thy way, not mine, O Lord,
However dark it be;
Lead me by Thine own hand,
Choose out the path for me.

Smooth let it be or rough,
It will be still the best;
Winding or straight, it leads
Right onward to Thy rest.

I dare not choose my lot;
I would not, if I might;
Choose Thou for me, my God,
So I shall walk aright.

Take Thou my cup, and it
With joy or sorrow fill,
As best to Thee may seem;
Choose Thou my good and ill.

Choose Thou for me my friends,
My sickness or my health;
Choose Thou my cares for me
My poverty or wealth.

The kingdom that I seek
Is Thine: so let the way
That leads to it be Thine,
Else I must surely stray.

Not mine, not mine the choice
In things or great or small;
Be Thou my Guide, my Strength
My Wisdom, and my All.

Keep writing, Meredith!

image is from a.drian at flickr

Tim Keller Praying your tears

I'd like to tell you about two great talks I listened to recently: Praying our Tears and Praying our Fears by Tim Keller. They're both free online, and are part of a series on the Psalms about responding to our feelings. Today I'll tell you about the one on tears; next time, the one on fears.

I love the Psalms! It seems that every emotion I've ever felt is expressed there, ready to be prayed to God. Sometimes I feel like getting older is just working through the Psalms, one emotion at a time!

There's no better guide to what to do with our feelings before God than the Psalms. I like Tim Keller's way of putting it: that the Psalms teach us a gospel third way of responding to our emotions.

1. Many Christians are uncomfortable with feelings, so we deny and suppress them.
2. The world tells us that we need to acknowledge, express and follow our feelings, so we vent and dump them.
3. The Psalms give us a gospel third way of responding to our emotions: to pray our feelings.

But what about suffering? How do we pray our tears? How do we use them to soften, rather than harden our hearts? Here's what Keller says. I've included a few quotes: they're wonderful, so take the time to read them. I know they'll live on in my heart and mind for a long time.

1. Expect tears
I'm often surprised when I suffer. Isn't God good? Isn't he supposed to protect me? What have I done to deserve this?! But I should expect to suffer more as I become more like Jesus. If I don't expect tears, I'll always be crying about two things instead of one. "You're weeping about the thing that made you weep, and you're weeping about the weeping .... You're going to sink under that. Once thing at a time is all we can take."

2. Invest your tears
"Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy" (Ps 126:5-6). If a farmer leaves his seed in the shed, or dumps it all in one spot, there will be no harvest: he must sow his seed. We shouldn't deny or dump our tears, but see them as an opportunity for growth. Tears give way to joy (Ps 30:5) but they also produce joy (2 Cor 4:17). So how do we plant our tears?

3. Pray your tears
When we pour our tears into prayer, it transforms both the tears and the weeper. We should plant our tears in three things.

a. A realisation of God's grace.
We need to know before we start crying that it's safe to pour out our hearts to God. That's why the Bible includes disturbing psalms like Psalm 39, which ends "get away from me, God!" Derek Kidner says,

The very presence of such prayers in the Scripture is a witness to God's understanding. He knows how we speak when we are desperate. ... Psalm 39 shows where your deepest feelings - your anger, your tears - belong. ... Ultimately where your tears belong is not managed or packaged or manicured in some little confessional prayer. They belong in pre-reflective outbursts from the depths of your being in the very presence of God. ... "I want you to speak and feel in my presence. It's safe. I understand what it's like to be desperate. ... I'm a God of grace. I understand."

b. A vision of the cross.
God understands our desperation because Jesus experienced desolation. Jesus cried, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" and found heaven empty, so that when we cry "Turn your face away!" God won't abandon us (Ps 39:13, Matt 27:46).

When I look to the cross, I can suffer without guilt, for I know God isn't punishing me because Jesus was punished instead of me. I can suffer without impatience, for I can trust that God's purposes are good even when I don't understand, just like people didn't understand the cross. I can suffer without self-pity:

Weeping is fine. Weeping and grief is fine. Weeping and disappointment is fine ... but weeping in self-pity will make you a small little person, someone who can't forgive, someone who is always feeling ill-used, someone who gets incredibly touchy and incredibly over-sensitive. ... Look at the cross and say, "... My sufferings are nothing compared to yours. If you suffered for me I can be patient with this suffering for you."

c. An assurance of his glory.
All sorrow ends in joy (Ps 126:6). The final psalms are all psalms of joy. But how does a prayer of tears become a prayer of joy? Eugene Peterson says,

