Wrapping Love Around Goodbyes (Two Years Since Claudia’s Passing)

Wrapping Love Around Goodbyes (Two Years Since Claudia’s Passing)
Bleeding Heart Flowers. Photo by By Wuzur - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0
Bleeding Heart Flowers. Photo by By Wuzur – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

You could tell it was a goodbye just by the way they hugged.

I saw the two women locked in an embrace as I passed them in my neighborhood. They stayed wrapped around one another for longer than two friends typically would, were it just an average parting after a breezy Tuesday lunch.

And when they pulled apart, one dabbed her eyes with a tissue, while the other patted her shoulder.

I don’t know them – don’t know what kind of a goodbye it was. Maybe an altered way or place of living? An illness that makes days less fruitful or pleasant? Or was it a more permanent farewell?

They were near the animal hospital just up the road from me, and if you’ve ever lost a beloved pet you have empathy for that kind of grief. But they were also in a driveway, surrounded by homes. And people experience all kinds of goodbyes every day for reasons far beyond our understanding.

There is suffering. There is separation. People we love go. They move from us here on earth – emotionally, physically, and spiritually. And they leave this earth altogether, traveling to a place we can’t see or feel. Only heaven knows why. Only heaven can help us bridge the distances that swell up between us and those we love.

My heart lurched when I saw those women, and it’s no wonder. Today I wish I could wrap my arms around so many others who are hurting from goodbyes, too.

This day marks two years since the passing of my stepsister Claudia, the remarkable woman whose fight for her life over three weeks in an ICU became a focal point of prayer for hundreds. So many people miss her feisty spirit, yearn to see her brown-eyes dance, ache for her laugh. I owe this blog to her, and to the whisper that came to me in the weeks after she went Home, after the Lord stepped in and gave me a bravery I’d never had before, to pray publicly for her on Facebook. Desperation makes us humble. Faith makes us bold.

Grief is a terrible process, and I have no eloquent words of wisdom. It seems to me especially hard for parents, because the death of a child – no matter how old that child is – defies human logic. It goes against what we think of as the “natural order” of things. There is simply nothing to compare to the sadness I have seen in the eyes of grieving parents.

I wish I could be with Claudia’s mom Ingrid in Texas today – to hold her hand and remind her that her beautiful daughter lives forevermore with the King. She was and is God’s child, and nothing can ever separate her from His love, through the saving grace of Christ Jesus our Lord. But since I can’t grasp Ingrid’s hand or wrap her in my arms, I will call her. I will “reach out” with my voice.

Physical closeness can be uncomfortable for many of us, but when someone we love is gone, it’s reassuring to feel the strength of another standing by, ready to literally hold us up as waves of sorrow threaten to drown us. If you are mourning, or experiencing a goodbye of any kind, my heart and prayers are with you today. And if not, please ask God to open your eyes to where your capable hands can be ready to serve. Our world needs you, because our world needs God’s unfailing love, pouring out from your heart.

Claudia’s Day

image“Mom – Why is God’s plan so hard to understand?”

It is the penultimate question. Asked on a big day. But my daughter had no way of knowing that. I haven’t told her that today marks one year since my stepsister Claudia entered heaven. That Claudia is on my mind. In my heart. And always will be.

“I don’t know.” I answered honestly. “But God is much smarter than we are, and we have to trust him. He wants the best for us – to keep us with Him forever. And while bad things may happen in our lives, He just wants us to lean closer to Him when they do, because if we do, He promises to protect us always in the end. Because while our bodies hurt, our souls are protected. Forever. When we choose Him.”

I was preaching to myself as much to her.

September 13, 2014, my family lost Claudia to complications following childbirth. Over the course of 3 1/2 weeks as Claudia fought for her life in the ICU, my family and I spent hours on our knees, and I posted prayers for her on Facebook. And when she passed, I was emotionally exhausted for weeks.

What many find strange is that I didn’t know Claudia all that well. My father and my stepmom had been married at that point for 12 years, and had 7 grown children between them when they met. My stepmom is from Chile, and over the last decade or so, most of her 5 children had remained there. So, I only met Claudia in person about 3 times. Nevertheless, we were family, and when family is in crisis, family comes together. 

It’s nearly impossible to describe the power of the Holy Spirit when He  intervenes. And it was completely His work in using me to pray for Claudia. I felt a love for her like I would for my blood sister, whom I’d known for 39 years. I was ready to pray for Claudia day and night. I wanted to know every detail about her health status, the care of her baby, the welfare of all those closest to her. There was a holy fire lit in me that I still can’t explain. I just loved her. And I knew that Jesus had called me to this privilege. And the next thing I knew, I began to write down my prayers on Facebook.

