Stony Paths

“If God sends us on strong paths,

we are provided strong shoes.”

-Corrie Ten Boom

                I love this quote.  It is a comforting reminder of God’s provision when the times get tough.  But the more I walk the strong and stony paths, the more I think there might be something a little lacking in the metaphor.

                If we are provided strong shoes, then we can walk the strong paths confidently from the beginning.  Our feet are protected, and we march into the future knowing that the Lord is giving us the strength and comfort to carry on.

                At the beginning of any difficult path, though, most of us are beset with doubt, fear, and pain.  We walk, but it hurts.  Then, gradually, with time, we find that it hurts a little less.  The stones seem less sharp, and the obstacles seem less daunting.  If we stop and think about it, though, the path hasn’t gotten easier, we’ve just gotten stronger.

                I don’t think it’s because the Lord has given us strong shoes, I think it’s because our bare feet, once tender and unaccustomed to the roughness, have become Hobbit-like, leathery enough to handle the terrain.  God strengthens us gradually in our circumstances.

                Have you ever noticed that two people can react completely differently to very similar situations?  Or that one person will be overwhelmed by a small inconvenience while another can endure great hardship and keep moving?  I’m convinced that it’s largely a result of the toughening process of life.  To those who haven’t encountered many setbacks in life, something small like, say, car trouble, seems like a disaster of epic proportions.  For someone who is accustomed to difficulty, the car trouble is an annoyance, nothing more.

                Life takes practice, and each trial can, if we view it as a lesson, strengthen us and enable us to conquer great challenges, to walk stony paths with tough feet.

“He makes my feet like hinds’ feet,

And sets me upon my high places…

You enlarge my steps under me,

And my feet have not slipped.”

-Psalm 18:33,36

The Road Map

About a year after Bryan died, I did a post reflecting on the grieving process, and I said that I'd be posting some more thoughts on that over the next week or two.  Week, months- it's all the same, right?

This might be a little overdue for me, but I hope that it comes at just the right moment for someone else.

One of the challenges that I had early on in the grieving process was feeling a little lost.  Grieving is by its nature a messy process, but I knew that the God who promised to give us "all things that pertain to life and godliness" (1 Pet. 1:3) had to have something to say about how to grieve well.  There are people who allow circumstances to destroy them, to make them bitter, to give them an excuse for every other problem they fail to overcome.  There's no guarantee that suffering will create a stronger person.

So, where was the road map?  Where was God's divine example on how to grieve in a way that forms good character, a way that pushes us further in our journey to maturity?

Job.  The road map for grief is in the book of Job.

People talk a lot about Job.  We reference the "patience of Job" especially.  But there's a lot more to the story.  First, there's the why: Job had it all- family, home, health, possessions- and God allowed it to be taken away, just to test him.  Job didn't lose it all because of his sin; he lost it because God was letting everyone see that Job would still be the same man without all of it.

Then, there are the well-meaning friends.  Job's friends hurt for him.  They wanted to see him get over this thing and move on.  They all had answers.  Most of what they said was good, sound theology.  Much of it was beautiful.  ("Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects...For he bruises, but He binds up; He wounds, but His hands make whole.  He shall deliver you in six troubles, yes, in seven no evil shall touch you." 5:17-18)  And they were all wrong.  Their timing was off, and they didn't understand God's purpose any better than Job did.  Incidentally, Job wins the award for best sarcastic response in the Bible, when he disdainfully replies to his friends, "Surely you are the people, and wisdom will die with you!" (12:2)

Job even had trouble grieving with family members.  We tend to be a little hard on Job's wife, but, remember, she lost everything too.  And her response was very different than Job's.  She wanted him to let go of his integrity.  Surely their troubles warranted that.  They were suffering.  He was sick and in pain.  She spoke out of anger and bitterness and told him to "Curse God and die."  And in those four words we have an example of how to grieve poorly.  Perhaps Job's reply helped his grieving wife to gain the proper perspective and mindset: "Shall we indeed accept good from God and shall we not accept adversity?"  (2:9-10)  Everyone grieves differently, and many take out their anger on those closest to them.  It's tough, but families have to stick together during hard times.  At the end of the journey, no one wants to look around and find himself estranged from everyone he once held dear.

