On Loss

Related to my previous post on my experience with a grief workshop at my church, the rest of this blog post will basically be the transcript of my story. I’ve deleted some parts of it, as they were mostly the teaching content that our church has and I didn’t want to just copy/paste. Some of the teaching content, however, is still in here, in hopes that it might be helpful for anyone reading this. Hopefully, it’s not too choppy. It’s also quite long, so I’ll understand if you don’t get to the end, but if you do, I hope this was helpful to you:

I can’t begin to tell you how incredibly humbling it is for me to be here in front of all of you tonight. I want to acknowledge the weight of each of your individual grief journeys and thank you so much for being here. Many of the teachers and leaders have wanted to encourage those of you who are attending that this is a safe space, a place where you are allowed to be vulnerable, to be messy, to be not-all-put-together. But I also want to say that the reason why this continues to be a safe space is because of you, because of those of you who have chosen to be here and chosen to be vulnerable. Please know that while we hope that this group has been a healing one for you, your vulnerability, honesty, and sharing may have given others the courage to be vulnerable and honest as well. It doesn’t always feel like strength in practice, but for me, as one very small, very unqualified person who has heard the murmur of shared voices in the room, I can sense the courage and strength coming from each of you. So I thank you, and I hope so much for your healing as you journey through your grief. 

During tonight’s session, we will be talking about how we can connect spiritually through our  grief. I want to acknowledge that not all of us are in the same space when it comes to our spiritual journeys and beliefs. I will be speaking mainly as someone whose spiritual journey comes from a traditionally Christian background. For those of you who are not in that place, my goal is not to alienate you. I’ll be honest, I think Jesus is pretty awesome, and I would love for you to get to know him, but I also hope that no matter where you are in your spiritual journey, you would be able to see something in this session that can help you. 

When I was introduced, they mentioned that I’m currently a nurse working in oncology, or in cancer treatment. For some of you, that might trigger some incredibly intense or poignant emotions and feelings. The area that I work means I have journeyed with people through their cancer journeys, grieving with them the changes that come along with an incredibly jarring diagnosis; the loss of their sense of selves, the loss of who they were before the word Cancer came into their lives, the loss of their physical health. On many occasions, I have then grieved the loss of their presence in this life. But in thinking through how to talk about engaging spiritually in our grief, I actually want to talk about a different loss I encountered that had nothing to do with my vocation. 

Way back in 2013, I travelled down to Louisville, KY to visit my then-fiance-now-husband, Joseph, to do an engagement photoshoot, dragging along one of my close friends to act as assist (e.g. throwing leaves into the frame to make things look cute, hold accessories, etc.) Behind the camera was a good friend of our’s, whom I’ll call Cam. At the time, he did our amazing engagement shoot, and eventually did our wedding photos as well. 

The first time I met Cam, he and my husband’s church had come up to the Chicagoland area to make a trip of visiting downtown Chicago. When Joseph and I first got married, we had been in a long distance relationship for the entirety of our relationship until we said “I do.” I was a much quieter person back then, less sure of myself, and as soon as we were married, I moved to where he was, so Louisville. I’d never lived outside of Chicagoland before. So when I moved, although I had visited a few times, there were just a handful of people I thought of as people I could trust and felt comfortable with when I moved. And of course, one of them was the guy who took our engagement photos and gave us our wedding photos as a gift. Super warm, super friend. In a tumultuous time in my life, Cam was one of the people helped me warm up, and although I was probably still super awkward and unsure of myself (honestly, I’m probably not all that less awkward now, I just hide it better), I can’t begin to tell you how valuable that was to me. We eventually moved back up to the Chicagoland area, but we kept in touch with Cam and a few of the leaders down there on occasion. 

Even though he was a photographer by day, Cam often took terrible phone pictures and posted them on Facebook. And I remember one day he had taken a very terrible picture of a plate full of shrimp chips, and several pairs of chopsticks reaching in to grab at them. I scrolled past, thinking not much of it, until about a day later. 

The day after this picture was taken, I had dropped my husband off at work, he was working part time evening shifts, and I ran errands for a few hours before I went back to pick him up. At some point that night, one of my friends texted me as I was in the parking lot of a nearby grocery store. (She’s the one who came as my assist for that engagement shoot) It read:

“What happened to Cam?!” 

I texted her back. 

“What?”

“Look at his facebook.”

The next post I saw on his facebook, after the shrimp chip one, was of someone who was saying goodbye. But it was the kind of goodbye that connoted that he had left and was never coming back. And then there was another one. And another one. 

