an apology to suffering

I’ve thought a lot about her over the past few days. Thought about her courageous fight against cancer and all the many ways she chose to deal with her disease in that season. Thought about her choices, her responses… the days she chose isolation over population. The times when she seemed to push away from instead of pushing into those of us who loved her… those of us who wanted to do more than to simply sit by and watch her slip away home to Jesus.

It seemed reasonable to me that she’d want me around. After all, I was laughter and smiles and hope for tomorrow. All I wanted to do was to help—a seemingly reasonable and generous gift to give to someone in great need. All I wanted to be was to be “let in”—cloistered amongst that inner circle that gave me safe sanctuary and open access to her pain. Instead, I was given arm’s length access to her suffering.

That was enough for her; it should have been enough for me.

But it wasn’t. And I judged. And today I render my heavenward apology to her, and say “I’m sorry” for thinking that I needed more… for assuming I understood; for pretending that a few words of well-spoken faith were enough to ease your discomfort. For forcing your feelings when all that you really wanted to do was to hunker down, tunnel through, breathe your next breath until that next breath arrived… indicating that you had made it beyond the momentary horror that gripped your flesh.

Yes, I’ve thought about her these past few days as I’m pushing through my own pain, and I am humbled with understanding because, now, I hold some of my own.

Understanding.

I don’t wish it for any of you, not in this way. Oh, that understanding could come to us otherwise. For depth of insight to be birthed in peaceful trajectory rather than in haphazard flight. For suffering’s lessons to be learned amidst the fall of autumn’s embrace rather than the dank and brittle of winter’s confinement. That we could really grasp the length and breadth, height and depth of Job’s renderings without ever having to scrape and spoil and sit amongst ashes. That we could truly learn the value of our flesh in a single pause without ever having to walk it to the outer edges of surrender.

That we could hold holy truth without ever having to engage with its contrast.

Oh that we could.

Oh that I could.

Apparently, that which I cannot. This time around, I must learn holy truth the hard way… the stinking, rotting reality of just exactly what my flesh means to me and my allegiances therein. Of sorting through the layers to reach sacred perspective… kingdom perspective. A God perspective that assures me toward more than what meets the eye… than what slays the flesh. That births in me something far greater than words and ideals and a faith that stops at the front door of my heart.

An understanding that will, once and for all, usher in for me an unshakeable, unwavering certainty in and of the one God who can be trusted with it all.

Beginning. Middle. End.

I thought knew God before cancer. Apparently, I’ve only scratched at his surface. And I am not afraid of his personal disclosure along these lines… of his willingness to draw me in and to let me see more. To ask more. To dig more. To hurt more, for I am convinced that it is in this more that my journey toward Peace really begins. Everything prior?

An entrée and excellent feast to whet my appetite for his Excellency.

Everything next?

My crossroads. The stone on my path, marking where my walkabout with the King commences. Where I discover my story, my country, my dreams, and the truth that I have never, ever been alone.

Not for a single moment.

…

Yes, I’ve thought about her over the past few days. And in the midst of my anguish, I’ve smiled a time or two, because she now holds something I’ve yet to fully grasp.

She holds understanding.

She lives in holy truth.

She no longer grapples with the question of her flesh because she is clothed, instead, with God’s.

Blessed Peace for the journey. Blessed Peace for today. 

May God be your portion, my good, kind friends.