That’s life . . .

 On July 30th, following a week’s hospital stay, my little sister, Ruth, was diagnosed with a form of lung cancer that only 8% of non smokers get. She went home that afternoon with oxygen support and plans to meet with an oncologist to create her treatment plan. Friday morning, August 1st, she was taken back to the hospital by ambulance. I was at my office on a phone call when I got a message from my sister, Kay, to call her. I immediately hung up and called her. It was terrible news. Her cancer was stage four and untreatable. By the next day they were saying it was like a wildfire inside her. She died August 9th.

        The loss of Ruth still occupies many of my thoughts. I think about our next trip to Kansas in a few days and try to acknowledge that she won't be there and it is still difficult to do. It just happened at such a stunning pace.

        I've now lost my mom and dad and the two siblings closest to me in age. Losing Mom a few months short of my 34th birthday was difficult. It was the first loss I experienced in my immediate family. She had suffered kidney failure and had been on dialysis for seven years. She had been in the hospital several times before so when she went to the hospital the last time I initially thought it would be another routine stay. Then things suddenly turned bad and she died.

        My father lived to 87 and was in great health until the last 6 months of his life. Really, there wasn't anything that seemed to signal the end of his life until the last month. I spent most of a day with him and we had to drive back to Dallas the next day. A week and a half later he was gone.

        My brother died 2 1/2 years ago. It was a shock when we got news that he'd been rushed to the hospital and then transferred to a larger one and nearly died on the way. He died about 2 1/2 weeks after that. He had been in very poor health so although it was a surprise when he was hospitalized, I had already considered that it was unlikely he would live to old age.

        But Ruth was in such good health, or seemed to be. I expected to have another twenty years with her. That's what makes the new reality so painful to accept. Things are not the way I expected them to be. But then, that's life.

        I don't mean that in any sort of "that's life so just get over it and get on with it" sort of way. I mean life is a lot of mundane tasks and days where we're getting our work done and taking care of the details of living, interspersed with unexpected and surprising joys and sorrows.

Sometimes we think of moving on from grief and getting back to our "regular" life. Maybe we, maybe I, would be better off recognizing this is our regular life. It's all of it, good but uneventful days, mundane tasks, joys and sorrows, all thrown together. It's what makes up a life. This probably all sounds depressing, but I don't feel depressed as I'm writing it. I actually feel the best I have felt in over a month.

        It’s better for our spiritual, mental, and emotional health if we can accept that all of those ups and downs and mundanes are a part of what makes up a life. There is such a drive in the U.S. to be happy and it doesn't help us. Of course, there is nothing wrong with wanting to be happy. It's when we turn it into the main pursuit of our life that we get into trouble. Life cannot possibly be happy all the time and the drive to be happy leads in the end to a lot of unhappiness. It leads to addictions of all kinds. We all find creative ways to avoid reality. I’ve often used reading this way, even though most of my reading is on spiritual formation. Depression and anxiety medications are a gift from God. Those who need them should use them without shame and others, especially religious leaders, should not guilt trip them about not trusting God enough. Yet it also seems true that some people end up overusing them in an attempt not to feel the bad stuff. But we cannot shut out the bad things and the attempt to do so only makes things worse for us.

        It also misses the reality that there is so much joy available to us, and I believe, particularly so if we are Christ-followers. The Resurrection changed everything. We do not grieve as those with no hope, as the Apostle Paul said. We worship a God who promises to make all things new. I have many moments, as I said, where I just cannot wrap my mind around the new reality that my sister is no longer a part of this world. But I also have moments of knowing she is now experiencing life to the fullest, unencumbered by all the difficulties of this world.

        So my hope is renewed that one day I will see her and Mom and Dad and Bobby, and especially, Jesus, and I, too, will no longer have the difficulties of this life. More importantly, I will be transformed. I will be delivered from the sins that cause so much trouble to me and those I love. I will forever be in the presence of God who loves me (and you) like no other. And that brings me joy.

Throughout all the pain of the month of August, I have listened often to Somewhere Down the Road by Amy Grant. I first heard her sing it during the service the governor of Colorado organized on the Sunday following the Columbine shootings in 1999. She sings:

So much pain and no good reason why.

You’ve cried until the tears run dry.

And nothing here can make you understand.

The one thing you held so dear

is slipping from your hands, and you say

Why, why, why

does it go this way?

And why, why, why?

And all I can say

Is somewhere down the road

There’ll be answers to the questions.

And somewhere down the road

though we cannot see it now.

Somewhere down the road

You will find mighty arms reaching for you.

And they will hold the answers

at the end of the road.