Interrupted....

I don’t know about you, but Ronna and I like to make plans. We plan out our days and weeks and even make plans for the year. We plan our weekly menus for supper and make plans for vacations and times to be together as a family.  We need plans – I think it is a good thing to plan. But what about when our plans for awry? What about when our plans are interrupted and we are left with a completely different situation than what we planned?

Interruptions like this can be devastating. Crippling. Not only do these kinds of interruptions derail our plans, they can actually derail our souls. Standing here today, February 8, 2018, marks ten years since the biggest interruption of my life. And to be honest, I am still not sure what to make of it. It was ten years ago this morning that the plans of my family were thrown off-course in such a way that it left an indelible mark on our souls. In a surprising interruption, my mom and dad stepped from life on the earth to a life beyond the earth. They died. It was the worst day of my life and the life of my brothers and sister and all the grandchildren.

It was the interruption that none of us wanted. I had plans! I had real plans! I had plans in my mind and heart of what life would look like in 2018. I had plans of taking a three-generation photo of Rawls guys with my dad, me, and my son. I had plans of my mother taking my girls into her arms and telling stories before going to the kitchen to bake Christmas cookies. I had plans of my dad coming to preach in the church I would one day pastor and my mom sharing her gift of Chrismons with new friends. I had plans of cooking more BBQ with my dad while my mom and Ronna continued to sit back and laugh at us.

I think Ronna had plans too. We had only been married eighteen months when mom and dad died meaning both of us were new to the world of in-law relationships. She laments the fact that she did not have more time as a daughter-in-law. We had plans! We made plans! February 8, 2008 was supposed to turn out much differently for our family than it did.

Now, standing here ten years later I find myself just as moved, pained, saddened and grieved as I did ten years ago. The difference is now I see much clearer the things that could have been. I see Caulder (our son) and think about how that three-generation picture would have looked. I see Annlyn and Eva (our daughters) and am moved to tears when I think about what it would have sounded like for them to run into mom and dad’s house shouting, “Grandma! Granddaddy!” I have cooked and eaten BBQ, but it is still not the same as it could have been. These are little things that I did not know were being interrupted at the time, but since then, I have come to see them as a great loss. These “secondary losses” can be just as painful, though we do not realize them as such at the time.

The interruption of death has left me a marked man. There is so much that I feel cheated out of because of the interruption. There is so much that I feel they were cheated out of because of the interruption. That day was a derailing day for sure.

This experience of interruption is not unique to me. Anyone who has ever lost anyone to the interruption of death can resonate with the depth of pain such a derailment can cause.  

Five years ago today, I shared on this blog about the things I had learned about grief looking back on the previous five years. Today, I do the same thing except from a different perspective. Today – ten years after the interruption – I think about the cost of the interruption. At the same time, what was true five years ago is the same thing that was true ten years ago. It is actually the same thing that has been true since the dawn of time: God is still the God of life. God was God before the beginning of time. God was God ten years ago today. God is God today.

I believe this so deeply in my core that one of the observations I have come across in the last ten years is how God interrupts our interruptions. God interrupted the interruption of death on Easter morning. That is no cliché and so much more than “preacher talk.” It is truth. The cycle of death that has plagued humanity has been interrupted by the resurrection of Jesus. In fact, Paul, the New Testament preacher and Apostle, pulls from the scriptures in which his faith was soaked, and which shaped his gospel. He writes:

Death has been swallowed up by victory. Where, o death, is your victory? Where, o death, is your sting? (1 Corinthians 15:54-55).

Death has been interrupted by the victory of life. The greatest joy in my life is knowing deep in my soul that through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, God has interrupted the interruption of death. Five years ago, I posted these words:

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.

God has interrupted our grief with hope and our pain with promise. God has interrupted our stories with God’s story – a story of life. I still believe this to be true. I still hold to it…or better yet it holds on to me. I am still not good at allowing interruptions. But I am still learning to allow God to interrupt my grief through the power of resurrection.

Each day is filled with moments. Some ordinary, some extraordinary. Some painful, some promising. Some filled with laughter and others with tears. But each moment is also an opportunity for the power of Easter to interrupt our lives once again. To be shaped and directed by this interruption leaves us as marked people. The interruption that comes with Easter is the only way our lives can come back on track. 

Today I give thanks to the death-interrupting God for the lives of my parents; for the lessons of love and faith they shared with me and everyone around them. Today I will tell my children stories about their grandma and granddaddy. Today these moments are filled with the reminder of what God has done in Christ in order to bring life. Telling stories, sharing memories, and even shedding a tear are all ways in which our moments are interrupted by the power of Easter. 

I would have never planned February 8, 2008 to be the interruption it was – and still is – for me and my family. I hold to the theological position that God did not plan (in the sense of orchestrating the events) for the day to be that kind of interruption either. However, what I have come to see – and am still coming to see – is that God’s interruption of death is the ultimate and only hope for us all.

Reeling with Divine Interruption…

-ASR