Freedom to Move On

The loss

The text comes in as I’m getting up in the morning. Mom has breathed her last breath. She’s gone.

(I’m okay with getting the message by group text. There are many family members to notify. We knew it was coming any minute. It’s a little early in the day for a phone call, especially for those in the times zones west of me.)

No tears fall. I’ve cried them all already. The day she was diagnosed with “dementia, most likely Alzheimer’s.” As I watched her brain wasting away and her personality disintegrating. Each time she took another drastic step downward. Sitting in my rental car after saying goodbye at her bedside for the last time, before returning home a week ago.

I’ve been grieving for her for a while. 

The relief

At this point, the sense of relief is greater than the sense of loss. I’ve never been in this position before. Not sure what to expect.

The last several years have been busy and stressful for me and my siblings. Bad news about Mom’s falls and emergency room visits. Decisions to be made regarding her living situation and medical needs. Increasing difficulty in her ability to communicate. More frequent trips to see her. More frequent phone calls.

But the worst stress, the greatest trauma, was knowing that one I loved was hurting so much. Witnessing her struggles with pain and physical limitations and cognitive issues and depression and fears and obsessive thinking. She was too aware of her own losses. Yet hesitant, like many in her generation, about taking any medication that would make her feel better emotionally. Part of me just wanted her to move on to a better life, to be freed from all her troubles.

That phase has passed now. Mom is at peace. We’ll be making all those decisions that have to be made after someone dies, but that won’t be nearly as stressful as helplessly watching the continuing decline of a loved one in her nineties.

I’m ready to move on, too. To catch up on all the things I haven’t gotten done because of the extra time I’ve spent helping meet Mom’s needs. Because of the emotional energy being drained by seeing her suffering.

I don’t resent losing that time and energy. I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. I’d do it for ten more years if she had that long.

But there’s a welcome sense of freedom from the responsibility and stress. Now I can move on.

The grief

Until my body reminds me that I’m mourning. I’ve experienced a significant loss. Yes, there’s great relief. But there’s also the sorrow of missing her, which will come out one way or another.

Right now it comes out, not in intense emotions, but in physical and mental fatigue. A song pops into my head. “Slow Down,” by Chuck Girard (1974). It’s an invitation to slow down, be still, and wait on the Spirit of the Lord. (Thank You, Father, for bringing this song to mind just when I need it. I haven’t thought about it for many years.)

This is a biblical concept that our busy American culture doesn’t often consider. The Israelites are told to be still in Exodus 14:14, when they’re trapped between Pharaoh’s army and the Red Sea. In Nehemiah 8:11, the Levites calm the people as they’re grieving over their sins, encouraging them to be still as they respond to the reading of the Book of the Law of Moses. While prophesying about the coming Messiah, Zechariah 2:13 calls all mankind to be still before the Lord.

Psalm 37:7 combines the ideas of being still and waiting on the Lord. Waiting on the Lord is encouraged in many of the other Psalms and in the prophets.

Every day I feel like I get more behind on all the things I want or need to do. But there it is, right there in the Bible—slow down, be still, wait. I need to hear this at this time in my life when I’m so eager to move ahead. At this time when my body is screaming at me to slow down.

The challenge

But I don’t want to slow down! I want to plunge forward, to check more and more items off of my to-do list.

Why?

As I’ve said, it’s partly because I want to catch up on the things that I’ve put on a back burner while Mom’s been wasting away. That’s the most obvious reason. And it seems fully justified.

But I think it goes deeper than that. If I slow down I’ll feel the grief. I’ve been grieving for so long, I just want it to be over with. I don’t want to deal with it anymore. I’d rather be fixing things.

I’m a problem solver. I can see all kinds of problems with my house. The dust bunnies under the bed and the grunge on the windows and the minor upgrades and repairs that I’ve been postponing. I see problems with weeds and overgrown plants in my yard. Problems with my mismatched and aging wardrobe.

Now that I have more time, I can fix all those things. Fixing things feels better than being still.

But I need to be still so that I can move ahead. Just like physical healing, emotional healing won’t happen if I’m too busy and active.

Slow down now. Have the strength to do more later. I’ve faced this lesson so many times (including here and here and here), but it’s still hard to rein in my impulse to push on. I guess I’m a slow learner.

The biggest reason for slowing down, though, comes at the end of the song. “Know that He is God.” An echo of Psalm 46:10.

My desire to solve problems, do things, be done with the grieving, to move on, is partly my desire to be my own god. To take charge of the situation. To do the things I want to do, in my way and in my timing. To see my will being done.

