The end of business as usual

It’s a rainy Thursday evening as I write this. Perhaps the weather is matching my mood. I have felt rather like Eeyore, walking around with my very own rain cloud hanging over my head. It’s not a great feeling. Eeyore, as we know, is not full of happiness and joy.

Today, 7 December, is my parents’ wedding anniversary. It has been awhile since we celebrated it. After all, my mum passed away in 2006. Yet, dad and I would acknowledge the date. With my dad, I usually made some kind of joke about how thankful he should be for the date coz it meant I was eventually born to him and my mum. He took it in good stride and usually gave me a big grin. The day was acknowledged. Today, I wasn’t able to do this. It was hard already for the last sixteen years to not wish my dad a happy anniversary, but today, to not even acknowledge the marriage of my parents was especially painful. It hit me so hard.

This morning, I took little Gamora out for a walk. I tried super hard to keep busy with work, and in between that, getting the laundry done. It’s been really hard-going because I’m feeling such high levels of pain, it’s not funny. I don’t know how I’m going to manage my emotions any better. I’m doing all the right things, according to the counsellor I’m seeing, the stuff I’m reading, and the podcasts I’m listening to. I guess I cannot expect the process to take away the experience of pain. This is all I’m left with.

Today, as I’ve been pondering about this feeling of extreme sadness I’m facing now, I wonder how I can ever expect to share my faith. Bereavement is an example of suffering- and as I’ve often said there are many, many different types of suffering. I guess it’s easy to dismiss God as uncaring. We often hear of people saying that one of the reasons why they don’t believe in God is because He allows suffering. I wonder now if I’m adding to the reason for the question.

There are many characters in the Bible that we’re often pointed to, who have become huge lesson-bearers to those of us who follow in the faith. You have the likes of Job, Joseph, the apostle Paul, just to name a few. Joseph, I sometimes admire and I sometimes find too hard to understand. In fact, there are times when what he says to his brothers in Genesis 50:20 (about how what they meant for evil against him, God meant it for good), both amazes and puzzles me. I mean, after all his suffering, to be able to see that God brought good out of it is just staggering. When I was younger and a lot less patient, I used to think him smug and annoying as he said that. It’s hard though, to apply what Joseph says in my own life. It is very unlikely that a nation will be saved through any of my suffering – like it was for Joseph, or even how mankind is saved through Jesus.

I think of Job- the loss of his entire family resonates deeply with me. Job’s friends don’t do a great job comforting him. I’m more blessed there. I receive comfort. Job’s suffering wasn’t a result of some kind of judgment against him. I have been pondering this, if my losing both parents is judgment against me. I don’t feel this to be the case at all. I’m still a sinful creature in need of sanctification and refining, but I cannot see that God is punishing me through the loss I’m experiencing. In a sermon by my favourite Tim Keller, who passed away in May this year, I remember him saying that when satan brought suffering into Job’s life, he did it to discredit Job before God, but that God used that suffering to lift Job up – the complete opposite to what satan attempts to do. I’m quite sure I’m not saying it as eloquently as Tim Keller, and I really should look for the sermon and listen to it again! But it does make me pause and wonder if this is why God has allowed me this suffering. I know that when my mum passed away and as I struggled with it, it was in my deepest moments of grief that I really felt grace and mercy. It was really when the pangs of pain hit me that I was drawn in closer to God. I know that those moments were amazing. Perhaps it is this that is happening. If I take that to be the case, then I cannot accuse God of not caring or being unmerciful towards me. I know that I have never been so sure of His existence and mercies as I have when I’ve encountered Him in my valleys. I can perhaps recognise that His grace is indeed sufficient for me and trust that He will work all things out for those who believe. I may not be able to acknowledge my parent’s’ wedding anniversary in the way I want to, but I can definitely acknowledge God’s work in me even through this grief. Perhaps this is what I can share.