I had never before done something like that. Never before had I put my faith before a public audience. And I was completely unafraid. I felt the boldness and confidence of the Lord in my heart and it brought me joy and peace to appeal to Him daily on behalf of Claudia.

Within a couple weeks, I felt another nudge from the Holy Spirit to begin this blog, and I know without a doubt that if I hadn’t been primed for the experience by writing prayers, I either would have ignored this nudge, or backed down from it out of fear.

So that’s what I want to say today. I want to thank my sister Claudia for opening a new door for me. I have always thought it was the Holy Spirit that prompted me to write this blog, to accept that 31-day writing challenge that started it all. But the other day, I had a passing notion – ‘Hey – What if she was the one who came up with the idea? Maybe whispered it in Jesus’s ear? Hmm? Can these things happen in heaven?’

I don’t know. But this last year of writing and following through on that holy nudge has been her lasting gift to me, and I am really looking forward to meeting her again someday.

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

– Romans 8:38-39

A Prayer and Song for Claudia’s Family

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Thank you to everyone who prayed for my stepsister, Claudia, earlier this year.  As you know, she went home to the Father, and will be rejoicing in Heaven this Christmas. But her family remains.  And oh, how they ache. If you would, please pray with me again – for them – this season.

And if YOU are mourning someone this Christmas, it would be my privilege to pray for you.  Please don’t hesitate to ask me.

Dear Lord, King of Kings,
You are Immanuel – God With Us.
Thank you for creating this Christmas season by sending your son, Jesus Christ – the Very Word of God, wrapped in human flesh.
In His life, he knew every possible kind of suffering – so that we would know,
We are never alone.
We thank you for His triumphant resurrection over death, and for His eternal grace.
Lord, you have promised to be with us always and everywhere, and your Word is Truth – for there is no impurity within you.
Please come and be with Claudia’s family.
Make your peace known to them.
Enfold them in your loving arms and touch their hearts with the expectation of joy to come.
Assure them of your never-ending faithfulness, and remind them of the ways you have already blessed them, so they can be renewed with hope for your goodness in the time ahead.
Strengthen their spirits and increase their faith.
Please hold them up and bind them together, so that they may find solace, and You, in the eyes of one another.
And Lord, bless Claudia’s children – Cata, Nick, and baby Matias – in a special way.
May their mother’s love be forever imprinted upon their hearts and souls.

In the name of our Saviour, Jesus, we pray,
Amen.

 

Day 3 – Good from Darkness

I’ve been thinking more about good coming out of darkness today, because God can and will use any situation to bless His people. As I’ve reminded others since my stepsister died, St. Paul tells us in Romans 8:28 that “[W]e know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” It’s nearly impossible right now to see or imagine how that might happen when a baby stays and his mother goes on, so we must make the difficult choice to trust – sometimes one tiny moment to the next.

Just a couple years ago, when two events linked up in a timely way, I saw them as nifty “coincidences.” I’ll never forget that powerful moment in my Bible study when I told a story and called it a “coincidence,” and my group leader, a woman of great and gentle faith looked me straight in the eye and said in the most tender way, “I don’t believe in coincidences.”  I felt convicted, and it changed my point of view from that very moment on.

So – goodness and darkness. Timely events. How does this fit into my life today?  How does death fit into the wild cacophony of my blessed life? A husband I deeply love. A marriage that has endured enough to let us know that we CAN endure – together.  Three healthy, happy kids. Good relationships with our families. Deep, abiding, heart friendships I can count on. It’s not a perfect life, but it’s definitely, abundantly, overwhelmingly blessed. We have scheduling problems because of the blessings.

Our beagle barks upstairs. Kids play loudly, laughing outside my door. Why now, Lord? What do you want me to learn in sadness? In darkness? Is there beauty in this tragedy, even now?  Right now?

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb…

How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!

— Psalm 139: 11-13, 17

I consider again the bats of yesterday.  Many fly about in the darkness not seeing at all. Yet their needs are met with resources provided for them through the infinite beauty of God’s design. They have both instinctual and natural assistance which create opportunities for their nourishment and growth every night.  In literal darkness, God has a plan for them, and complete control of their lives. There is nothing hidden from God.

Therefore, in my life, I can trust that God has nothing malevolent hidden for me in my current darkness. He only allows it. He could turn on the lights anytime He wants. And he wants me to draw closer to him, to trust Him more in the midst of it.  My Creator knows my innermost being down to a sub-molecular level. And as I have read and understood as Truth: “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5)  Let this be retraced again and again onto my bruised heart.