The most important part of any map, though, is the crossroad.  As long as the journey is heading on a straight path, the map isn't very necessary.  But, when faced with two options, we'd better know which road leads to our desired destination.

For most of the book, God lets Job go.  He complains, he protests his innocence, he asks why.  In a word, he mourns his loss.  But then comes chapter 38.  It's the crossroad.  God speaks, and Job has a decision to make.

"Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said: 

'Who is this who darkens counsel

by words without knowledge?

Now prepare yourself like a man;

I will question you, and you shall answer Me.

Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?'"

Job 38:1-4

God says, "Enough."  And Job must decide.  Does he cling to his argument?  After all, God never said in His reply that Job deserved what he got.  He just talked about His omnipotence and Job's humanity.  Should Job just say, "But, LORD, You were wrong."  In other words, does Job take the path of pride and bitterness and anger?  Or does he choose the path of surrender?

Job, of course, chooses surrender:  "I raise my hand over my mouth."  But many of us fail to make that choice.  We continue on the path of bitterness and some even turn against the LORD in their anger.  I'll say it again: Suffering does not guarantee a stronger character.  What we allow suffering to do to us depends on the choice we make at the crossroads.  

When you reach the crossroad, choose surrender.  Choose hope.  

"Now the LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning."

Job 42:12

One Year

Today marks one year since Bryan died.

I really can't believe it hasn't been a lot longer.  I suppose when you go through a major life change, it's normal for your sense of time to get a little skewed.  So much has changed that it feels like at least several years have passed- probably more like five.

And I think that's a good thing. It means that more healing has taken place than seems possible in just one year.  It means we've moved on and started a new life.

Over the next week or two, I plan to do a few posts sharing some of my reflections on the last year, but for now, my message is for those who are grieving.  I've learned many things in the last twelve months, but the most important lesson, while not particularly earth-shattering or grand, is most emphatically true.

There's no way through it, but through it.

That's it.  That's what I've learned.  When life is terrible, you just have to keep moving ahead.  You can't hide.  You can't go back.  Time keeps moving, and so must you.  You can wrestle with your guilt, you can indulge your grief, you can get angry, you can ask why.  All of that is acceptable.  All of that is expected.  But, in the end, whether or not you've sorted everything out and gotten all of the answers (and you won't), the only way to deal with grief is to keep living.  

I'm not saying it's easy.  It's not.  It's excruciatingly difficult.  But it is also absolutely imperative.  And I am here to tell you that, whether it seems like it now or not, you, my dear grieving friend, will get through it as long as you keep moving.

Bear in mind though, as you go through it, that grief is by no means a straight path.  The day a loved one dies, you don't pass through the gate and begin moving briskly forward, passing one landmark at a time.  It's a road with many twists and turns and some very dark tunnels.  CS Lewis says it best (doesn't he always?):

"Grief is like a long valley,

a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape...

[but] not every bend does.

Sometimes the surprise is the opposite one;

you are presented with exactly the same sort of country you thought you had left behind miles ago.

That is when you wonder whether the valley isn't a circular trench."

(A Grief Observed, 1961)

The minute you thought you were "over" something, that you had moved past a particular trigger, you will realize that you haven't at all.  "Am I right back where I started?  I thought I 20]3was done with this grieving thing," you'll think to yourself.  But I've come to see that those setbacks aren't really setbacks in the truest sense of the word.  They may seem to impede your progress, but if you pick yourself up and keep going, they become just another step forward in the messy valley of grief.  The darkness of the bad days lightens, almost imperceptibly at first, and then more and more as time passes.  And the dark days come less frequently.  Grief is not, as CS Lewis goes on to conclude, a circular trench after all.

My testimony to the grieving is this:  There is hope.  There is life.  There is light.  Maybe not yet, but soon.  Just keep going through it.

O, Lord,

"Remember the word to Your servant,

Upon which You have caused me to hope.

This is my comfort in my affliction,

For Your word has given me life."

Ps. 119:49-50