What the psalms are teaching us is that all true prayer pursued far enough will become praise. Any prayer, no matter how desperate its origin, no matter how angry and fearful the experience it traverses, will become praise. It does not always get there quickly. It does not always get there easily. In fact, the trip can take a lifetime! But the end is always praise. This is not to say that other kinds of prayer are inferior to praise, but that all prayer pursued far enough becomes praise. Don't rush it. Don't try to push it. It may take years, it may take decades before certain prayers arrive at the hallelujahs of Psalm 150. Not every prayer is capped off with praise. In fact most prayers, if the psalms are a true guide, are not. But prayer is always reaching toward praise, and if pursued far enough, will arrive there.

Sometimes we're afraid to weep because we think we'll never stop weeping. But if we know that sorrow ends in joy - that sorrow produces joy - we can dare to weep. Tim Keller asks, are you happy enough to be a weeper? - to get involved in the lives of others even when it's painful? If so, there will be a harvest of joy for them and you.

He prays, "Father, make us happy enough to weep." Amen.

images are from Chapendra, IRRI Images and Jacopo Cossater from flickr

Toe Touching - helping those who grieve

Today I was reminded what to do when someone hurts. These words were written by a woman with 3 children who lost her husband. They are from her post Toe Touching, published in the new women's blog Mentoring Moments.

Life was hard, but God had not left me to face the days alone. Joan, a dear friend called at a time when no one else could have done for me what she did. She said, “I don’t understand what you are going through, but I’m here to listen to you cry, and to cry with you, if that will help.” And we did just that! Together, we cried for an hour and she listened as I talked about my Don, my children, and the ways they were suffering over the death of their father. I don’t recall another person ever asking me how the children were dealing emotionally with losing their dad. The tears stopped and we laughed and enjoyed good fellowship. That was twenty-five years ago but I have recalled it many times as I share with others the need to just be a friend. A friend who might not understand, but who is there to listen, to share tears, and to laugh! That time with Joan has remained a source of strength for me over the years.

The time did come when I realized that God had not abandoned me, but not until after I had given up. The late Larry Burkett ... had a heart for single again adults and sensed the great need I had, so he sent an associate to me. She become a buffer allowing me the freedom to be real. She offered counsel without judgment or condemnation and comforted me while pointing me to Jesus.

Ed Welch on how to help those who are suffering

One of the simplest and most profound things Ed Welch said in Issues in Biblical Counselling was this observation about a woman who had experienced intense suffering.

Every single person in our church said to her, ‘If you ever need anything, call me’, and every single person in our church meant it. Every single person in our church, whenever they were called, whatever the request was, they would have done it.

But she said, "You know, I’ve heard people say that, and I appreciated it, but I was never, ever, ever going to call anybody.

"There were, however, some people who wouldn’t say, 'If you ever need anything, call me.' They would just do stuff. They would bring a meal over, they would take the dog out for a walk, they would come and clean my house. They would babysit, and give me tickets to a show in town with a friend.

"They never said, 'What can we do', they sat around and contrived things to do.

"Those were my pastors."

image is from Pseudo Serious at flickr.com

the fires: how shall we respond?

Every morning I wake up and it's ok, until with a dull thud it comes back to me. Image after image of people who died in the fires. Rows of army tents with homeless people staying in them. Entire communities which have been wiped out.

My friend whose parents lost their house. A family known to me who died in their car. A school child who lost her parents and sister.

How can we respond to a tragedy like this? I've been thinking about this ever since I heard the news. How have you responded? Here's some of the ways I'm trying to respond:

