Hope and Comfort

Sometimes when someone dies you just know they have gone Home to glory.  Other times though you find yourself floundering somewhere between doubt and dread, fearing that they may not have put their faith in Christ - even faith as small as a mustard seed.

Uncertainty and fear add to the already heavy weight of grief.  And it all serves to remind us that death is wrong.   When Jesus wept for Lazarus it seems it wasn't just for the lost relationship, but weeping over the state of things.  It was never meant to be this way.  Death is a hard place.

I've thought about all of this a great deal over recent years and my thoughts have been tested.  What I have found, in the face of death, is that there are two things that bring me enormous comfort, no matter what the circumstances.

The first thing is this.  We are made in the image of God.  One of the things this means is that we are made to be in relationship with Him.  Every single human being ever.  I see evidence of this most clearly when someone is thrown into crisis, especially sudden crisis.  So often in those moments the person's immediate response is to cry out to God in prayer, even when they've never prayed in their life and they don't really know what they're doing.  Or else they seek out the prayers of someone who prays.  It's like we are all microchipped to God and when the need most hits we are drawn Home to our Father in heaven.  It's the strongest magnetic pull in the universe. 

And as God is "not wanting anyone to perish but for everyone to come to repentence" (2 Peter 3:9) I wonder that God maybe responds in grace and mercy to those cries Home in the greatest of all crises - as one is facing their own death. 

Sometimes we see the evidence of God's mercy in the lives of those around us over many years and we know, in death, that they are going Home.  Sometimes in God's great kindness we might see His grace and mercy in someone's last days or hours - a kindness more for our own benefit and comfort.  And I wonder if there are times when we may not be aware of God, mercifully at work even when all communication between the one dying and the outside world has all but shut down. 

The Bible is clear.  God wants all to turn to Him.  But not everyone will take up this most precious of invitations.  While on this earth we don't get to know ultimately who will take up this invitation and who won't.  But I think there is more hope than we sometimes apprehend because God has made every single one of us to be drawn to Him and has done all that we need through Jesus' work on the cross in order to take hold of His invitation of eternal life with Him - even only with mustard seed sized faith in a final moment.  There is hope, and that is comfort enough.

The other source of comfort then is this.  God's ways are perfect.  All things happen in His perfect, loving and sovereign timing and wisdom.  So when someone dies we can be confident that whatever has happened, it will have happened in God's perfect will and wisdom.  I trust God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength.  (Well, I try to.)  And so I trust Him to get it right in every single instance and circumstance.  Whatever has happened, when someone dies, it will have happened as God willed it to be.  More than anything I might hope for in all my human weakness, I trust God.  And that is the deepest comfort in the world.  I will still be sad.  Death is a hard place.  But I will be comforted by the God of all comfort whose ways are always right. 

When peace like a river attendeth my way,
  When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot Thou hast taught me to say,
  “It is well, it is well with my soul!”

(Horatio Gates Spafford) 

Age wearies and the years condemn, but there is hope

I've done a lot of observing of and being with the elderly in recent times. And what I've noticed is that there's a lot of grief for the one who grows old. 

The grief of watching your friends die - it's no source of glory to be the one who outlives your peers and it's very hard to be oh so frail as to be unable to attend their funerals.  The loss of one's driver's license.  Didn't downsize in time?  The grief of losing the family home and so many possessions as circumstances impose the downsizing upon you.  The move to a nursing home that reduces one's possessions to the barest minimum.  The grief of loss of capacity - mental and physical.  The grief of the transformation from independent, functioning, dignified member of society to one totally dependent, like a small child, except knowing of a full life lived independently.    

It was never meant to be this way.  But even in this world, broken by sin, God shows His love and mercy.  Very recently it occurred to me that God has timed the grief of aging perfectly - by putting it at the end.  I know that's a perfectly ridiculous statement to make.  Stating the obvious somewhat.  But let me explain. 

When I was pregnant for the first time I spent a lot of those months predictably concerned about what lay at the end.  The delivery.  And yet, by the time I was eight and a half months pregnant (and it seemed to be 40⁰ every day) I was ready to deliver that baby.  God's perfect design.  Six, seven and eight months was too short to be ready.  Nine months (and then ten days overdue) and I was ready.   That's the microcosm.

