Difficult Seasons

Sometimes my assignment is just to listen.

The patient has something they want to say, something he has been working through for some time.  He needs someone who will appreciate what he has to say to sit and listen, to help make it real.

Interestingly, what he has to say is often something I need to hear for where I am in life.

Yesterday one of those times happened.  I walked into a room, introduced myself, and the patient just started in.  It was quickly obvious that he was delivering a well thought out philosophy about his life.  Sprinkled in were facts about his life, good stuff and bad.  But mostly he was telling me about attitudes and deeply held beliefs that he had developed to help him navigate life, especially in those times of great uncertainty such as he is currently facing.

One of his life principles is to live with the anticipation that each day is going to be a great day.  He told me that when he did, that it was amazing how often it was a great day, no matter what might be happening.  He said that it made tomorrow so much easier, like rolling on a round tire, rather than a square one.

He talked about the abundance of blessings in his life, physical and relational.  He also talked about rock-bottom times.  He said that if he wanted to accept the good things, he also needed to be able to accept the difficult.

He and his wife both exuded joy, in abundance.

What he had to say was important to him.  It turns out that it was really good stuff, helpful to me.  But even if it hadn’t been, even if I hadn’t agreed with what he had to say, it would have been important to listen just as intently to validate him as a person, to be an appreciative audience as he rehearsed his strongest inner beliefs and feelings.

That’s how important listening is.  I was again taught that talking is a highly over-rated ministry tool, and that listening is highly under-rated.

I have been numb and in a state of shock ever since receiving an ominous email last Thursday from our senior minister.  It gave the elders of our church a heads up about the death of one of our well-known, well-loved charter members.

Word of the death spread quickly, both through formal and informal means.  Soon I began seeing statements of grief on Facebook, friends openly shocked and hurting.

You see, our friend was young (49), active, deeply involved in church ministry and community efforts, always smiling, obviously in love with her husband and daughters, and always doing things for others.  She had spent a week this summer cooking at a youth camp, had helped with VBS, and had started Facebooking.

The idea that she was no longer alive was frankly unbelievable.  As word spread, with the family’s permission, that she had taken her own life, that unbelief was taken to still another level.  My mind, like the minds of my church friends, was filled with questions, filled with what-ifs, filled with not understanding.  While I didn’t know her as well as many others did, she certainly would rank among the least likely people in the whole world who might take their own life.

In my life, I’ve known four people who took their own lives.  Each has been a shock, very unexpected.  I’ve learned that we won’t get answers to our questions.  But that doesn’t make struggling with the questions end.

Sometimes we get some clues though.  It was revealed today that she had valiantly battled severe bouts of depression during her life.  Depression had been a factor in the life of another of the people I knew who took their own life, and for another, it was discovered post-mortem that he had a previously unknown brain tumor.  These clues help us understand a little of what may have contributed to their decisions.  But they don’t make the questions go away.

Something our senior minister said at today’s funeral service has helped me though.  ”The person who made this decision last Wednesday was not the person we all knew and loved.”  He also spoke about extending the grace of forgiveness to her for the loss and pain we are all feeling.

So tonight I’m sad for the family and her many friends.  I’m perplexed by the complexity of our bodies that can allow changes that take us completely out of character and have us make tragic decisions.  I’m resigned to not understanding, to not being capable of understanding.  And I’m thankful for the grace of God, given freely to us, which makes it easy for us to extend grace to others.