When I slow down, I have to listen, contemplate, and consider, not just act. Listen to what the Bible says. Listen to wise pastors and teachers. Listen to the Holy Spirit within me. Contemplate His will, His direction, as it’s revealed in His Word, through other Christians, and in my own heart. Consider the fact that many of my to-do’s are trivial in God’s eyes.

I need to slow down so that I’ll stop trying to be God.

 

 

 

Aging and Freedom

The freedom that comes with aging

Entering the Worship Center one Sunday morning. Looking around, greeting people, finding a seat.

I try not to focus on the externals when I’m with others, but I can’t help noticing the clothing, the jewelry, the hairstyles. And the freedom they represent.

More than half of the congregation is older than me. They’re well past the age where they worry about conforming to the fashions of the moment in order to be accepted. They’re comfortable wearing what they like. It’s a freedom that comes with aging.

Saying hi to Jane and Jim. Widow and widower. They’ve been sitting together every week for several years. But there are no rumors, no speculation about their relationship, no hinting in whispers that they must be more than just friends. They’ve reached an age where single members of the opposite sex are free to spend time together without triggering speculation and gossip.

As a teenager, I hated the pressure to conform to the latest styles, and the social norms that made it next to impossible for boys and girls to be friends without pursuing or assuming a romantic relationship.

In the few moments that it takes me to find a seat, I feel a tremendous sense of freedom. A freedom that comes with aging.

A few years later, this is reinforced by a brief comment on the news. (I don’t remember the source, and can’t find the comment online at this point.) The newscaster is interviewing a woman on her hundredth birthday. He asks, “What’s the best part of living so long?”

She immediately replies, “No more peer pressure.”

She’s outlived all her peers. She’s free to wear whatever she wants to wear. She’s free to sit with the same man every day without worrying about what other people are thinking. Or even about what he’s thinking.

Additional freedoms

There are other freedoms that seniors can enjoy.

*The freedom from all those big decisions that will determine the trajectory of our lives for fifty years or more. Where to live. Whether to go to college. What career to pursue. Whether to marry and have children. How to raise those children.

*The freedom that comes from letting go of possessions. If we live long enough, many of us will be unable to keep up with the responsibilities of a house and yard. We’ll downsize.

It’ll be tough. It’ll be even tougher if we end up in a small assisted living apartment. It’ll help if other family members cherish the items we’ve invested with the greatest sentimental value. But the reality is that, even within our lifetimes, much of our stuff will go to the trash heap. We’ll need to grieve our losses. How can that be good?

We Americans tend to define our lives and our value by the things we possess. Letting go frees us to appreciate the far more precious things that we can never own. Like God. And people. When we’re not so focused on our manmade treasures, we’re free to pay more attention to the beauty of God’s world, the depth of His character, and the talents and wisdom of those around us.

*And even, in an odd way, the freedom that comes from knowing that nothing more can be done to improve our health or extend our lives. My mom’s been going through this in recent years.

In the past, she was somewhat obsessive about her health. She’d learn about the latest greatest preventive techniques. She’d become angry or bitter if a treatment didn’t work out perfectly. She lived with the anxiety of knowing that she, or her medical team, could make the wrong decision with potentially disastrous results.

Now she’s declining treatment. She knows that little can be done for her at this point. She’s made her peace with that reality. She’s free from the stress of having to research all her options and trust the medical professionals to do the right thing, free from the fear of missing out on the best treatment, free from the fear of her life ending early. She’s ready to go home.

Contentment

I don’t mean to make it sound like there aren’t any drawbacks to aging. It usually includes some loss of independence, and therefore loss of freedom, especially if a person’s life ends in assisted living or a nursing home.

But the world puts so much emphasis on youth that it can be hard to appreciate the intangible benefits of aging. If we see no benefits at all in our current situation, where does that leave us? What does it say about our trust in a loving God?

At the root of all these freedoms that come with aging is a powerful biblical value: contentment. The contentment that comes with reduced pressure from our peers and a reduced number of options for the future.

Paul writes in Philippians 4:12-13, “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” He was in chains (1:13), probably under house arrest (NIV intro to Philippians), awaiting trial, when he wrote these words. Not exactly enjoying many freedoms. Yet, through Christ, he had the strength to be content.

This isn’t an automatic response. Even Paul had to learn it. Fallen human beings have a natural bent to be dissatisfied. The ad industry, especially in America, aggravates our discontent. It may be that those who’ve spent sixty years or more grumbling and complaining will continue that lifestyle right up to the end.

But maybe, just maybe, the grumblers and complainers can learn to recognize the freedoms that come with aging. Maybe they’ll be able to enjoy the limited years they have left with contentment.