The big picture is the span of my years filled to the brim with the stuff of life. Learning, living, loving. And coping with suffering as well. I don't live in Eden and Jesus has not yet returned. The world is fallen. And so there is suffering.

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.  And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God,  Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
Romans 5:1-5

Suffering and grief help me to grow in faith and hope. I hope that I respond with a little more faith and trust in Him with each new grief. I have a lifetime to practice this. And so it occurred to me that God has placed the end of life, so filled with grief and suffering - and there is no way around it...sickness, aging, dying and death are terrible - so that when the span of my years is drawing to its end and I am faced with grief upon grief, I am ready to face it with grace and hope. I observe that you don't get to be a sweet, wise, godly and prayerful old lady (or gentleman) just by being old. It takes a lifetime of sweetness and growing in wisdom, godliness and prayerfulness to bear the grief of old age with grace.  It's not that it's any easier for the sweet ones.  They have learned to bear it well - with hope.

God is good, gracious, kind and wise.  Putting the end at the end was no accident.

All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be...

Search me, O God, and know my heart,
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead in the way everlasting.
Psalm 139:16, 23, 24

Two books about grief - and a third waiting in the wings

Over the last two or three years I have read and reflected on the subjects of suffering, death and grief quite a lot.  And it's been helpful.  But with all that energy, enthusiasm and optimism that comes with the beginning of a fresh new year I had thought that maybe this year I should shift my gaze to life and living.  You know, eating hot cross buns eight days into the year and other crazy stuff like that.  Yet, twenty days in and I had read two books on grief and been reminded of a third - Timothy Keller's Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering published last year - to acquire and read. 

The first two, predictably, were A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken and A Grief Observed by CS Lewis.  Both are beautifully written, personal accounts of grief following the deaths of their respective wives.  Without giving names to them, they write their way through what we know as the stages of grief - stages that don't pass in orderly fashion but that swirl around and around, being revisited time and time again - painfully, frustratingly and sometimes even comfortingly. 

These are wonderful books, but they're not books I'd give to someone in the raw stages of early grief.  As CS Lewis himself, a man of reading and writing and books and letters, said,

And no one ever told me about the laziness of grief.  Except at my job - where the machine seems to run on much as usual - I loathe the slightest effort.  Not only writing but even reading a letter is too much.

(A Grief Observed - Part One)

What I found especially helpful was reading about that time in grief that Vanauken calls "the second death" - and which CS Lewis described in his book in depth.  It's that moment in grief when it stops being so very raw.  When there aren't tears every day.  When maybe it's harder to bring a clear picture of the one lost so readily to mind or recall the exact tone of their voice.  It is the second death - and it feels all disloyal and like a betrayal.  And yet, it is getting through this step that leads to peace and acceptance.

Great books to read for their sheer beauty, to keep learning about grief and how to respond to it in a godly way and perhaps to share with someone who has reached that point of frustration in their grief and needs to give words to what is happening, see that it will pass - which is OK - and be assured that they will emerge from it all, albeit as a changed (hopefully stronger, richer) person from the one who stepped into the process.

Holding on to Hope

I have read all of the anthologies Nancy Guthrie has edited  - on Christmas, Easter, suffering and on dying - more than once and have given away oh so many copies of them all.  These are truly wonderful, wonderful books.  But until recently I hadn't ever read anything written by Nancy Guthrie herself.
 

But now I have. 

 

Nancy Guthrie and her husband lost a baby daughter at six months of age to Zellwegers's Syndrome.  Hope's condition was discovered at birth and the Guthries spent the next six months loving their precious daughter and painfully anticipating her death.  As carriers of this syndrome, the Guthries took surgical steps to prevent them from having further children.  The procedure reversed itself and a couple of years after Hope passed away, Gabriel was born, also with Zellwegers Syndrome.  He passed away one day short of turning six months old.

 

 

Holding on to Hope, based around the book of Job (from the Bible), was written by Nancy Guthrie during the months between Hope's death and Gabriel's birth.  It is a book about suffering and dying, leaning on God and trusting in Him.  Like Jerry Bridges' books, it sits firmly on the foundation of God's sovereignty. 

