If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.  But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead… Since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.  For as in Adam all died, so in Christ all will be made alive. 

I Corinthians 15:19-22.

A friend asked if writing in this journal was difficult or if the act of pouring out my heart serves as a release for me.  It is both.  In remembering and talking about Joshua, I ache and I heal.  This reflection on Easter is belated because I didn’t have the emotional strength to post last weekend.   

Easter-time is always emotionally charged for me, imagining the suffering Jesus underwent on Good Friday.  I couldn’t bring myself to rent “The Passion” until years after its debut. It was just too much to watch that enactment of our Lord suffering, knowing full well that I crucified Him!  It was my sin that He died to bear. On Good Friday I felt the heaviness of His death on the cross throughout the entire day…and the bewilderment of his followers all Saturday.  I keenly felt the disciples’ pain and confusion, more so than any year prior.  Their questions were similar to some of mine after Joshua died.  “How can this be?  Have we believed in vain?  How could He die?  How could He leave us? What is all of this supposed to mean?  Were we duped?  How can it all be over? Wasn’t He the Savior, the King of the Jews?”  All their dreams were shattered…. I know a little of that pain.  I walk around aching for Joshua as if I’ve experienced an amputation, trying to make sense of this new season in our family’s life.

Good Friday is difficult for me because I know that there is nothing I have done or ever could do to earn God’s forgiveness and love…and I feel so utterly inept at thanking my Jesus for what He accomplished that day.  He gives it freely to all who confess Him as Lord and believe in their heart that God raised Him from the dead (Romans 10:9).  He CHOSE to die for me, in my place, to take on my sin, to make me righteous.  He did this even before I asked Him into my heart.  He did this even though I still sin every day. I am so humbled by such an act.  I can’t absorb this kind of love. Nor can I absorb the suffering He endured.  The One who spoke all things into Existence, the One in whom all things have their being and in whom all things hold together, the One who is perfect and flawless and who IS love — my all–sufficient One in my sorrow, He became limited and dependent in a human body and subject to the curse of death…to show the world His love…by dying on a cross.  He conquered the grave!  I am more grateful for that this year than ever before! 

The kids woke up Easter Sunday so excited.  Benjamin always begins each day asking me where we are going.  It is how he identifies his days of the week.  So I reminded him that we are going to see Miss Kim and Miss Sue at church today and celebrate Jesus rising from the dead.  He paused and proclaimed with glee, “It’s Easter!” and ran out of the room to tell Anna (who already knew of course). We have been talking about this special day for days!  After he and Anna got dressed they drew pictures of the empty tomb and the angels.  Anna drew one of the disciples watching Jesus ascend into heaven.

I too felt the excitement of Easter when I woke up last Sunday morning.  The women who intended to anoint Jesus’ dead body, found His tomb EMPTY.  Their fears were comforted by their encounter with an angel(s) and later Jesus Himself!  I love the detail John includes in his Gospel of Jesus’ tenderness towards his followers after He rises.  The women raced to the room where the disciples had hidden themselves.  Can you imagine their joy?? I can!  I would have given anything to see Joshua come back to life!

“He is ALIVE!”

“What?!? What on earth are you talking about? You have gone out of your minds in your grief (a likely possibility!)”

But they had not gone out of their minds in grief.  Jesus did exactly what He had said He would do.  He died, and then rose from the dead. Death does not trump the power of our one and only all-powerful God!  The verse of this hymn, so engraved on my heart since childhood, ran through my mind as we got ready for church:

“Low in the Grave He lay,

Jesus my Savior.

Waiting the coming day,

Jesus my Lord.

Up from the grave He arose!

With a mighty triumph for His foes!

He arose the victor of the dark domain,

And He lives forever with His saints to reign!

He arose!

He arose!

Hallelujah! Christ arose!”

Nothing ever has or ever will compare to knowing Jesus Christ and the power of the resurrection and the hope of life everlasting!  Every other good thing on Easter Sunday—worship services, goody baskets, brightly colored clothes, gatherings with friends & family, delicious food and beautiful weather would have no meaning if it were not for Jesus having risen from the dead that first Easter.  In the midst of all of the festivities, “He is alive” is what gives everything else meaning. 

Anna is home for the week, and her brothers are enjoying her company.  It is a nice break from being their sole entertainer!  They actually forget about me (for a time), as they run from one activity to the next.  Having all three at home to play has been a painful reminder of Joshua’s absence however.  I guess I didn’t expect it to hurt.  The grief ambushed me these past days.  I have grown accustomed to Benjamin and Nathaniel being my only companions while Anna is at school.  But with all three at home, I have that odd sense that someone is missing—and I have not felt that for a while.   Anna does the things Joshua liked to do, so the wound is reopened and bleeds as I help them build a fort—in the same place we did when Joshua played there days before he died!  Anna wants to play Sorry—and I feel such agony touching those worn cards and looking at that familiar board after hundreds of games with Joshua. 

The kids wanted an indoor Easter egg hunt even though they did an outdoor one with friends on Sunday.  It was surreal watching them joyfully locate the eggs in many of the same places as last year…but no Joshua in sight.  I video taped their egg hunt last year, thinking to myself, “This may be his last Easter with us”.  But it doesn’t seem to matter how we “prepare” our hearts.  The inevitable is still incomprehensible.  There isn’t an activity we do where he is not missed.

