Today marks
a year since my dear dad passed away. They always talk of the deep tragedy of a
parent losing their child - and that is, of course, the most devastating thing.
But losing a parent is an absolute tragedy too, especially for an only child;
the yearning for what you once had - but perhaps worst of all, the fact that
they are absent from everything that happens and will happen for those they’ve
left behind. We celebrate a lived past with more comfort than we do grieving
the loss of a future snatched away. For me, the poignant void of the first
parental loss evokes a sense of being half an orphan, if such a notion can be
imagined.
Yet as one future was seized, so too a new one begun, as the reflection period thereafter saw my dear mum come to know the Lord for the first time. It serves as a timely reminder that, as C.S. Lewis points out in A Grief Observed: “Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape."
And may that be a source of encouragement for those friends and loved ones I know are suffering at present. For you may have noticed in your life that it’s usually not in the midst of suffering that God feels most present and palpable; it is usually when we are positive and upbeat because things are going well that He feels most tangible. Wake up and leave the house on a sunny day, with a sense of joy about the hours ahead, and God seems to be everywhere – in the neighbours, in the smooth running of the bicycle wheels, in the warm gentle breeze, in the birds singing– it feels the easiest and most natural thing in the world to offer Him praise even for the mundane and the predictable. But wake up and leave the house with the chill of the day ahead, with the almost despairing quail of every task, every engagement and every foreboding sense of hopelessness that pervades the cold, destitute corridors of the inner soul, and frequently He seems nowhere to be found.
But perhaps in most cases it has to be that way; He will reveal new landscapes more often in our time of hardship because that is when our hearts are most open to fresh horizons, and our soul most acutely aware of what needs confronting. Paradoxically, it may be in those mournful states where we can best discover "the joy of the Lord is our strength", and where, as Psalm 28:7 declares:
The Lord is
my strength and my shield;
My heart
trusts in Him, and He helps me.
My heart
leaps for joy,
And with my
song I praise Him.
The promise of Christianity is, of course, that it is true, not that it is without suffering. For that is the point, that truth is always more powerful than mere consolation – and we go into this faith for the truth, not for the consolation. The consolation comes only as a result of truth, like how overcoming fear only comes as a result of courage, because it’s with truth that we need not fear our suffering, and that we have fruit of the Holy Spirit (love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.)
Finally, be encouraged, especially in the tough times, that we can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens us (Philippians 4:13), and that when the light doesn’t seem visible in the present darkness, it’s often because God is shining it on a new landscape in readiness to guide us there.