And maybe our young people can be more countercultural and find the freedom that comes with contentment. Why wait until you reach old age?

 

Is it Faith or is it Greed?

Supernatural healing

God does one miraculous thing for me, and I’m thankful for a while. For days. Maybe a couple of weeks. But at some point, I put that in the past and look to the future. So what are You going to do for me next, God?

Is this faith or is it greed?

I’ve written before about how a medical issue affects my reaction to stress. When I’m feeling the strain of a new challenge in my life, my physical weariness increases. A little more, and the mental fog thickens. Pile additional trauma on top of that, and my emotions go haywire until they reach a point that I refer to tongue-in-cheek as my “insanity.”

Over the last four years, so much stress has built up for me (as it has for many Americans) that I’ve been getting to that painful emotional stage far more often than in the past. It takes longer to die down than it used to. Sometimes it feels relentless.

So I make a commitment at the beginning of 2022 to be extra diligent about taking care of myself in hopes of restoring what I’d lost. By the end of the year I can see a definite improvement. I’m about halfway back to normal.

Of course my efforts are accompanied by frequent prayers. Requests for strength and health. Thanksgiving for the energy that I do have (as limited as it is), for signs of gradual improvement, and for the ways God’s been drawing me nearer to Himself through it all. But for months He says no to a sudden, supernatural healing.

Until He says yes.

I read a brief comment in Tim Keller’s Walking With God Through Pain and Suffering. It strikes a chord deep inside. And suddenly, unexpectedly, out of nowhere, the emotional “insanity” ends. Just like that. It never comes back, in spite of my circumstances.

I’m stunned. I’m thrilled. I’m more thankful than words can describe.

But I’m cautious. I’m not sure how long it will last. I play the usual mind game of “Don’t show any signs of doubt, or He might take it away again.” As if it all depends on my imperfect faith, not His perfect grace.

Prayers of thanksgiving replace my prayers of agony. Months go by and the healing continues to be confirmed. My mood drops lower than normal and my anxiety climbs higher than normal when I’m caught up in some new trauma, but I don’t crash into those depths of fear and confusion that have been with me so often during these last few years.

The next step

As time passes, I go from frequent praise throughout the day to expressing my gratitude a couple of times a week. And then I get used to this new state of affairs, and I start thinking about the present and the future.

I’m still stuck in the second phase of my stress reaction. Each morning the mental fog rolls in earlier and thicker than it did in the past, reducing my ability to do what most people my age would consider normal everyday activities.

I make that natural human transition from wonder and joy over God’s supernatural healing to discontent over the suffering that remains. My thoughts turn from “Thank You, thank You, thank You” to “Please, please, please.”

I want to believe that I’m demonstrating great faith in a great God. But maybe it’s just my greedy heart saying, “Give me more and more and more.”

At what point should a sense of contentment take over? At what point should I accept my current physical status as God’s will, rather than continuing to ask for better health? When I was younger, the answer seemed to be, “Of course I should keep asking.” I had responsibilities that required strength and energy.

Aging and praying

But as aging takes its toll, most of us develop chronic health conditions. Is it faith, or is it a love for the things of this world, that goes to God and asks for supernatural healing from the natural deterioration of our bodies?

I once knew a man whose wife developed early onset Alzheimer’s disease when she was in her fifties. One day he asked a group of us to pray for God to cure her. My automatic reaction was a sense of disbelief.

Can we, should we, expect to be relieved of the ravages of aging? Was my friend demonstrating greater faith than mine by making this request? I don’t know.

I did pray a few times, but each prayer was deeply drenched in “Your will be done.” If her healing depended solely on my faith that God would do as I asked, then it wouldn’t happen. She lived fifteen years or so after her diagnosis. Her mind continued to deteriorate. She’s now home with Jesus.

Maybe the Lord could put an end to all these questions if He would just do like He did with Paul whenever we ask for healing that isn’t within His will. Paul pleaded with Him three times for relief from a thorn in the flesh that was tormenting him. Nothing happened.

Then one day Jesus said to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:7-9). No instant cure. A call to greater dependence on Jesus’ grace and power instead.

Sometimes the answer to my prayer is obviously either yes or no. Sometimes I get some sense of His will, a sort of internal leading. But it would make life so much easier if I could just hear His voice speaking to me as He spoke to Paul. Then I would know His will for sure. Then I could face my challenges with contentment.

That would be the contentment of knowledge, though, rather than the contentment of faith.

As I circle back to the question of my motive for asking for additional healing, I know I want to be living in gratitude, not greed. And I know that faith is the key to it all.