I’m in such pain some days/weeks and I grow tired of the constant ache because I look around me and see blessings too numerous to count.  How can I feel so sad when I have so much to be grateful?  Some of you may understand this juxtaposition intimately.  Some days or nights I feel dead inside.  My arms hang limp by my side as I will myself to get something, anything done!  My battery is in need of a jumpstart from God—DAILY, some days still minute by minute, though that is more rare as time passes.  I go to Him and His word comforts.  Christian songs, such as “I will Rise” and “Amazing Grace” by Chris Tomlin, “By Your Side” by 10th Avenue North and “There is a Reason” by Caedmon’s Call speak so deeply and richly to my soul, offering healing.  I am strengthened through books such as A Mother’s Grief Observed by Rebecca Faber (Oh the pain in this book—thank you Sarah for sending it!) and reading of the suffering of the Persecuted Church through Voice of the Martyrs (www.persecution.com).  We know nothing of suffering here in the United States!  I am strengthened by other mothers who grieve with hope such as Deb Henderson, whose writings, so rich with scripture and reflection, refresh me (www.caringbridge.org/visit/ianhenderson).  We are not alone in our grief and countless others are experiencing far worse circumstances.  But grief takes its time in us.  My dear Grand Aunt who lives in Grand Rapids, MI lost her husband just over a year ago after 56 years of marriage (my heart aches for her loss!). She emailed me this poem today:

Grief  by Lillian Mouw

I am Grief

Uninvited, I came into your life.

Now, do what you will with me.

I am very pliable.

I can be productive,

Or destructive.

I can bring healing,

Or devastation.

My advice to you is,

Let me stay.

But not overstay.

Let me comfort,

But not control.

Let me guide,

But not restrain.

Let me,

For whatever time you need,

Direct and teach you.

Let me quiet your anguish

And soften your pain.

Then let me leave.

But let me visit now and then.

Grief is referred to by some as “the uninvited house guest” who abides by no rules and will not leave!  I can feel its physical presence some nights—

like I’m walking through quicksand.  The other night after the kids were in bed, Glen was considering a work project in the basement, but he willingly switched to a project on the main level because I wanted him close to me while I ironed his work shirts. Some nights are like that.  I need his physical presence to comfort me as I ride the waves of my “tangled emotions” (Rebecca Faber).  Glen remains cheerful, funny, upbeat and stable…always willing to talk if I do.  He’s such a great Dad too!  I have many ups and downs as I spend my days with the kids and feel Joshua’s absence all the time. Being with Glen is a relief after a day of meeting the endless needs of little people, having no time to attend to the emotional needs of the big people. My husband is my faithful companion, and although we grieve differently, we grieve together for the same little guy we were privileged to know and love for 4 ½ years.

Did he really die?  Is his dear familiar frame really buried in the earth, deteriorating?  Isn’t he here in a matching Easter outfit, strong and warm and vibrant, running around with his sibs?  Where is that beautiful red-orange crown amidst all the other heads of children searching for Easter eggs?  He’s got to be here somewhere…growing up and laughing and competing with his brothers and sister.  Oh how he makes me laugh!  I love his take on life…and his memory bank has such interesting thoughts.  Why do we have to be separated for such a long time?  Will the fun of family life ever really be “fun” again without him here?  Will we always feel severed?  Every time I appreciate a moment with the kids, will that deep tag-along ache be ever-present?  It seems every joy-filled moment is dovetailed with sadness.

After the excitement of the egg hunt the other evening, the kids were off to play in their fort with their “treasures”.  I sunk down on the couch next to Glen in an affectionate hold.  He said, “We’re living”.  His words were so full of meaning after watching our son die. “Living” is an entirely different thing than it once was.  “Yes, I guess we are.” I replied, surprised by the acceptance and contentedness I heard in my voice.  In a new way.  In God’s close care.  Broken, rearranged and dismantled…we hold onto each other, daily trying to accept the disfigured “us”.  And the important life-affirming part of this experience is that “we” keep living “together”…built up in God’s perfect strength…even now after all this.

It really amazes me--the gaping hole that one life leaves behind… It doesn’t amaze God though.  He alone knows the worth of each life…He loved us so much…before we were conceived…He arranged for His only Son to die for us.  I am so thankful that my eyes will behold Joshua, alive, one day.  I can’t wait!  In the meantime, it comforts me to know that God Himself was once whole, as our family was, and became broken, in offering His Son to die.  He too is a Bereaved Parent.

We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses….Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.  Hebrews 4:15-16.

Glen and I often reflect on the amazing 369 days we had with Joshua between his diagnosis and his death.  We KNOW this was due to the prayers of so many saints as well as the physical hands and feet of His body.  We truly cannot thank you enough for your prayers during that time.  They made ALL the difference.  Please pray for the children living with a DIPG; pray for God’s grace to fall on each one of them.  A wonderful acronym for DIPG, offered by a friend of the family of Sara Hines (www.carepages.org sarahines) is “Daily I Praise God”.  May His name be lifted high through this heartbreaking illness!

Love,
glen & kristi