1,826 days.....

1,826 days equals 5 years.  Think about the last five years for a moment.  It would be my guess that out of the last 1,826 days some of them have been good and some have been terrible.  Some have been marked with victory while others wear the shroud of sorrow. 

And think of how much has changed in the course of the last 1,826 days.  The children Ronna is teaching this year in Kindergarten were but babies 1,826 days ago.  They could not walk 5 years back and now they are writing their name, going to the lunchroom, and learning to read, add and subtract, and about the five food groups.  Think of all of the growth that has taken place in their lives during the last 1,826 days.

Today marks the anniversary of the day in my life, and in the life of my family, that wears the darkest shroud of sorrow.  It was 1,826 days ago today that my parents were involved in a fatal head-on collision that killed my mother instantly and left my father to linger for eleven days before he, too, slipped from this world into the arms of God.  And today, I stand, looking back over the last 1,826 days to see how life has changed not only for me but how life has changed in me as well.

In many respects, I feel almost like one of those kindergarteners who, looking back, has grown.  And maybe that is truly the best approach to this who story…growth.  There are so many areas in my own life that have become areas of growth for me.  Things I have learned and most of them are things I never wanted to learn…at least not in this classroom.

I have learned a lot about grief.  Having been a minister of the Gospel for more than ten years now, I have been with a lot of people in the midst of death and grief.  But, it was not until I began walking the road myself that I began to learn how terrible we have become at grieving in America, and especially in the church.  What we fail to see is that we are filled with God-given emotions that can truly serve us well in coming to terms with the loss of a loved one.  But, instead, we make statements such as “I have to be strong.”  My response to that is, “Why?”  “My grace is enough for you; my power comes to perfection in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).  If we truly believe these words of our Lord spoken to Paul, then why should we not allow our selves to journey through grief in an honest and broken manner?  Maybe, just maybe, if we allowed ourselves this freedom, a freedom to grieve, a freedom to hurt, a freedom to lament, we would find less issues that haunt and plague us later in life.  Maybe, if we took advantage of the opportunity to grieve our losses, and truly grieve them as one who is weak and allow the grace of God to be enough and the power of God to be brought to perfection, we would see dramatic changes in our mental health. 

Too often we feel the need to suppress the power of grief because it gets in the way of a normal way of life.  “I am ready for some normalcy again” we often say.  One of the things I have learned about grief in the last 1,826 days is that things will never return to that state of “normal.”  This way of living is the new normal.  This is the way life is now.  I feel that when we swallow our grief and pain and sorrow instead of expressing it, we rob ourselves of the gift of God that grief truly can be.  Maybe this comes from our culture where everything is instant.  Instant coffee and potatoes.  Instant downloads to our iPhones.  Instant 5-step fixes for a broken toilet.  Instant grief?  There is something about putting the words “instant” and “grief” together that repulses me.  Grief is not instant.  In fact, it has been 1,826 days since the worst day of my life and I will admit there are still days when the absence of my mother and my father is incredibly painful.  Whoever says that “time heals all wounds” was misspoken.  Time does not heal.  Only God heals.  God uses time to help us learn to walk again after having both legs knocked out from under us. 

Maybe one reason we try to rush our way through grief is because we are not sure to do with all of the stuff that is inside us.  All of the emotion.  All of the pain.  All of the….stuff.  What do we do with it?  Where do we take it?  How do we even look at it?  And at the heart of all of these feelings, emotions, and whirlwind of stuff is anger.  We are angry that death has taken our loved one.  We can be angry at anyone or even everyone.  We can be angry at our departed loved one.  We can be angry at God.  And then we begin feeling guilty for feeling angry and think and even say, “God doesn’t want me to be angry.”  And again, my response after 1,826 days into the journey, is “Why?”  Why should we not be angry?  Why should we not express our anger?  Do we not believe that God is big enough or strong enough to handle even our anger?  Do we not think that even God is angered by death?

The gospels tell us about the emotions expressed by Jesus.  Not the least of which was anger.  In fact, He was angered at the death of Lazarus.  John 11:33 speaks of Jesus being “deeply moved” while approaching the tomb of his friend.  Every time I find myself standing with Jesus and a grieving family at a graveside service, I am like Jesus and deeply moved.  In Greek, there is a sense of frustration and anger in this text.  I cannot help but think that Jesus was thinking, “Death, you stealing cheat!  You have struck again and one of these days I am going to deal with you FOR GOOD!”  I have learned that if Jesus is okay with something, I should be too.  Anger was a part of Jesus’ grief over his friend, Lazarus.  Why should it not become part of ours? 

Now, I must take a moment to say, that all freedoms can be exploited, grief included.  For all of the freedom we can find in honest grieving, we must be careful not to allow these things to rule over us.  There is a difference in allowing God to use these things to bring us to a healthy place of living and making these things (anger, grief, etc) gods in our own lives.  The latter leads to a most unhealthy way of living.

But, maybe the greatest lesson I have learned over the last 1,826 days, has been that we need a solid theology of resurrection in our lives, our homes, and our congregations.  Some may be crying, “In layman’s terms, please, Andrew!”  This means that we need to begin embracing the power of the resurrection of Christ Jesus and allowing God to do to us what He did to His own Son: raise us back to life.  We need to understand what resurrection power can do in our lives.  Until 1,826 days ago, I will admit, the doctrine of the resurrection was just that, a doctrine that I tipped my hat to every Easter.  Every one of the last 1,826 days, I will admit, that I have done more than tip my hat to this 2,000-year-old teaching of the church.  The resurrection of Jesus is not simply a doctrine and a church teaching.  The resurrection of Jesus is a reality!  When Jesus was standing at the tomb of Lazarus, and snorting as He was deeply moved by death, no one around Him knew just how moved He was.  He was moved to action.  The action was that He would take death on: head on!  He would allow death to take Him out so He could, in turn, three days later, take it out!  Living in light of the resurrection is the mission of the church.  For the Christian, the resurrection should be more than the chief doctrine of the faith.  It should be the single-most life changing-truth ever encountered. 

The resurrection is what makes grief, in the darkest and deepest of days, even bearable.  The resurrection is what makes the anger of grief expressible.  The resurrection is what gives us the truest freedom to be honest with God about where we are and what this grief is doing to us.  The resurrection gives hope to those hopelessly stuck in grief.  The resurrection shines light onto those who are desperately wandering in the darkness of grief. 

You know, looking back, things are much different now.  1,826 days have passed.  The world is a different place.  I am a different person.  I have learned about life, faith, marriage, parenting, and so much more.  Life has been full of ups and downs in the last 1,826 days.  Maybe in the days, weeks, and months ahead, I will take the time to write about these things.  But, for now, here’s to the next 1,826 days!

He is risen...just as He told you…

-ASR