It was a normal scene. The kids were playing on a playground, the air was cooling. It was the post-dinner energy burn. We were trying to wear out the kids before their bed-times called. Just a normal evening. Then, like a flash, it wasn’t normal. Our 2 year old started to cry. She let out a loud holler, and then there was the pause. You know that pause, where everyone is willing her to breathe, so that she can let out ‘the big cry’? Except she didn’t. I rushed to her and her lips were blue, and before I knew it she was crumpled in my arms like a limp flower. Not breathing. I yelled at her to breathe, and was helpless at her collapse. We were in the woods, we were far from home, I didn’t have equipment, I was trying to hold down my panic and I just stood there. And held her.
Thankfully, in a moment, in a whisper, she was breathing again, and somehow she regained consciousness, only to slip into a deep sleep that would last the next 10 hours.
Utter normalcy and then in a breath, the veneer of this life was yanked off like a tablecloth. In a moment, it could have all changed.
This summer has been filled with bad news after bad news. Close family, dear friends, colleagues, neighbors- so many receiving the news of shocking diagnoses. Words like ‘end-stage’ and ‘no-cure’ have ripped at my emotions and threatened inner turmoil. I’ve long wrestled with the reality that I see every day at work: that death is looming and ready to swallow us all, and yet we all seem to be so blissfully ignorant of it’s complete and utter reality. How do you live in light of this sinking devastation, without letting it drag you down to the bottom of despair?
This life is filled with difficulty. It is filled with the hard and the horrible and I hear the laments of people echoing off the hollow walls of our cultural values. There is nothing normal or bearable about death or cancer. There is nothing in me that welcomes it, or receives it with joy. And there is nothing but empty lies that our culture offers to combat this reality with. Being strong or positive or fit, or healthy will do nothing to prevent the freight train bearing down on us. Youth and vigor fade, age comes to us all. And I just want to scream “wake up!” I fear that most of us are not ready to face death. Most of us deny its existence, let alone expect it at our door any minute.
Yet, and there is always a yet, somehow this reality does not give me fear. In fact, my joy increases with every ounce of grief. The anchor that is my hope in Christ, is strengthed with every weight put against it. How could there not be an answer to that deep and heart-wrenching cry of despair? How can there not be a hope so strong, that it can unclench the hand of death around our souls?
Death has been overcome. Shadow has been over-shadowed by light. Day is birthed from night and there is hope that is unshakeable. The impossible is possible by the reality of a risen savior. Death does not have the last word. I cannot explain or define the hope that bursts forth from my soul when I consider how great my hope, that swallows up my grief and fear. With every sob and every hand squeezed, and with every heavy tear that lands from my lid onto this page, I am overcome by the peace and love of God. He is nearer and nearer still to the broken-hearted and just to know that He will be with us, even in the valley of death, is no trite statement.
My ramblings are perhaps no comfort. But this I know, death is not the enemy. Death will come for us all, but the enemy is our unwillingness to bow to the king of Life who alone has permission to grant us new life in the here and now. He is the one holding us, like a limp flower, the one who has the ability to breathe life into us.
Dear friends, your life is a whisper, a breath, dust upon the wind. It will come and it will go. He alone is the anchor for your soul. In face of death’s hoofbeats bearing down on you, pounding closer still, reach out to Him who is your salvation. Hope is found, in the crook of His arm, strong enough to hold you.