Walking with the Broken

This has been unpublished in my drafts folder for more than two years. Though 2020 was a very challenging year, it was nothing like 2018 for our family. Maybe I needed time for the rawness of my own heart and emotions to fade. Whatever the reason, I am publishing this now. Perhaps you are broken and need someone to walk with you. It's okay to ask. Perhaps you're not dealing with brokenness now, but know someone who is. Consider how you can walk with them well. 

Now to the original blog. 

Cancer. It's a scary word. One that evokes images of bald heads, hospital gowns, and suffering. It is also the word that hung over our heads for days as we waited for the word on the biopsy from our daughter's brain tumor. As we waited, on the Pediatric Oncology specialty unit at Sacred Heart Children's Hospital, we saw the brutal realities of fighting cancer. More than once, I was overwhelmed by tears, wrestling with fear of what my daughter might be facing. Words can't even express the relief when we got word; our daughter's tumor was benign!! 

We can't drive by Sacred Heart now, though, without thinking of our extended stay there. And I've thought so many times about parents who didn't hear the words we did... parents whose children are facing a battle with cancer. And my heart breaks. It feels insensitive to say God is still good when people are facing the horrors of watching their children suffer so greatly. 

It also feels insensitive to talk about God's goodness in the aftermath of the Moody Aviation plane crash. The heartache and loss being experienced by those families is more than I can imagine.

It felt insensitive to talk to my mother about God's goodness as she battled Stage Four Pancreatic cancer. 

It feels that way because it is. 

So often, we say things because we're trying to help. But the message doesn't always come across the way we intend. Sometimes the problem is the timing. Other times, the problem is theology. Like, "God won't give you more than you can handle." But He does! He absolutely does! I've just been through a time where God gave me more than I could handle... way more. 

First, I spent two weeks in Rwanda, digging into the brutal injustices of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. I came home emotionally raw, wrestling, and deeply broken. Then, days after my return, my mother was diagnosed with cancer and given weeks to live (she outlived their estimates by a matter of days). Then my daughter was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She told me she hardly remembers the time in the hospital; she was that sick! I did get an extension on my graduate work, but that deadline is looming. And my mother is dead. Life doesn't feel good. 

But God is still good. Even when life doesn't feel good.

My journey to this understanding didn't start with my daughter's diagnosis. It didn't start with my mother's cancer, either. It didn't start in Rwanda, or in Uganda two years ago when God gave me the vision for MAMO. It started almost fifteen years ago, with one of the most painful journeys of my life. 

Until November 2002, I thought Romans 8:28 meant that God would fix-up my mix-ups and life would feel good. That had been my general experience for most of my Christian life. Then, something happened that I couldn't connect with my own mix-ups; my precious baby, a baby I'd longed for... my baby died. Hannah Joy was born into the arms of Jesus on November 6, 2002. Her tiny body was perfectly formed, no obvious reason for her untimely death. Four months and four days later, ten weeks into a new (and, to that point, unannounced) pregnancy, my sister died: I never got to tell her about the baby. 

We returned home after my sister's funeral to news from the regional director that we were being reassigned and would have to move, which meant we had to tell our home and leave our community, which I loved. 

At that point, though I was on staff with Cru, had been a follower of Jesus for more than two decades, and had graduated from seminary, I had a crisis of faith. It turns out that my bad theology caught up with me; something had to change. 

In the end, it was my theology that needed to change. That's when I was introduced to When Life and Beliefs Collide by Carolyn James. God used that book to help me recognize that my theology was bad; my life collided with my beliefs, and very little was left intact. 

God didn't leave me there, though. He took the brokenness of my bad theology, the heartache of losing my baby, losing my sister, losing my community, and losing my home, and He forged in my heart an understanding of His goodness that nothing has been able to diminish. 

I've had other opportunities to learn about God's goodness in spite of my circumstances, though none of them have been as traumatic as the journey the three young widows are facing right now. Buy my opportunities to learn about God's goodness have also afforded me opportunities to experience the worst of others' attempts to be comforting. Recently, I've also experienced the very best, which is why this passage from Henri Nouwen's book Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life touched me so greatly. It describes moments I've experienced that have been tangible reminders of God's goodness in the midst of suffering, almost like Jesus with skin on.
   

Simply being with someone is difficult because it asks of us that we share in the other's vulnerability, enter with him or her into the experience of weakness and powerlessness, become part of uncertainty, and give up control and self-determination... Those who offer us comfort and consolation by being and staying with us in moments of illness, mental anguish, or spiritual darkness often grow as close to us as those with whom we have biological ties. Compassion, p. 14.

Some of the time, instead of talking about God's goodness, we need to enter into the grief or heartache of others, with silence, weeping with those who weep (Rom 12:15). We need to be a living demonstration of God's goodness, rather than saying words. My challenge to you is, how can you do that for those you know who are suffering?

God has afforded me some incredible examples over the last several months. First, in Rwanda, facing the horrendous injustice of the genocide, knowing that I'd been complicit in the apathy of the rest of the world as over 800,000 men, women, and children were slaughtered in 100 days. I was so overwhelmed by the horrors of what is still tolerated, around the world, today, that I didn't even know how to process my emotions. The wife of one of my professors, who understands and is deeply passionate about addressing injustice, helped me wrestle with emotions I didn't even know how to express. She held me while I cried, she listened to my anger, she gave expression to my grief and shame. And she cried with me. It was the most painful, and yet incredibly comforting, experiences of my life. 

The next one that stands out was just after my mom's diagnosis with cancer, before we knew about our daughter's brain tumor. It was a Sunday morning, and nobody showed up to my husband's Sunday school class but this one dear friend. She listened as I began to explain what we'd just learned from the oncologist. When I choked up and wasn't able to go on, she literally wept with me. No words. No attempts to fix what couldn't be fixed. Tears. And love. It was so powerful, and so comforting. 

Another example is from dear friends who have been spiritual mentors for years. I called them from the hospital, the day after our daughter was admitted. A busy pastor couple, they had many responsibilities, and yet, when I explained what was going on, they asked if they could come. This couple lives three hours away, and they live on a pastor's salary; they don't extra money for anything. Yet, they dropped everything to come stay with us. And stay they did, through out most of the long day of waiting to talk to the neurosurgeon. They listened to me cry, they pointed me back to Jesus, and they acknowledged that it was all too much but that God was enough.  

The final example is from the day my mother went to Heaven. After Mom went to Heaven, several ladies from the church where I grew up came over. They took care of so many things; picking up clutter we'd been too distracted to notice, making food for the children, and giving us drinks so that we didn't get dehydrated. They were just there, in the midst of our grief, sharing our vulnerabilities, weakness, and powerlessness. They literally shared our grief. 

I don't know why we feel a need to try and fix things that can't be fixed. But that is definitely a need; I feel it. And I've experienced it. It doesn't help. Nothing will "fix" the grief being experienced by the Moody Aviation widows. Their husbands are gone. The fathers of their children. It's been a few weeks, so most of the community has forgotten... the news has cycled to other more dramatic stories. But those women are still alone, longing for the men they didn't know they'd never see again after that bright July morning. Nothing will fix the grief being experienced by the parents of children on the Pediatric Oncology Unit at Sacred Heart, either. Many people do many things to try and help, but when you are watching your child's hair fall out, or they are curled up in a ball on the bed as toxic chemicals drip into their veins, nobody can help. There is nothing anyone can do to "fix" things. But, we can walk with people in their grief, heartache, sorrow, and pain. And we can, as so many have with me over the brutal last few months, point people to Jesus, as much by our example as by our words.