8.28

I’ll be honest with you. I’ve been wrestling with God over sharing these words. Sometimes I write for myself. Because writing somehow helps root out what's deep in my heart, thoughts and feelings that I didn’t even know were there. But posting those deep, dark thoughts and feelings for the world to see makes me feel incredibly vulnerable. It scares me to share. It’s uncomfortable, and if you know me, you know how much I love comfort. But then I remember how alone I felt after we lost David to suicide. Suicide is not a topic people often talk about. There’s a stigma attached to it. I’m not sure why, maybe shame? It’s hard to lose someone you love. But when you lose them at their own hand, I don’t know, it’s hard for me to describe. There is so much confusion, so many overwhelming feelings, dark feelings, and it’s just easier to shove them away. But if these words can bring a glimmer of light to just one person in this same darkness, then it will be worth it for me. So, here we go….

Have you ever had something happen in your life that changed you to your very core; that changed the way you see everything? That “something” happened to me on 8.28.13

It was a normal, busy Tuesday with young kids. I was in the kitchen cleaning up after lunch when my phone rang. It was my brother, David. We were five years apart but had always been very close. He and his wife were separating so he had just moved into an apartment. He called to tell me he’d bought a vacuum. About 12 hours later, my phone rang again. This time he called to tell me good-bye. He hung up and I tried calling him back…. Over and over and over the phone rang, but he never answered my call.

I had begged and pleaded with David, now I begged and pleaded with God as I drove down to his apartment. I’ll spare the details, but the shocking picture of what I saw broke me in every way possible, and continues to haunt me to this day. It was a long, dark, numbing night. The next day, Joey brought the kids to me, and my 2, 4, 6 and 8 year old babies added a new word to their vocabulary, a word that was never meant to be a part of this world -  suicide. 

After a night from hell and a day full of people coming and going, processing and consoling at my sister-in-law's house, we finally went home. As we were driving, I felt an intense pain in my chest, as if my heart was splintering into millions of pieces. My brother wasn’t the only one who died that day. A piece of each of those who loved him died too. His story was over, but somehow, mine was supposed to go on. 

The next few months were filled with the aftermath of suicide. Shock, blaming, shame, anger, fear, regret… I was a mess. Sleep evaded me. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw my brother in his chair, in dim fluorescent light. I became afraid of both dim light and darkness, so for months my poor husband slept with lights fully on to try and help me get sleep. But even still, the darkness would come. It would sit heavy on my chest, so heavy I could barely breathe. A friend suggested reading the Bible aloud, so I would read the Psalms and the gospels or sing-whisper hymns. Speaking aloud the name of Jesus, even in a whisper, helped, because satan hates light.

But my heartbreak wasn't my only darkness. I experienced an anger so deep, so intense, it scared me. I tried desperately to contain it, to shove it away and hide it, but rage finds ways of escaping, often at those you love most. I would pound on a boxing bag in our garage, but it wasn’t enough. I remember just wanting to go somewhere to scream where my four, precious babes couldn’t hear me; I wanted to scream until I couldn’t scream anymore. I was angry: angry at myself, angry at the world, and though I denied it at the time, I was angry with God. How could He let this happen? How dare He let this happen….

I remember catching my reflection in a mirror, and what I saw terrified me. I didn’t recognize my eyes. That’s when I knew I needed help. I went to see a Christian counselor who diagnosed me with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I’ve since learned that it’s easier to be angry than it is to be sad. After months of EMDR treatment, I was finally able to sleep, which then helped me better cope with life. Getting sleep gave me energy to exercise. I started running in the hills by our house again. Running in those hills gave me a place to cry and space to process. It was on one of my runs that God helped me remember a moment with my brother months before his death. David had pulled out a Bible (not something I had seen him do in a long time), sat down beside me and said, “Heid, look”. And then he read me Romans 8:28 like he’d never heard it before. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” He read me Romans 8:28. He died on 8.28. 

God mysteriously used my brother to give me a thread of hope, a glimpse at joy and peace. Somehow, even with all of my religious upbringing, I had missed the truth about Who God is. I had an inflated view of myself, what my 'good Christian girl' efforts and achievements could do, and a small and distorted view of God, a God I finally realized, I did not fully trust. But my grief was teaching me that God is bigger than suicide, more powerful than evil and death, more full of mercy and grace than I had ever known. God is for us, not against us and He is merciful enough not to judge us by our worst decisions or our darkest moments.

When my brother died, I couldn’t see God. It was actually when I sat in the darkness of grief that my eyes adjusted, and I was able to see light. I saw Jesus sitting in the chair, holding my brother. Emmanuel, God with us, was with my brother that night. And He was with me now. His Presence changed the light in the room for me. People often say seeing is believing. But I think believing is seeing. Knowing who God is, experiencing Him in a more intimate way and learning to trust in Him more fully, helped me to see everything in a whole new light. 