• Grieve. One of the wonderful things about God's word is that it doesn't pretend disaster isn't disaster. It doesn't supply easy, bandaid answers, as Job's friends found out. It's right to grieve. It's right to lament. It's right to ask God "why?", if that's what's in our hearts. God is big enough for our pain and questions.
• Express compassion. If I know people who are grieving, I can grieve with them. I can walk with them through their grief. I can "mourn with those who mourn" (Rom 12:14). If nothing else, at least I can send a card, or say "I'm so sorry". But true compassion doesn't stop with words. It reaches out with practical help and generous giving (Jam 2:15-16). Meals, a place to stay, household items, the loan of a car, money: I know people helping in many different ways. How I give depends on what I have and my relationship to those in need.
• Rethink my priorities. When I woke up last Monday, I lay and thought about what it would be like to lose our home: not so much the bricks and mortar, but irreplaceable small treasures like photos, the children's artwork, precious objects handed down from my parents. One day all this will be taken from me as surely as it has from those who've lost their homes. Do I value these things too highly (Matt 6:19-21; Luke 12:13-21)? Our old TV is pretty awful, and we were going to buy a new one. That doesn't seem so important now.
• Teach my children. Our children have watched the news with us during the last few days, so they know what's been happening. We've talked with them about suffering and how to understand it. We've encouraged them to be generous with their pocket money. We've prayed with them. I was helped by Nicole's suggestions about how to talk with kids about disaster.
• Be prepared to speak (1 Pet 3:15-16). In Melbourne at the moment, every second conversation is about the fire. It's hard to know how to speak about Jesus in a situation like this, because it's not the time to present a theology of suffering. Perhaps I could speak of Christian friends whose hope for a home in heaven comforts them after losing their home. Perhaps, if my friend is asking "why?", I could acknowledge my own uncertainty, and how I've learned to trust God when I can't understand, because I've seen the immensity of his love in the death of his Son. I would love to hear your ideas about what to say.
• Take refuge in Christ. Tragedy is a terrible warning sign of the even more terrible judgement to come (Rev 8-11, Mark 13, Luke 13:1-5). In a bushfire, the only safe place is that which has already been burned by the flames. When God brings his just judgement again our rejection of him, the only safe place is Jesus, who took God's judgement on himself. May what's happened drive us and others to Christ.
• Pray. Our church has encouraged us to pray:

1. for comfort and support for those who have lost family and property
2. for the provision of housing and food and schooling to those in need
3. praise and strength for those who continue to fight the fires
4. thanks for the preservation of so many people who escaped
5. that God will bring good from this including improved procedures for future fires
6. and that all who escaped from the flames will recognise the need to also escape from judgement by reconciling with God in Christ

I thank God that his word gives us words of lament for times like this. That it gives us a heart and hands to reach out in compassion. That it gives us hope for a home which can't be destroyed (John 14:1-4) and hope for a day when God will wipe every tear from our eyes (Rev 21:4). I thank God that those who trust in Jesus know that, whatever and whoever else we lose, we cannot lose him.

song for the sorrowing

While we're on the topic of songs for the discouraged, here's a wonderful song for the sorrowing.

I was listening to Furthermore by Jars of Clay yesterday, when "The Valley Song" came on. It struck me that this song is Psalm 42-43 in modern dress: it seems that some still know how to lament, cry out to God, and fight for joy. And it's one of the most beautiful Jars of Clay songs of all time. I only hope I can sing like this in the day of sorrow.

The Valley Song (Sing of Your Mercy)

You have led me to the sadness,
I have carried this pain
on a back bruised, nearly broken:
I'm crying out to You.

I will sing of Your mercy
that leads me through
valleys of sorrow
to rivers of joy.

When death, like a gypsy,
comes to steal what I love,
I will still look to the heavens,
I will still seek your face:
but I fear You aren't listening
because there are no words,
just the stillness,
and the hunger
for a faith that assures.

I will sing of Your mercy
that leads me through
valleys of sorrow
to rivers of joy.

alleluia, alleluia
alleluia, alleluia

While we wait for rescue
with our eyes tightly shut,
face to the ground, using our hands
to cover the fatal cut;
though the pain is an ocean
tossing us around, around, around;
You have calmed greater waters
higher mountains have come down.

I will sing of Your mercy
that leads me through
valleys of sorrow
to rivers of joy.

I will sing of Your mercy
that leads me through
valleys of sorrow
to rivers of joy.

alleluia, alleluia
alleluia, alleluia

online meanderings: supporting those who grieve

What age is best for your child to die? It seems an absurd question. The answer could be equally absurd. Perhaps the best time is within the first week of birth, or even during birth: you couldn't possibly have bonded that soon. Maybe it'd be better before two years of age: you could enjoy their laughter for a while and they'd be too young to understand. Maybe 10 years old: your son or daughter would have enjoyed a carefree childhood and not known the pains of adolescence. What about 18? They could have experienced love, maybe sex, part-time work, a bit of uni, but would be spared the burdens of adulthood. Or maybe adulthood would be best. They could have experienced all of life's ups and downs. You'd feel better then, wouldn't you?

