[The following entry is from Cathy Self, Sr. V.P. of the Baptist Healing Trust]
Two weeks
ago I posted thoughts shared from a young mother’s heart whose child had just
been born and was not expected to live. Copeland’s birth was a miracle, that
she lived for eight days is beyond our grasp, that she had to die is beyond our
understanding. The words written today by this young mother have touched my
soul and hold a great wisdom about what grief looks like from the inside. I
pass these thoughts along to you, dear caregivers, hoping they will speak to
your own life as you reach out in love to those in your work who are grieving.
“Sometimes grief looks like moving. Sometimes it
looks like sitting still. For now, I, like Job, am sitting in my sorrow....
"I've
thought a lot about the Old Testament, how it describes the Israelites in times
of suffering. They ripped their robes and rubbed ashes on their faces. It's a
strange, graphic way to grieve, a way we don't totally embrace anymore. A
friend told [us] about his trip to Africa
once. He mentioned the death of an older woman, and how, amongst her people,
there was great wailing. I thought of the Biblical phrase, "gnashing of
teeth."
" I've read it a thousand times, but I suppose this would be the
first season in my life that it feels relevant. The images are uncomfortable -
ashes and ripped clothing and screaming aloud. And yet, from where I sit,
there's a solace in them: the physical manifestation of a broken heart.
"And so I sit. And it's extraordinarily difficult. I find a compulsive need to
do something, to fix the pain - to rise above it, to hash it out, to move
forward, move on, get some closure. The Lord knew that when He said, "Be
still and know that I am God," we'd struggle with both commands - the
being still and the knowing. When your baby daughter dies after eight days and
there's nothing you can do to even touch her hand for a moment longer, the
knowing He's God isn't necessarily the tough part. Being still is. Sitting in
the sorrow means embracing all the emotions, all the incredibly painful stabs
of disappointment and anger and frustration and agony that jab at the heart
almost every single second of the day. Sitting in the sorrow means refusing to
self-medicate. It means finally, finally, embracing the fact that He has
created nothing that will give us as much joy and peace and fulfillment as
Himself.
"I've been to Target. I'll go again. I'll go to the mall and to the post office
and I'll take Sellers to school and, externally, my life will look nothing like
the stillness I'm choosing in my soul. I don't know why I share all of this
other than to tell you that there's freedom in it. Freedom in telling people
you aren't doing great or that you can't make it for a night out on the town.
Perhaps there's healing in the authenticity of the ashes.”