I've learned that God is a God who both comforts and disrupts (Tim Keller). These seemingly contradict, but God reconciles them and shows us that they are actually two parts of a whole that fit together. Comforting and disrupting are two different ways God approaches us; two different ways He uses to reach the same outcome: to help us know Him better and trust Him more. To help us see both His power and His love. 

Entitlement, self-sufficiency, ever and always seeking that which brings comfort - these were my idols, thieves that, unnoticed by me, were quietly stealing and destroying my life (John 10:10). These words are painful for me to admit and difficult to write, but David's death somehow saved me. The darkness I experienced when I lost my brother exposed an even deeper, more dangerous darkness in me. It’s quite possible that I would never have been able to see the darkness in my heart, without experiencing the darkness of heartbreak.

Losing my brother to suicide was a turning point in my life. Before David, I now see that I worshiped God for all of the wrong reasons. I didn’t live to worship Him because of Who He was or out of gratefulness for His beautiful gift of grace, I “worshiped” Him for me; for what others would think of me, for the family and other gifts He would give me. My identity had been built on family, and my family had been turned upside down and inside out in the space of one breath. I didn't know who I was as the newly eldest sibling to my sisters or child to my mom and dad. I had disappointed myself in who I was as a wife and mother. And the God I thought I knew, turned out to be Someone I found I did not truly know or fully trust. And while I didn't deny him with my lips, I denied him in my heart. But God met me where I was. Paraphrasing Alexandre Dumas, when we can't or won't believe in Him, He continues to believe in us. The God who holds all things together, held me. And as He held me, he slowly me knit me back together, stronger than ever before.

Today I can admit that, “I am more flawed and broken in myself than I ever dared believe, and more loved and accepted in Jesus than I ever dared hope" (Tim Keller). Jesus saw my unloveliness and my brokenness, He saw my darkness and came down to shine a light on it, to uncover and expose it, in order to cover me and save me from it. 

Jesus promises in John 8:12.“Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light which gives life”. It’s through His birth and His death that we have life, and have it more abundantly (John 10:10).

God didn’t design life between the gap of the cross and His second coming to be comfortable; he desires it to be transformational! And because of the promise of Romans 8:28, ALL THINGS work together for good. Our tears have power to transform us.

Nicholas Wolterstorff, a well known Christian philosopher who lost his son in a climbing accident, wrote, “I shall look at the world through tears. Perhaps I shall see things that dry-eyed I could not see.” 

I see the world differently today. Tears have gifted me a different kind of faith. It’s stronger yet more vulnerable. Deeper yet higher. It’s more pure, but less innocent and naive. My faith today is more honest and real. It reveals and reconciles a God who is more dangerous, yet more safe; more mysterious, yet somehow more known. Emmanuel is a God who both comforts and disrupts. Both shine a light into whatever kind of darkness we may be experiencing. For those of you sitting in darkness today, I encourage you to hold fast to the truth that there is "a light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" (John 1:5). Jesus came so we could live an abundant life.

It’s been eleven years. The grief comes in waves now. satan still haunts me with the picture of finding my brother. But when those moments come, I know I have a choice to make. I can cover or deny my feelings and run from God, or, I can admit my doubt, my anger and my fear, and take it to Him to process it all with Him. And in His Presence, my tears become an act of worship. 

God uses broken people. He uses our failures, our flaws, our inadequacies, to make something beautiful. 

“You make everything, everything beautiful

You make everything, everything new

You make everything, everything beautiful

In its time, in Your time

It's beautiful”

(Rebecca St. James,)

These words echo Romans 8:28. 

Suffering can send us in one of two directions. It can turn us inward, making us more self-absorbed and, in the end, more empty and miserable. Or, it can turn us upward toward Jesus and (day by day) make us more humble and compassionate, more understanding and approachable.

It’s our choice. 

In Genesis 12, God tells Abraham to Go! Leave what’s comfortable and familiar and be a blessing to others. Paul says, Go! “Be a light in this dark world... You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept.... By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:14-16 MSG). And oh, is our Father ever so generous.

Will you join me? Go, share the broken pieces of your heart with others and let your sorrow change the world. What will it cost you to be vulnerable? Absolutely everything. Which in the end is nothing compared to what it cost Jesus Christ to leave the glory of heaven to die for you and me. But if it can help just one... well, that's worth it for me.

"Only one life, 'twill soon be past, Only what's done for Christ will last."

C.T. Studd 

Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.” I will not let my sorrows be wasted. I pray that God will redeem my brother’s death by taking my broken pieces and making them into something beautiful; something that can be used for His glory and for the good of those around me. And I can’t wait to see how He does it.

Lord, take my broken pieces. Make me whole… and make me yours.