September, 2005

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find
rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Matthew 11:28-30

These are sober days—days of anxious waiting and some sadness—but they are not without joy and hope.

My mother's condition continues to deteriorate. It is difficult to watch her grow more feeble with each day that passes and feel such helplessness in the face of her failing health. I feel like I ought to be able to help her get well, despite the fact that just five weeks ago her doctors at Mayo Clinic said there was nothing that conventional medicine could offer her and that she probably did not have long to live. Each day I ask myself, “Is there something I can do to help mom turn around her condition?”

I have found that it is much more difficult to watch someone I love suffer than it is to suffer myself. Someone else's suffering brings home the hard truths of our mortality and the inevitability of death. It forces us to face the uncertainties and fears that hang like a black shadow over that dark and lonely valley through which we must all pass. When I think about my own suffering, I am consoled deeply by the thought that I will not really be alone on that final journey. My Lord will be with me, but that consolation doesn't turn the valley into a bright, happy meadow.

Someone asked me recently if I ever felt excited about the thought of going to heaven. I had to say, No. I have felt a tremendous sense of joy at the thought of being united with my Lord, who is the “true desire and the ineffable joy of those who love [Him]” in a place where “the voice of those who feast is unceasing, and the gladness of those who behold the goodness of [His] countenance is unending” (from the Prayers After Communion). I have been greatly comforted by the fact that Jesus has gone to prepare a place for me so that where he is, there I can be also (John 14:6). I feel that Jesus awaits me with gladness, that my death will be “precious” to him. My thoughts about heaven linger on the joy of being with Jesus, not on what the place will be like. It is enough for me to know that He will be there. I also thrill to the idea of being present in the company of some amazing people who have gone before me—apostles, prophets, martyrs, saints, my grandfather and C.S. Lewis. I hope not to be ashamed to be in their glorious company because of my pitiful efforts here on earth, but I am consoled by the fact that heaven will be a place full of mercy and grace.

Excitement, it seems to me, is something one feels when one is looking forward to an event and sees an untroubled path in front of him. Joy, on the other hand, is something one can hold onto in the face of suffering, knowing that the suffering will pass in time, but that the joy will remain because it is rooted in something deeper, not in the circumstances that surround it.

Although I do have a great sense of joy, I also feel a deep sadness at the immense tragedy of the human condition--the terrible burden of our separation from God, the presence of evil in this world, poverty, illness, selfishness, greed, unending hostilities between nations and peoples, the inability of many families to get along, and so many other horrors. Jesus wept over these things, and expressed his desire to console “as a mother hen gathers her young under her wings,” but his people refused his offer. I never felt his grief until I began to experience suffering myself. Then I began to identify with his sorrow as well as with the misery of so many who had come to my door in Albania seeking relief from pain or illness or hunger or cold. Although I had tried to meet their physical needs, I don't think I commiserated with them very deeply. For this reason and for many other reasons, I am so grateful for my own pain. Now I can have a much deeper sense of compassion for the sufferings of others.

I understand so much better, too, how much our Lord identifies with the sick and the suffering, the poor and the imprisoned. He is close to those who are in misery and wants us to be his face, his hands, his eyes, his feet—giving, loving, visiting, praying—for those in need. I have been reading some of the writings of Mother Theresa, and she is a wonderful example of “being Jesus” to the suffering.

Thinking about the sufferings of others—from that of my mother to that of those in other parts of the world—helps me to take my mind off myself. When I think of how blessed I am to be well fed and clothed, warm and comfortable, loved and cared for and tended with the best medical care, I am ashamed to call my experience suffering at all. Behind all these blessings is the mercy and grace of my Lord, who has made his love and presence so very real to me, and who calls me continually to follow him with my whole heart.

Apart from our sadness over my mother's condition, these are very happy days for Nathan and I and our children, perhaps the happiest we have ever known as a family. I have learned so much in the past few months about how to be “subject to my husband.” I mentioned before that I had developed the unprofitable habit of making independent decisions about some things, and hadn't realized how difficult this had been for Nathan during the 13 years of our marriage. Nathan isn't the sort of husband who gives orders and expects unquestioning obedience. He likes to make decisions based on discussion and agreement. We have had some amazing opportunities in the past few weeks to work on this area of our marriage. The most dramatic in my mind was when we were considering the idea of my undergoing chemotherapy. The idea had been proposed to us by our primary caregiver, who urged that we consider it as it could produce some good results. Nathan was eager to pursue the idea, so we scheduled a visit with the oncologist. I had my reservations about such treatment. I didn't want to have to feel terribly sick in the hope of maybe feeling a little bit better later on. On the other hand, I didn't want to be stubborn and refuse treatment if it could help. I admit to feeling a great amount of anxiety in the days that led up to our appointment with the oncologist. It seemed to me that Nathan and I were on opposite sides of the fence on this issue. How were we going to agree on a decision, and how were we going to choose the right decision? I fretted and fretted about this until I finally said to myself, “Look, the Lord knows your needs and he will give you the answer when you need it, not before. Ask the Lord for wisdom and ask him to give you and Nathan consensus in this decision.” I did pray earnestly about it and I also stopped worrying about it. When the appointment came, we met the oncologist, and his perspective was that the chemotherapy might add some months to my life, but that it was not likely to add years. He did recommend that I undergo treatment. When Nathan and I discussed the issue later, Nathan said that if I didn't want to do chemotherapy, he wouldn't push it because he understood that it wouldn't profit me much and probably would reduce radically my quality of life for the duration of it. I was so relieved by his words. In the end, the decision was very easy to make, and I was so grateful that I had learned to “cast my care on the Lord,” knowing that he would grant us an answer when we needed it.

Nathan and I continue to delight in each other's company. Frequently as we say goodnight, Nathan says to me, “You're a joy to me. I'm so glad we had this day together.” He is helping me to focus on the blessings of today and not on the uncertainties of tomorrow. Jesus words in Matthew 6 have taken deep root in him. “Do not be anxious about tomorrow…” Nathan could wallow in his own fears about the future—How will he manage the children alone? Will he have to grow old alone, falling sick and having no one to take care of him? Being more melancholy by nature, it would be tempting for him to give into despair, but he is choosing to be grateful for the good that we are experiencing today, and not on the difficulties that may or may not come tomorrow.

C.S. Lewis, in his book “The Screwtape Letters,” which I am reading these days, has a great chapter on this idea of living in the present. Uncle Screwtape, the senior devil, advises his nephew, a junior devil new to the business of tempting, to get “his patient” living in the past, or better yet, in the future. “Humans,” he writes, “live in time, but our Enemy (God) destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time, which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience, which our Enemy has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them. He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present—either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.

“Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present…. We want a man hag-ridden by the future—haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth—ready to break the Enemy's commands in the present if by so doing we make him think he can attain the one or avert the other—dependent for his faith on the success or failure of schemes whose end he will not live to see. We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow's end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the present.”