 

I feel as though I have read, thought, prayed about and written quite a lot about suffering and death in the last few years.  In the western world, where life is so easy, we don't (I generalise here) manage sufffering and grief well.  We are outraged by it.  And at one level this is entirely correct.  Death is appalling.  But we rage in ways that are selfish and godless.  We think these sorts of things just shouldn't happen in this day and age.  So for me, the last few years has been about working through what ought to be a Right response when crisis comes.

 

What makes Holding on to Hope so very good is that it takes the theory of what is biblical in responding to suffering and grief and applies it squarely to a real life situation of horrendous suffering and grief.  There was no fist shaking at God.  Nor, at the other extreme, was there a facade of stoicism.  The grief was real.  I don't doubt that every page of her manuscript was tear stained.  But it was godly grief.  A grief founded in trust and a deeply faithful acceptance that God  had their lives and circumstances sovereignly, lovingly and wisely in hand.

 

This is a book to share with someone in grief.  To help them grieve well.  It concerns a specific situation - the loss of a child - but it will speak to all situations of grief.  This is a book to share with someone for whom life is good - that they might use the peaceful times to prepare for times ahead when suffering will swiftly or eventually come.  This book is inspiring and challenging and tender and gentle.  It's short - I read it over a couple of evenings.  And at least in the copy I have, there is an eight week study that digs deeply into Job and traverses the Bible on the subject of suffering and grief.  I would love to put some time into this at some stage.  And this book is an excellent companion to Nancy Guthrie's anthologies on suffering and death. 

Reading this book will be time well spent.  Reading it and then sharing a copy with someone else will be a gift.



A Grief Sanctified by JI Packer

I've just finished reading A Grief Sanctified by JI Packer.  It includes Richard Baxter's breviate - think A Grief Observed by CS Lewis but written 1681 - written soon after his wife Margaret died.  Richard Baxter reflects on Margaret's life and deep faith, her gift to him as his wife, her suffering and her death and then his own grief. 

JI Packer has taken Baxter's breviate and included it in the book A Grief Sanctified, with a few editorial changes and explanations. Either side of the breviate itself, Packer has drawn some of his own conclusions on the Puritan experience of life, marriage, death, suffering and grief. 

It's a fine read, with some sober reflections on the sometimes shallow nature of our modern take on life, marriage and death.  Which is not to say that the Puritan experience of life (and death) is where our stereotypical thoughts might possibly take us. You know, dressed in black and all very serious and upright.  Far from it.  Here were two people who loved one another to bits, loved life, loved God and lived lives full of joy, despite all sorts of attendant difficulties. Margaret and Richard Baxter understood sanctification - and they enjoyed some of the immediate benefits of it in their lives.

Over the next few days I am going to post a quote in three sections - JI Packer's summary of the puritan experience of the sanctification of grief.  That is, how the Puritans managed their grief with a view to bringing God all honour and glory, even the darkest of moments - a view that Packer endorses. 

Suffering Well by Paul Grimmond

On page 153 of his book Suffering Well, Paul Grimmond says this:

About ten years ago I was involved in a pastor's training conference.  In one session, as we talked about discipling young believers, we tried to come up with a list of key biblical truths we would want to teach every new Christian.  People gave the usual responses (and that's not a bad thing!): we wanted to teach new Christians the importance of Jesus' death in our place; we wanted them to know about the Holy Spirit's work; we wanted them to understand sin; we wanted to teach them about the church.  But then a woman who had been a missionary in Argentina for many years added her voice to the conversation.   I will never forget her contribution: "We need to teach them to suffer."

So true.  First world people are increasingly appalled and outraged by suffering.  When something goes terribly wrong we almost can't believe it.  "This shouldn't happen in this day and age."  And then we look for someone to blame and after that we look for someone else to make sure it never happens again.  What a burden we place on individuals and groups within society, insisting that they render our existence free of suffering.

But the thing is, it will happen again.  Wars will continue to be waged.  There will be more natural disasters.  People will die, sometimes in tragic circumstances.  Things will break.  The power will go off.  We will be caught in more traffic jams and have to wait in more queues.  Until Jesus comes again, suffering will continue. 

So what are we to do?  One thing we can do is grab ourselves a copy of Suffering Well by Paul Grimmond and learn how to suffer well.  In his book Paul Grimmond walks the reader through...