We all know there is no 'best' age, and yet if you're unfortunate enough to experience the death of your child, there will always be someone with a cliche to 'comfort' you, or an opinion as to why it's not that bad. ...

We've made such advances in medicine. ... Children aren't supposed to die in this country ... We don't do death well in the West. Eastern cultures are more udnerstanding of the transient nature of our lives. For them it's accepted that you plan a 'good death'. Why is planning for and talking about death so taboo to us?

This is from Gail Andrew's article "Expressions of Grief" in this month's Melbourne's Child (and Sydney's Child, Perth's Child, etc.). It's by a woman whose severely disabled son died in her arms when he was 7 years old. Here's some of her observations:

• Don't deny the loss, saying things like "There are plenty of others worse off than you", "At least you have two healthy children", "She's much better off.", "It must be a relief to you. You can get on with your life now."


• Realise that anger may be part of grief: don't be offended if an angry outburst seems misdirected. Don't treat the grieving person as if they were inconsiderate or socially unacceptable if they cry or express anger.


• "It" will not be over the day or the week after the funeral. In fact, "it" will never be over. Don't expect stoic endurance, or that those grieving should get on with their lives as if nothing had happened.


• Don't ask "Do you need help?", for in the months after a death, those grieving may be numb and shocked, unable to think rationally about what they need. Just give company and practical help, like taking them fishing, or cooking them a meal.


• When a couple is grieving, it may put intense strain on their relationship, and they may not be able to comfort each other. They will need others to support them, and walk with them through their grief.


• Knowing that others feel uncomfortable with grief, will burden the grieving person with having to keep silent about their grief in order to maintain friendship. She says, "People become very distant when they are at a loss for words."


• The best thing you can do? "Many people gathered around to comfort us and carry us through the intense waves of pain ... nothing was too much trouble. A special few were able to cry with us, be angry with us, walk beside us and share our grief."


• And from another article in the same magazine: it's important to acknowledge grief. Elizabeth Quinn speaks of how she helped her friend celebrate the life of her stillborn son, who was lost and never mentioned again.

How are things different for Christians? In some ways, not at all: in the wonderful post Psalm 6: Walking with friends through grief Cathy observes that grief is a drawn-out, exhausting process, and that we shouldn't attempt to "tidy up" our grieving friends' feelings. But she also reminds us that Christians have the comfort of God's loving and sovereign care.

Cathy's friends have just lost their baby boy, and she is walking with them through grief, and looking forward to the day when every tear will be wiped from our eyes. She says of her sad, strange week, "This week isn't surprising and it doesn't have the last word. Thankyou risen King Jesus." Amen.

Abraham and Molly Piper lost baby Felicity 6 months ago. Molly has written a lot about her grief, and about how to support those who are grieving. There's a list of links to the posts she's written in how to help your grieving friend.

John Piper teaches us how to "weep with those who weep" in How can I comfort my brother whose daughter has cancer.

And there's some wonderful, practical advice in What I'd like you to know: The Mom of a child with cancer. I'd love to list all the advice she gives, but why not read it for yourself? I've made lots of the mistakes she mentions, so I found this perhaps the most useful post of all.

images are from stock.xchng

enjoying God (8) why don't I feel joy in God?

Sometimes Christians give the impression that to be a Christian, you have to be happy. If you're miserable, maybe there's something lacking in your faith, or you're not really a Christian.

It won't be long before experience of suffering, sorrow, or discouragement, brings that kind of faith crashing down.

There will be times in every Christian's life when we wonder if we will ever feel joy again. But what should we make of these times? Aren't we supposed to have joy in God? Can you be a Christian without joy?

There are a few things to remember here. First, desire and delight are two sides of the same coin. Sometimes we feel delight, a positive experience of joy. Sometimes all we feel is desire, longing for God. But both show how highly we value God, how we believe he alone can satisfy the desires of our soul.

Second, joy may seem to be absent, even when its seed remains in our hearts. We know the seed is there, because we're unhappy about our lack of joy. We're uncomfortable. We feel something is missing. If we didn't care about God, our lack of joy in God wouldn't bother us. In the depths of that sorrow is the seed of joy.

And most importantly: whatever our feelings of God's absence, the fact is that he is always with us, if we trust in Jesus. We're righteous in God's sight, united with Christ, and his Spirit lives in us (Rom. 3:22; 6:5; 8:9-11). We don't move into, or out of, God's presence depending on our feelings. The foundation for joy is always there, even when feelings of joy are absent.