I thought it was a joke. Someone, surely, would have called me. Someone, surely, would have told me. My husband had been the pastor at his church. Cam had been one of the volunteer leaders of the youth group there. When we lived in Louisville, we spoke every week. We shared meals regularly. There was no way. Someone would have told us. 

I didn’t respond to my friend. I instead called one of the other leaders of that church. Surely, this wasn’t real. There was no explanation. There was nothing on his facebook page to explain anything. 

When I called this leader, our conversation went like this. 

“Hey (Leader)”

“Hey Jenn”

“I was just looking at Cam’s facebook. Did something happen to Cam?”

There was a slight pause. And very quietly, so confusingly calmly, she said, 

“Cam was in a car accident. He didn’t make it.”

And there was silence. I started to hyperventilate. I couldn’t quite control my body. I said something along the lines of, “Thank you for letting me know. I have to tell Joseph. I’ll be thinking of you guys.” And we hung up. 

I got lost on the way to my husband’s work from that grocery store, which was probably only about 5 minutes away. When I finally arrived at his work, and he got into the car, I was a mess. I had no idea what to say. So I told him almost the same thing I had found out. Cam was in a car accident. He didn’t make it. And we both sat in silence as we drove home. 

As we walk through our grief journeys, one of the most significant questions we ask is “why.” Why did this happen? To me? To my loved one? 

I can’t tell you how many times I asked God this question as we grieved the loss of our friend. I have never felt so much anger at a loss before. Cam was young. How could this be real? Why would God allow this? What was the point? It all seemed so pointless. I railed against God. I asked him for ridiculous things. I challenged God by telling him, “how could this end up for the good? Would it not be a greater story of your power and goodness to go back and make this reality come untrue?” And I had a response for a period of time that was normal, but unhelpful. I disengaged. I grew angry and resentful toward God. I didn’t want to discuss it. I didn’t talk about it, with God or with anyone around me. I hated this reality, that Cam was gone, that this loss seemed so pointless, and how could there be any way to explain this that would satisfy my sense of injustice at his abrupt departure from this earth? 

In my experience as a nurse, I have also seen people on the other end of the spectrum, people who believed in an ideal or explained away their grief with Christian platitudes without fully engaging in their pain. These platitudes might be things like, 

“It was his/her time.” 

“God needed him/her back sooner than we thought.” 

“God needed another angel”

“They’re in a better place.” 

Sometimes, we find ourselves wanting to be healed, and jump to the “healed place” without doing the hard work of working through our grief. So we try to say the right things before we feel them, and before we realize that some of the “right things” we say aren’t actually all quite right. 

We might also find ourselves coming to spiritual conclusions without inviting God into the dialogue, like “God can’t be real.” “God is not good.” or “God is punishing me.” Please hear me clearly: what I am not saying here, is that I am not saying that your pain, your suffering are discounted when these spiritual conclusions are made. Rather, I am pointing out here that in our grief, if the only way out is through, we must choose to engage and struggle through some of these questions and conclusions. An old mentor of mine used to say, “doubt your doubts.” 

Think of the story of the cross, the crucifixion and the resurrection. In the Christian story, Jesus was crucified on Friday. His followers found themselves understandably devastated and shocked. On Saturday, he lay in a tomb. It was a strange kind of purgatory. On Sunday, he rose again.  Hope was born anew.

Where are you in this grief story? Are you where the disciples of Jesus in Good Friday, devastated, shocked, and cannot imagine Sunday? If you are, I want to affirm that it’s ok to be here. You are not wrong. This is just where you are in your journey. Are you in-between, in Saturday; you are grieving, deeply sad, confused, but maybe a little curious about what Sunday could be like? Are you finally, or maybe just on some days, at Sunday? Seeing glimpses of what it might be like to see Sunday on earth? 

Revelations 21: 1a, 4 gives us a picture of what Sunday looks like. 

“Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth’ … ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” 

In moments of grief, God promises his presence, his power, and his peace. I say this with the understanding that sometimes, it won’t always feel like he’s there. It won’t always feel like you can get through the day. You won’t always feel the “peace of God” when you’re hoping for it. But his promises mean that he is there, even if your feelings and sense of him don’t always line up. It is never true that you are alone, he is always there, and even when you don’t feel strong, he is there for you to lean on to get through. He will meet you where you are. 

As we experience our grief on this side of heaven, there is a conflict we may never resolve. That is, God could have prevented your loss but didn\’t – and God is loving and good. I want to stop here for a second for you to feel your response to this statement. God could have prevented your loss but didn’t – and God is loving and good. Theological postulations and explanations may not fully address the emotions you feel in this statement. The challenge is for you to engage. Feel, but also pull yourself through that emotion, and look at God with your honest anger or sadness, and whatever way you can, keep engaging him. Invite God into a conversation. You can even call it an argument or a debate if that’s where you are. Move towards God with whatever emotions you bring with you. If you’re not sure where God is in your situation, ask. God sometimes shows up in ways we did not expect. He reminds us that we are not alone. 