Am I asking with faith that God understands my needs and my heart, and that He’ll do what’s best for me and for those whose lives I touch, whether that means suffering or relief? Do I have enough faith to be content with His decision? Is my faith strong enough to live a life of thanksgiving even if He says no to my next request? That’s the kind of faith I want to have.

 

 

God in the Fire

Falling into the flames

After three years of having his medical condition under control, my precious young loved one might be experiencing another flare-up. After three years of knowing that he wasn’t in treatment, that he might never have to deal with it again, that God had spared his life (at least temporarily), my defenses are down. I’ve forgotten how to do the daily walking-with-this-weight-on-my-shoulders thing.

I try not to fall apart when I get the news that a routine lab test shows a potential problem. Scans will be done next week to determine what’s happening. I pray for God’s strength in me. But I fall asleep that night feeling more numb than strong.

I wake up in the morning with a sense of terror, of pain, of being too weak to go through all this again.

Oh God, please heal him. Please let the tests show that he’s okay. Please take away every last trace of this condition. Please, please, please. Praying. Begging. Pleading. Over and over again. Agonizing.

Getting up and getting ready for the day. Doing a brief reading from Timothy Keller’s Walking With God Through Pain and Suffering. The message from the section “Three in the Furnace” in chapter 11: God is with us in the fire.

And my whole perspective changes.

God’s presence in the fire

It’s not just that He is with me in the fire, as if He’s abstractly within me or beside me as I go through the flames (as I’ve apparently always visualized it), but He is in the fire with me.

God is in the fire. It burns Him. He feels the pain, not just indirectly as He sees it hurting me, but directly, on His own skin (so to speak). It’s scorching Him, too.

And He’s not just in my fire. God is in every fire with every believer in the entire world every minute of every day and night. The fire of every Christian martyr being tortured and beheaded for their faith right now. The fire of every Christian whose family has been crippled by yet another mass shooting. The fire of every Christian victim of injustice. The fire of every Christian who’s simply struggling to cope with everyday life. The God of the Bible is a God of constant pain.

(I’ve said that He’s with every Christian because, biblically, I know that to be true. Is He also ever with unbelievers? I can’t answer that with certainty by citing a specific passage from the Bible. But because of His nature and character as revealed in His Word, I imagine He often is. He loved me while I was still an unsaved sinner. That means He loves the unsaved sinners around me. Why wouldn’t He be with those He loves?)

And He’s taken all this on voluntarily, by His own free choice.

God’s power over pain

I can almost picture Him saying, “You think you’ve got troubles? Quit your complaining and consider what I’m going through.” And yet, of course, He doesn’t.

There’s a sense (beyond my understanding) in which God actually hurts. Not because He couldn’t prevent it if He chose to do so. He allows Himself to feel the sting just as His Son allowed the Romans to crucify Him. Because of that, He understands our pain more deeply and completely than we can ever imagine.

But at the same time, He has power over all pain. As much power as He has over everything else. Pain cannot change His innate character, as it will change mine for better or for worse. It cannot harm Him. No matter how great it is (like bearing every wound of every believer every minute of every day and night), in a sense it’s just a speck of dust compared to His eternal Being. He can handle it without flinching or complaining.

My life is like a finite jug of water. If you keep dripping the black ink of suffering into it, it will alter the color of the water. It will change me.

God is more like an infinite barrel of bleach. No matter how much black ink you pour into it, the bleach will quickly absorb it and transform it until it’s no longer visible. That’s sort of like what He does with the very real pain that he feels. Rather than letting it change Him, He transforms it.

When I’m in Christ, He can absorb and transform my suffering, as if my jug is now immersed in His barrel. His bleach seeps in, often slowly, over time. But as I read and reflect on Keller’s comments, it rushes in all at once. I’m suddenly and miraculously released from the agony that I’m feeling. My heart is lighter and my day is brighter. I don’t seem to have the capacity to worry and fret and grieve over the news of the threat to my loved one’s health.

My response

Is this the “victorious Christian life” that I hear so much about? Should we expect to be such super Christians that we can take every complaint to God and be instantly relieved of it? Should I be walking around with a cheerful smile on my face every moment, in spite of the very real possibility of losing this loved one?

I don’t think so.

Much of the time God allows us to continue hurting in order to fulfill His greater purposes. How can I minister to others who are suffering if I feel no ongoing pain? How can I do as He does and walk through the fire with them? I need to be scorched, I need to blister and peel, or I won’t be able to relate to those who are being consumed by the flames. When I’m in the fire with them, God can use me to strengthen them and maybe even pull them out.