But is it appropriate for Christians to be unhappy? Doesn't Paul say "rejoice in the Lord always", and "be joyful always" (Phil. 4:4, 1 Thess. 5:16)? Are unhappy Christians worse Christians, or disobedient Christians?

Christians should be unhappy, at times, in this fallen world. It's appropriate for Christians to grieve. It's appropriate for Christians to feel sorrow. A Christian who doesn't feel grief and sorrow in the face of death and suffering lacks something. Christians shouldn't be immune to what is happening around them.

But we can be unhappy and joyful at the same time. Paul describes himself as "sorrowful, yet always rejoicing" (2 Cor. 6:10). Peter says the people he is writing to "greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials" (1 Pet. 1:6). They don't just suffer, they "sorrow" and "grieve" - yet they also rejoice.

For joy and happiness aren't the same thing. It's possible to feel a deep sense of joy in God, even when we grieve or suffer terribly. Sometimes our joy in God is more intense when the things of this world are stripped away. Perhaps you have known this: the determination to trust and praise God in the face of loss, the sweet joy of suffering with Christ in the cause of the gospel.

Yet there will be times when joy seems a million miles away. In the first moments, days, or weeks, of devastating loss, it may be anguish, bewilderment, and even anger, which we express with honesty to God. And many great saints - Spurgeon, Cowper, Brainerd - suffered from severe depression.

In the day of sorrow, sometimes all we can do is cry out to God, hold on to his promises, plead with our souls, pray, and wait.

Futher reading: many of these ideas are taken from John Piper's When I Don't Desire God, and from chapter 16, on trials, in Martyn Lloyd-Jones' Spiritual Depression.

images are from stock.xchng

losing parents: all grown up, but newly alone

It all came back to me the other day.

We arrived at church to discover our minister wasn't there. His mother had died the night before. Only 3 months ago, almost to the day, we were rung at 9.30 with the news that Steve's father had died. It's impossible to forget the night we went to say goodbye.

It doesn't matter if you're all grown up, losing a parent is a terribly sad experience. It's easy to underestimate the significance of losing parents as an adult.

There's the normal sorrow of loss and grief. The empty chair he always sat in. The renewed pain when you see something she created, or planted, or loved. The mornings you wake up and remember, shockingly, again, what you have lost.

But when a parent dies, you lose more than the person you love.

You're losing your childhood. Someone who can answer the question, "What was I like when I was 5 years old?" Someone who remembers your grandma's house. Someone who loves you in the irrational, doting way of a parent, who embarrasses you by boasting of your accomplishments, and who still thinks you are beautiful, wrinkles and all.

You're losing a generation of memories and insights. What was it like when your parents were young? What did it feel like to live through World War II? The way clothes look after they've been through a mangle. Bottles of milk beside the front door, waiting for the milk van. The horse-drawn dunny cart.

You're losing a wealth of wisdom. How do you make Anzacs the traditional way? Pancakes with soured milk? Lancashire Hotpot? How do you change the washer on a tap? What did your mum do when her babies wouldn't sleep? Did she ever worry you wouldn't turn out ok?

You're losing your children's grandparents. Someone who can tell them stories about what you were like as a child. Someone your children can turn to as teenagers, when you just don't get it. Someone who won't have to pretend to be fascinated when you talk endlessly about your child's first steps.

I'm not sure you really grow up until you lose both your parents.

It's not just parents you're losing, but someone older than you, someone ultimately responsible, someone you can depend on. A father who will be there the day you run out of money. A mother who will come and stay when you've just had a baby, and are trying to juggle 3 older children, a home, and mastitis.

You stand on the precipice of a terrifying independence.

There are all kinds of ways to lose parents. We may move far away, so that phonecalls are rare, and regular visits out of the question. We may lose parents to Alzheimer's or cancer, and have to watch them slowly drift away, body and mind. Our relationship with them may be damaged, seemingly beyond repair. Maybe they're still alive, and we've been living without them for a long time.

When we lose our parents, there is one comfort: God has not left us as orphans. He will always be our Father.

There was a wonderful article about adults losing their parents, and the deep impact it has, in the Good Weekend a couple of months ago. I should have kept a copy. Did anyone cut it out and keep it? And if so, can you send me a copy? I would love to read it again!

Image is from stock.xchg