a faith observed: ERs and gun shot wounds.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

ERs and gun shot wounds.

I took my friend, Elizabeth, to the emergency room this morning. She's been vomiting and could hardly stand up. Enroute, she shared that her father in South Sudan had been shot in the side. She's been worried about his safety since fighting broke out in December and has been dreading such a call. She is unsure of how he is doing at the moment, as they needed to get him to the capital, Juba. Her brother called in the middle of the night, but she was sick and he quickly ran out of credit and she had none on her phone card and no way to go buy a card at 1 am.

I dropped her at the hospital, drove to a gas station and asked for a good phone card to call Sudan. "Where's that?" the woman at the counter asked. Hmm, how do I explain? "Have you served any really tall, dark Africans asking for a phone card? Which one do they buy?" That answered my question and I left with what I hoped to be the right card in hand. Turns out, it was.

Your thoughts and prayers for her family would be very much appreciated. This family has been through so much. They are strong, resilient, and I have grown to love them deeply. I don't know how you keep taking the blows. Her husband broke into tears tonight, explaining more to me about his father-in-law's condition. He has wired money to his brother in law, hoping they can get him to Juba for swift medical attention but the situation sounds grim.

Across the sea in Canada, I heard yesterday from my dear friend - who just lost his sister to cancer in January - that his wife's father has just died - also from cancer. There seems to be no end to the suffering and hardship. "Thy kingdom come..." Jesus, we need you more than ever.

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This is me, a faith observed.

C.S. Lewis writes about the pain of losing his beloved wife, Joy, in his book, "A Grief Observed". In some ways this is my attempt to share my journey through grief and back into life, as the past nine months have been characterized by an immeasurable longing for my beloved father, who died suddenly this past January.

After months of hibernation from the internet, I unexpectedly find myself able to re-begin this blog and connect with my larger community of family and friends. This blog will likely reflect less of the intensity and depth of my pain and more of the simplicity and ordinary joy that keeps my life full - namely days running after our little boy, Simon Pierre. But it is because of the incredible love and presence that defined my relationship with my father, that I feel I can will myself to not just survive each day but to pour that same kind of love and attention onto Simon.

My father was an endless source of strength to me, a pillar of faith. His last words, spoken to my mother as he passed into that which is unseen, "God is good - good all the time", have remained with me through this dark cloud of grief. And when God seems hidden, when justice seems to be losing out, when life is unfair, and when death swallows up the one I most love, I remember my father's words and breathe in this promise, that the God of love is in the process of restoring that which has been destroyed.

And as my father told me in dream I've had since his death, "Look to Jesus. As a father, to point you towards Him is the best gift I can give to you." So here I am, this is me, a faith to be observed.

I hold onto that which is not always seen- the promise of God's goodness, the hope that one day in the promised new heavens and earth- on a grassy hill or a sand covered beach- the lion and the lamb will lie down side by side and I, too, will lie down side by side, next to my father, and we will laugh and laugh until there are no more tears left to cry.