*  how it is that we came to believe that it's our right NOT to suffer - and then blows that myth (because it is a myth) right out of the water.

* lots of examples - corporate and individual - of suffering in the Old and New Testaments, giving a thorough survey of what the Bible has to say on this subject of suffering.

*  the main ways in which we suffer...
- because we live in a fallen world.
- because we follow Christ and so can expect to be persecuted.
- because God disciplines us.
- because we sorrow at seeing the world through God's eyes as we watch people wallow in their sin, long for the salvation of others and see Christians live sinfully and rebelliously.

*  ways to learn how to suffer well by...
- praising God with integrity, because He is good.
- doing good, by God's grace.
- not thinking that suffering well means being stoic.
- waiting patiently for His justice and His time.

*  ways to prepare for suffering by...
- reading all of the Bible and moreover, reading it in the way God intended.
- living out what we learn in the Bible.

All of this unfolds across a strong foundation of God's sovereignty.  God is completely in control.  Our suffering and the situations that give rise to our suffering do not take God by surprise and His purposes are always good and right.  If for no other reason, read this book to be thoroughly convinced that suffering is under God's good and loving control.

The bad news is that there is no "suffering well" quick fix.  This is a life's work.  But the good new is that it IS possible to suffer well - to suffer in ways that encourage others to see God at work and that bring glory and honour to God.

Suffering Well has been published as a part of a series called "Guidebooks for Life."  It isn't a book to be read in the midst of suffering - although for one well thought out on this subject, its words would certainly been affirming and encouraging.  This is a book to be read in the good and ordinary times.  At a time when there is opportunity to think over the ideas, read the Bible passages and pray in the guidance provided in order to prepare for the time when suffering comes upon us.  And times of suffering will come.  How good to be prepared for these times so that even in our trials we can seek to bring to God all glory and honour.  We need to learn how to suffer.  How to suffer well.

This is a great book.

You can get yourself a copy of Suffering Well from Matthias Media.  Available in paperback or as an eBook.

O Love That Will Not Let Me Go

During the course of our lives there are certain days that will claim extra and special preparation.  I remember one Christmas Eve, I think I was about 14 at the time, when I voluntarily cleaned my bedroom and went so far as to collect jasmine from the garden and place it in a vase on my freshly excavated chest of drawers so that I would wake up on Christmas morning in a room that was beautiful in every way.

That's just one Christmas.  Most Christmases get special attention - practical and spiritual.  Easter too.  There were special preparations leading up to our wedding day and also for the days our sons were born - practical preparations so that these days would go well but spiritual preparations too, hoping that what we said and did on these occasions would maybe whisper the gospel into someone's listening, searching ear.

But what about the day of our death?  A bit hard to prepare for in lots of ways.  Death may come suddenly and unexpectedly.  Or it may come at the end of a long, slow illness or at the end of the gradual process of aging, leaving us too debilitated and tired by the time we get there to do much about it.

But what is death?  For the Christian it is the day we fall safely into the arms of Jesus.  That last breath drawn marks the beginning of glorious, eternal life with our Father in heaven. 

I have recently finished reading O Love That Will Not Let Me Go, the fourth book edited by Nancy Guthrie in a series of collected readings on a given subject.  This one is on the subject of death and bears the subtitle Facing Death with Courageous Confidence in God.  And like the others, it's wonderful. 

It isn't easy reading in lots of ways.  The various writers don't make light of the physical reality and pain of death which makes this book very confronting.  Nor do they make light of the sadness and tragedy of death.  Jesus himself wept when his friend Lazarus died - weeping not just for the loss of his friend but also over death itself, that His Father's perfect creation had become so stained and sullied by sin as to be marred by the ugliness of death. 

For the one who dies loving Jesus, death has lost its sting.  Because when the last breath of life is drawn, the Christian passes away from this life into eternal life with Jesus.  And while this book has plenty to say about the pain of death, it has more to say about the wondrous glory of what lies beyond it. 

But back to the issue of preparing for the day of one's death - because this book is not just about dying well.  It's about living well because therein lies the preparation for death. It is best summarised by the second last paragraph of the book, penned by Richard Sibbes:

Therefore, if we desire to end our days in joy and comfort, let us now lay the foundation of a comfortable death.  To die well is not a thing of that light moment as some imagine:  it is no easy matter.  But to die well is a matter of every day.  Let us daily do some good that may help us at the time of our death.  Every day by repentance pull out the sting of some sin, that so when death comes, we may have nothing to do but to die.