So why did God provide this instantaneous relief for me at this particular time? I have to wonder if it was His sign that my loved one is going to be okay. Further analysis shows no indication that the illness has returned. The initial test result was alarmingly high, while all the others are in the normal range. The doctor can’t explain the discrepancy, but says he isn’t worried.

The Old Testament mentions many times when God gave someone a sign to confirm in advance something that He had promised would happen soon. I’m not sure how often He does anything like that today. Not very often in my experience. I can remember one other example more than forty years ago. But I’m thinking maybe this was one of those rare occasions.

I treasure this moment of healing from a wound I didn’t think I could bear. I hope I’ll always remember it and respond to God with thanksgiving and joy and awe.

But the greater treasure isn’t my restored well-being. It’s my deepened understanding of who God is. The opening of my eyes to see Him in the fire with me, feeling the heat and the pain just as much as I do.

 

Changing Churches

Suffering seniors

    Things I’ve seen and stories I’ve heard:

    ● Committed Christian baby boomers, the backbone of evangelical churches for decades, joining the ranks of the unchurched and the church-shoppers. Or switching to more liturgical churches, with their greater sense of reverence.

    ● A local evangelical church demanding that every activity must be intergenerational. Never mind that the older folks have long periods of lonely availability during the daytime and hesitate to drive after dark, while the younger ones work all day and can only participate on evenings and weekends. Seniors have been forbidden to gather without younger generations being present. Result: Older members have felt unwelcome and unheard, and have left.

    ● Men and women in their eighties and nineties sensing that their lives are no longer valued by the very churches that they’ve supported for years. That which was most precious and meaningful to them within those churches has been discarded, leaving them feeling like they’ve been discarded, too.

    I don’t think our worship leaders realize how much real suffering they’ve brought on our seniors with the radical changes that have occurred in the last twenty years or so. Based on the biblical model, they expect mature Christians to graciously accept the authority of the pastors and elders when decisions are made. Those who complain or criticize are seen as selfish, disobedient, and unwilling to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.

    I think these leaders are honestly seeking to please God and are trying to do what they believe is best overall. But the pain is there and it’s often unrecognized. It’s not just a matter of stubborn resistance springing from rebellious hearts, although I’m sure that happens in some cases. For many, though, important theological issues are at stake.

God's expectations

    One assumption made by those who support more modern worship styles is that God doesn’t care how we worship Him. Style is irrelevant in His eyes. But if that’s true, why was He so specific about how the Israelites were to worship Him when He brought them out of bondage to Egypt? Part or all of the following chapters provide His specific instructions on worship: Exodus 25-30 and 39-40; Leviticus 1-8, 16, and 22-23; Numbers 15, 18, and 28-29; and Deuteronomy 12 and 16-17.

    Was the God of the Old Testament different from the God of the New Testament? No. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Psalm 102:27, James 1:17). How we worship matters. It matters to God. It should matter to us. One weakness in today’s evangelical churches is the lack of a theology of worship that is based on examples of worship in the Bible.

Our focus

    What is it about modern worship styles that mature Christians object to? One big issue is the focus on self, which naturally leads to less emphasis on God—who He is and the deeper reasons for worshiping Him. If I worship Him solely for what He does for me, as much Contemporary Christian Music seems to imply, what happens when He doesn’t live up to my expectations? I have nothing solid to stand on during the tough times. In contrast, many hymns of the past praised God’s unchanging character and nature, His working throughout the world and throughout history, His thoughts and ways that reach far higher than satisfying the needs in my little life.

    It’s been ten years or more since I heard a derogatory comment on National Public Radio about those “narcissistic evangelicals.” First I was startled and offended, then I was embarrassed and humbled by what I knew to be a somewhat accurate assessment. Roughly ten years before that, Christianity Today ran an article in which they stated that there were more songs starting with the letter “I” in the contemporary files used in evangelical worship services than with all the other letters of the alphabet put together. What happened to Jesus’ teaching that “if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24)?

    Many seniors struggle with this stress on self and lack of emphasis on God. At a time when they’re suffering multiple losses—family members and friends, mobility and independence, physical health—they have an increased need for a transcendent God who rules the universe and whose love and justice extend far beyond simply pleasing individual human beings.

    I don’t expect our churches to turn back the clock as far as worship styles are concerned. Every era, every generation, has its flaws and shortcomings, including those found in the ways Americans worshiped in the past. While I pray that we’ll find a better balance in communicating both the intimacy and the transcendence of God, this is primarily a plea for mercy and compassion and healing after the pain inflicted on our seniors for the last two or three decades. A plea for a greater understanding of that pain and its origins, and for attempts to be made to treat our seniors with greater love and respect.