In the movie Bruce Almighty, there’s a wonderful scene where Jim Carrey’s character, Bruce, enters into prayer during a car ride. He asks for a sign, a miracle, some sign from God that he is present and real and with him during a really hard time, and holds up a rosary as a symbol of his earnestness. Even as he asks for a sign, we as the viewers see the road sign that tells him to take caution, the truck in front of him full of Stop signs, and he is not able to pay heed until he his car hits a pole, at which point Bruce gets out of the car and dares God to smite him! It’s funny, but poignant, because it feels similar to where we are sometimes. We are sometimes unable to see where God is in our story, unable to see that he is present. Ask him to open your eyes to his presence. You might be surprised with how he shows up. 

Another way to connect with God is through finding your spiritual pathway. There is a book written by Gary Thomas called Sacred Pathways: Discover your Soul’s Path to God. He addresses in this book that there are multiple spiritual pathways. I found this incredibly helpful.  You may find that you are a mixture, and that this may have changed over time. We will take a look at each of these. There is a more thorough treatment of each of these pathways in Gary Thomas’ books if you are curious to know a little bit more where you fall. 

In the months and years after Cam passed away, I have had on and off periods where I re-engaged in my relationship with God. I was challenged by a story in the Bible about a guy named Job. The first time I read through this story, I was probably just a kid, and it was just SO. Loong. And it just went on, and on, and on, and it was just this guy crying about stuff. 

Over the years, however, either due to moments of pain in my own life or through those kinds of moments in the lives of the people around me, the story of Job has become a lifeline in helping me to deal with my emotions and my relationship with God and my spiritual life. It’s the story of a guy who had everything, a beautiful family, health, wealth, respect in society. And he loses all of it. His children, his home, his health. He loses all of it. 

His response, at first, is silence… is bearing the sheer weight of his grief. He is in that Friday, a time lacking hope or words or future. And for many chapters after, there is a harsh, emotional, difficult treatment of his pain. He is challenged by the platitudes and harsh words of a few of his friends who come, telling him why he must be going through this suffering, and you can see he puts his mind and soul through each of their arguments, constantly and consistently pushing through them to engage with God. Through all of it, even through his anger, through his sense of injustice, through every ugly emotion, through every challenge to God’s goodness, he never stops engaging. He challenges God to show up. He points a finger and dares God to explain why. 

“But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, 
and he will stand upon the earth at last. 
And after my body has decayed, 
yet in my body I will see God!
I will see him for myself. 
Yes, I will see him with my own eyes. 
I am overwhelmed at the thought!”

-Job 19:25-27

This passage astounds me. In the middle of his loss and his arguments against and with God, he speaks this verse. The hope that he will one day see God himself. To me, this has nothing to do with a God who comforts. Job’s deepest desire in his suffering is to see God for himself, to have God be present with him. 

It takes a long time. God does eventually appear in this story. And the explanation is not quite what Job originally asked. There is no true answer. But Job accepts. 

In the time since Cam’s passing, and now as I have held hands with and experienced the losses of so many patients who have come into and out of my life, I have never received a straightforward answer to the “why” questions. But in those times, when I was able to keep my eyes and hands open, God has shown up in weird, beautiful, poignant, meaningful, painful, real, funny, full ways. Even now, I think of some of the things that the patients I have lost have left behind. A dentist who handwrote a letter for me for my future children when I was pregnant on how to help them take care of their teeth, the stuffed dinosaur he gave me as a Christmas gift that my sons still play with. The email chain started by an entrepreneur, a firecracker of a woman, to keep in touch with the friends she made during her cancer journey that eventually became a community of support for those who felt lost. The moments I see shared by complete strangers, who share tears and laughter on our clinic floor as they trade chemo stories. Their absolute tenacity. And even though those moments don’t explain “why”, they give me glimpses of Sunday, of a time when no tears, mourning, or pain will be present. When everything sad finally becomes untrue. Of a time when the question of “Why”, though not unimportant or dismissed, is overwhelmed by the sheer presence of God, and the story he has written that pulls together all the heartache and brokenness and makes it into something more beautiful that we  can imagine. 

So I pray for all of you, that in this journey, that God shows up for you. I encourage you to engage with God. It doesn’t and it won’t always make sense, this experience. But he is there. He is present. He is with you. And he will not leave you.