I was at the kitchen sink the day before Easter last year, wondering if we should have followed through with plans to go to the mountains, when the phone rang with a strange number. It was a friend of one of my best friends, Susan. “Is this Julia? Susan’s husband took his life this morning. She found him a few hours ago. Are you in the mountains? Susan said she thought you were out of town, but I thought we should call anyway.” No, we didn’t end up going to the mountains. I’ll be there in 20 minutes.
Oh that day. We all hung on and cried into the bleakness of those hours that would not end. We tried to answer the why question and couldn’t. I knew God was with us, abiding with us in the darkness. I almost didn’t want Him to be. I didn’t want to be reminded of our vulnerability - of mortality. If this could happen to a friend, what could happen to me? I pray for a shield around those I love, and doubt God when bad things happen - A very simplistic faith that my mind struggles to elevate. Yet in the end, it’s never my mind that brings me back to God.
Some of us like to move through difficult periods as quickly as possible. Move towards the light, always. We forget that if we are only searching for the light, we are unlikely to sense God in the darkness. And if we don’t want to sense Him in the darkness… He is there anyway. David wrote "…Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there…If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light will become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is light to you.” -Psalm 139: 7-8, 11-12
I had to rest through my fears, knowing God was with me even if I wanted to shut Him out - Trusting that He would still be there when I was ready. Interestingly, many hymns are written as us singing to God. But there is one in which God sings to us. How Firm a Foundation, written by Robert Keen. …The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose, I will not, I cannot desert to His foes. That soul though all hell should endeavor to shake, I’ll never, no never, no never forsake! We hold God’s spirit inside us as a promise that there is more than what we hear, smell, see. The substance of God never changes. The form through which we experience Him does change, along with our circumstances. We might experience Him breathing us through a bottomless grief. We might experience Him in the faces of family and friends at a table of celebration. But we have His promise that He is with us. His love is unchanging, despite the limitations of our human perceptions.
I think of last Easter through the words of John Donne, a 17th century poet. Death be Not Proud. Isn’t that it? Watching Susan approach her days with hope and resolve showed me that life goes on. What a beautiful cliché. We go along with it too, and some days our fears can regress and we can face the sun. Life goes on - God’s great gift to us.
