The Deep End

I am not a strong swimmer.  In fact, at best I’m a weak swimmer, in spite of my parents’ best efforts to make sure I learned the how-to’s.  Every summer I was entered into the next level of lessons and every summer I barely passed the test at the end.  I never got the breathing technique right.  Terrified, I would stand at the end of the diving board before I quickly plugged my nose and jumped in feet first.  As a teen attending camp, I dreaded the “swim test” to be allowed out onto the dock where the cool kids hung out and jumped off.

Not much has changed…now as an adult, if it’s really hot, I may do a lap of a backstroke or a short underwater swim…from one safe side to the other.  Basically, all I can do is tread water for about 60 seconds and hold my breath for 20. And I still can’t dive.

Don’t get me wrong – I love water.   Looking at it, sitting next to it, dangling my feet or lying on a raft.   Just don’t ask me to put my head under.  I enjoy calm waters, but I would never jump off a boat without a life jacket.

For the past two years, I have been in the deep end.  And this isn’t a pool with the edge nearby or a rope in view.  This is the middle of the ocean with no boat in sight and no visible horizon.

In December 2011, I received the news that my husband had ALS.  In December 2012, I watched him take his last earthly breath.  Now it’s December 2013, and I have lived an entire year with the pain of grief and loss.

I have been rocked to the core.  I have hit the bottom.  Both years have been horrendous and I would never want to re-live either of them.  I have no idea how I made it through one day of this, let alone two years.

Before 2011, I had experienced trials.  Life was not always easy.  God conformed me into His image through many lessons. There were losses through a miscarriage, death of grandparents and my much-loved in-laws. And we experienced disappointment through rejection and betrayal.  Living life in the ministry, I’ve walked with countless others through their own sufferings: death, divorce, bondage to sin, along with the natural consequences of living in a sin cursed world.

Like standing on the beach and looking out at the ocean, I knew there was suffering.  I had tiptoed into it and experienced it to a small degree.  But this is different.  This is an over-whelming, life altering, in your face, I-can-not-survive-this type of pain.  Most can sympathize; they can’t imagine and kindly admit that.  A few can empathize.  They have walked this road before and I see in their eyes that they can relate.

I have been dropped into the ocean and it is a very lonely place to be.  Many rafts have held me afloat:  A loving family, a supportive church, Godly friends, the Bible, GriefShare, and counseling.  For each of these, I am truly grateful.  But this is still a path I am on alone. Each grief is individual—no one really understands.

That is, no one but Jesus.  He alone can relate.  He alone carries me.  I look at the cross.  I consider His life, His suffering, His rejection, His sorrow and anguish.  I consider how He resisted temptation to the point of sweating blood (Hebrews 12:4); how He shed His blood for me, a sinner, who could never earn salvation on my own (I Corinthians 15:3-4). By His stripes I will be healed (Isaiah 53:4).

I have stopped asking, “Why?”  I refuse to spiritualize the matter and say that I know why God took Patrick; or that I can see “the good” that has come from it.  Humanly, I will never get it.  I know many people have benefited from his story and from watching him faithfully trust God until the end.  I enjoy hearing about how God has used this in people’s lives.  It does bring some comfort to hear people talk about Patrick. (Please don’t stop telling me what Patrick meant to you!) But truth be told, I wish God had chosen some other way to minister to those needs, because I would rather have my husband still by my side.

Selfishly, I would have never chosen for my family to be the example of this.  We are all changed.  It has left a hole that will never be filled.  We have struggled to figure out how to be a family of three when our leader is gone.  We each have our individual pain–and then there is the pain of watching the other ones suffer and not being able to fix it.

It feels like drowning.  In my darkest moments, I have wanted to give up.  It seems easier to just swallow the water and let myself sink.  “The enemy crushes me.  He makes me dwell in darkness like those long dead, so that my spirit grows faint within me” (Psalm 143:3). I can relate to this psalm of David.  Crying, sobbing, wailing, screaming…sounds come out of me that I never knew existed.   The tears spill daily and the stronger episodes interrupt me at least once a week.  Thrashing about in the deep end is exhausting.

I now ask, “How?”  One of the things I have not doubted is God’s sovereignty.  I know that our days are numbered before one of them even happens (Psalm 139:16). So if this was God’s will and timing for Patrick (and it was), then it’s also His will for me and for my kids.  As long as I am still on this earth, He has a purpose for me (Philippians 1:6). Our family’s story is only one tiny part of the Kingdom purposes God is carrying out.  I am on the path that He has put me on.  He is carrying me.  Earth has nothing I desire; nothing here can satisfy me.  The only peace and fulfillment I long for and will ever find hope in is through my relationship with Jesus Christ.

So that’s what gets me out of bed.  The Gospel of Jesus. The first step of the day is always the hardest.  I fight the temptation to hide under the covers.  But fight I must.  Cry, pray and push; cry, pray and push.  Repeat as often as needed.  Let the emotions come as they will; face them and embrace them. When the wave passes, take another step. Sometimes when I lack the words to pray, and the tears are blinding my ability to read, I simply meditate on four words that describe what Jesus is to me:

He is my Creator;

He is my Savior.

He is my Sustainer;

And He is my Comforter.

He has already rescued me from my greatest need (Romans 5:8), and He continues to keep my head above water.  He created the vast ocean and He put me in it, but He has never left me alone (Joshua 1:9).

Because of this, I have peace and I have hope.

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.  We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed;  we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed….Therefore we do not lose heart….For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” (II Corinthians 4:7-9, 16 & 17)