(From "God Reserves the Best for the Last" by Richard Sibbes (page 158) in O Love That Will Not Let Me Go edited by Nancy Guthrie.)

As I said, this book is confronting in many ways.  But it is also rich with comfort, encouragement and hope.  As for all the books in this series, it is definitely worth reading.  And reading it would be time well spent.

Nancy Guthrie trio

First it was Marilynne Robinson.  And now for another excellent trio of books.  Nancy Guthrie has edited three excellent anthologies, each for a different season.

The first is Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus: Experiencing the Peace and Promise of Christmas, the collection of Christmas readings reviewed here. I loved, loved, LOVED reading this wonderful little book during Advent.  The readings were short, which is always helpful during December!  Every aspect of the Christmas story was covered, each reading prefaced by its relevant Scripture.  What a joy to learn about Christmas in such interesting detail and marvel at Immanuel on a daily basis during this busiest of months.

It certainly helped to keep my head and heart in the Right place - more effectively than any other year I can remember - in what is the hurly-burly of December.  This book would be useful for ministers, Sunday School and Scripture teachers...anyone who gets to teach through the Christmas story each year as it provides plenty of fresh angles to take.  And it is useful for anyone who wants to be reminded all through Advent why we stop and wonder at God's goodness on 25th December each year.

The second collection I read is called Be Still, My Soul: Embracing God's Purpose and Provision in Suffering.  As the title suggests, this is an anthology of 25 classic and contemporary readings for the season of suffering.  The book is divided into three sections - God's perspective on suffering, God's purpose in suffering and God's provision in suffering. 

It works on the premise that suffering will happen - to us personally and generally in our midst.  We ought not to be shocked by this.  And that great comfort and blessings are to be found in suffering when in our weakness we become strong in Him, as we learn to lean on and trust in and depend upon God in our times of trials and as our faith is tested during these times.  Nancy Guthrie is no stranger to loss and suffering, having lost two infant children to a rare genetic disorder.  She can deliver this anthology with integrity.

I have to say that I feel perfectly positioned to review this particular book.  (Now there's a bold statement!)  It's the sort of book that is excellent to read during the good times in order to instruct and prepare heart, mind, body and soul for a godly response to suffering when it comes.  And I started reading it at the very best of times - just towards the end of the long summer holidays, feeling refreshed and relaxed and at my most hopeful and optimistic for the year...you know, life before the committees and commitments start up again and you think you will be conquering dragons this year given all this energy and spare time you seem to have.

I found myself well taught as I started making my way through this book and wondered how well it would translate into a book that actually provides comfort and perspective during a time of suffering.  As it happened, halfway through the book my circumstances changed and I found myself at least on the edges of a situation of substantial suffering.  I kept reading.  It was a great comfort.  It worked, not unlike the Advent book, keeping my head and heart in the Right place during a difficult time.  This book is a profoundly useful resource.

The third member of this trio is Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross: Experiencing the Passion and Power of Easter.  Now I haven't actually read this book.  I am saving it for the four to six weeks leading up to Easter this year.  But here is my second bold statement for this post...I warmly commend this book to you even though I haven't read it.  Go and get yourself a copy - and get one for a friend as well.  At one level I wonder whether it will have quite the same impact on me as the Advent book did.  The lead up to Easter is much less busy and Easter naturally invites quiet reflection.  But the line up of contributors is as good as ever so there is no reason to expect anything but good to come of diving into this collection as Easter approaches.   

In thinking about all three anthologies it is worth noting that some readings will resonate more than others because of style of language, points of emphasis, personal experience and understanding - but they are truly worthwhile volumes.  The other benefit is that they provide a snapshot of a wide range of great writers, theologians and preachers, which may prompt further reading if you find someone new to you who sparks some interest.

I have been twice bold in this post and as it turns out, once misleading. In clicking on Nancy Guthrie's website I have discovered that this trio is about to become a quartet.  Oh Love That Will Not Let Me Go: Facing Death with Courageous Confidence in God is set to be released later this month.  But that is a BIG topic for another day.