I got a call yesterday from the daughter of one of our long time members who has been in assisted living for about six months now. The daughter told me that her mother had become completely unresponsive and was not eating or drinking anything. It was (still is) only a matter of time now.
The mom received a terminal diagnosis about a year ago...and she has remained an upbeat, engaging, and honest person about who she is and who God is calling her to be. She's also been very honest about her fears. I've visited her quite a few times...lately I've watched her thin down and feel more and more pain with every passing week.
And so, yesterday, I sat in her room with the daughter and told her, "the pain and the suffering she has felt and may be feeling now are temporary," and talked about regeneration and restoration...about becoming who she was made to be all along. It was easy to tell her this...easy to say: "things are going to be better for her when she passes on." Although it seemed trite when I said it...like I had heard it in thousands of movies.
I got a call this morning. Two boys from our local High School were hit by a car while trying to change a tire last night. One has hours to live...the other will, at best, lose a leg...at worst, die as well. I have thought about what I would say to their families if I were their pastor(they are not members)...or even what I say to the people of the community.
I still believe what I said yesterday...about things being better. I believe it with everything I am. Things will be better.
For them.
The catch, I am realizing, is the rest of us.
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Rocky has a good take on this that he worked into his first sermon in our eschatology series (and which I subsequently stole from him for my second sermon!).
He said:
God is like a mother who must tend to her crying child, relieving those things that are causing distress, providing those things that are required for health and wholeness and nourishment, because she is the mother.
She is the mother and she purposes the well-being of her child, and so from A to Z, everything will be provided so that she can be the 'mother'.
I can't bring myself to see any hope in the classic theodicies, but i like this take because it's says that, although God's vision is larger than any of us can see, what we can see (and know and believe) is that God loves us and suffers with us.
The silver lining (there's always a silver lining) is that this presents dissonance that our remaining people have to wrestle with, and dissonance is always the key to growth. If we are faithful midwives of faith it will come. Of that I am certain.
"Dissonance is the key to growth."
Excellent stuff...thank you. I am currently re-writing my sermon to talk about some of these things. But really, when you get down to it, I'm just repeating the things you just said. God loves you. You are not walking alone. This hardship will pass.
These are the things we cling to...pastors, too.
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