Re: Stupid Death Didn’t Ask My Permission

Dear Rachael,

In the months since you've been gone, I have tried not to think too hard about the day I heard the news. But this last Sunday, in the middle of a sermon on Faith and Fear in John 14:1-3, I felt my mind go straight to that utter sense of panic and true genuine fear that I experienced when I got the call.

I was folding rain jackets into a suitcase. Packing for Alaska, the same anniversary trip Brad and I had been planning and counting down to for months. You knew about it, of course, and you were excited to hear about all of the adventures we were going to have. I had a checklist in my head, and a travel folder all organized because I had finally gotten on medication for my ADHD. I was going to send you a text when I had finished packing to show you how ready I was. One more day left.

And then the phone rang. And when I answered and heard—I felt the air whoosh clear out of the room. Out of my lungs, even. And there was nothing but the horrifying reality of what came next.

The next few minutes while I was still holding the phone, I felt as though I was slogging through mud, trying to find the steady thing that wouldn't let me go when it already felt like the ground had dissolved underneath my feet. I was in the hallway towards where Brad was in his office when the wailing started.

The noise was like some awful sound that came from someone else—a banshee or some broken animal that had been caught in a trap, seeking relief and finding none. When Brad held me, I kept yelling. "That's not true. That didn't happen. That's not right." And while it did happen, and it was true, I still believe it was not right. And I think so many people would agree with me. No one losing their life in such a way could ever be right. Especially not someone I cared for and loved as deeply as you.

So when I listened to the sermon on Sunday and I read the text, things began to sink in differently for me after that day.

John 14:1-3 says:

"Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also."

In the fresh moments after the news, the initial thought was that I needed to go be with you. We joked about this often—how no matter what, we'd have each other. We joked that Thelma and Louise had nothing on us and that if it was worth doing, it was worth doing together. But in the deep sorrow and pain of that moment, I couldn't see the humor. I saw that you, my very best friend, were gone and separated from me and I wanted nothing more than to be together again. But that wasn't an option. Not truly. And it certainly wouldn't be what you'd want or encourage me to do.

My dad tried to comfort me. He prayed. He read scripture as gently as he would in Sunday school and as an elder to a congregant who needed to be supported. And logically, I knew that it was all intended to be good.

But at the moment, I didn't want it. Not the prayer, not the verses, not reaching for a vague phrase on grief and faith and God's plan as something solid for me to hold onto. Girl, I was MAD.

I wanted to rage. I wanted to punch something. I wanted everyone else to be as angry as I was that you were gone right then as I sat in utter disbelief in my living room on the day I was supposed to be packing for something joyful and long-awaited.

So when Rev. Darwin reminded the congregation that Jesus cared deeply for his friends, his disciples, and that the effect of sin on the world genuinely grieved the Son of God, I immediately thought of Lazarus.

I tried to picture how Jesus took the news of Lazarus' death. He probably handled it better than I did, but scripture does tell us that JESUS WEPT. And that I can fully understand.

What I don't understand, or didn't when I was younger, was his going about the business of his earthly mission when the message came: Lord, the one you love is sick. And he didn't rush. He stayed two more days so by the time he got to Bethany, Lazarus had already been in the tomb for days. Too late, by everyone's standards.

Martha did the same sort of comforting to Jesus that my dad had done for me. Met him where he was at with the right doctrine before he'd reached the tomb. I know he'll rise again, in the resurrection on the last day. Because, yeah. Anyone who believes in Christ knows that immutable fact.

But Jesus didn't stop at the doctrine. He asked where they'd laid him. He let Mary lead him there with the crowd of the family and friends that were mourning, and when he got to the tomb that's when scripture says he was deeply moved, and troubled.

 That's when he wept. At the grave itself, standing in front of the wrongness of it with his own two feet with the dust of the road coating his sandals.

Being right about the resurrection never cancelled out the utter wrongness of death stealing your dearest friend. Deeply moved and troubled is the understatement of a lifetime.

So I let everyone offer their platitudes and their sorrows because yes, sometimes those are the only words you can say that are true in those sorts of moments. And I know you'd have seen me do the eldest-daughter thing. I made sure everyone around me was okay. I tried to minimize my grief and held the room together while I fell apart underneath. And even underneath that, there was bitterness. Bitterness that your story ended there, without the resolution and hope that we'd been praying and hoping for. I wanted to watch you overcome the things I knew you were fighting. I wanted a different last chapter for you, and stupid death didn't bother to ask my permission before it closed your book. I hate what sin did to your story. To our story. To the story God’s been writing since the very beginning.

But that's when it started to make sense to me. Having fear, feeling anger or bitterness isn't a crack in my faith. It was proof that I believed the story was supposed to go a different way. You don't rage at an ending unless some little part of you believes that endings like that aren't the way God meant for things to be.

Jesus didn't just weep. He was angry, I believe. Furious at death and what it does to people we love, angered at the way death barged into the story and slammed the book shut before we could ever get the best parts. And the strangest and most staggering bit to me was that he stood there already knowing he was about to reverse it. 

The anger never meant he doubted his mission, it just meant he saw it clearly. He hated death the way I hated death. Probably even more intensely, because how can you not detest something that has absolutely no place in a world God created, looked upon, and called good?

I think God doesn't begrudge me my anger and my hurt. I think underneath it all is a right instinct that often turns sideways when grief is exposed to it. I hate what a world with cancer, heartbreak, trauma does to the people I love and to the world we inhabit.

But I know that my anger and God's righteous anger, and Christ's heartbroken anger, were aimed at the same target the entire time. When I think about Jesus saying he was preparing a place, he first tells us not to be troubled. Because there's plenty of room, and more than anything He wants to be with us. And yeah, for me, I can look at our friendship and know with confidence that you are certainly not troubled anymore. That you are sitting at your place at the table, and that Jesus is enjoying you in his presence just as you are Him.

How could He not? 

There was something easy in simply being known by you. In being introduced to others as, “My BFF Amanda.” That is exactly why navigating this utterly strange new reality has felt like the most painful and difficult thing I’ve faced. Even worse than giving birth with no epidural while on Pitocin (Thanks Charlie).

Because once you’ve experienced the beauty of being truly seen, cherished, and wanted, going about your day without that feels like walking around with a massive crater in your chest. Nothing seems to feel big enough to replace what was lost.

And that’s why Jesus’ words from John 14 matter so much to me lately. Because there is a place waiting for me where I can be truly seen, cherished, and wanted. There is a Savior that is ready to welcome me to a table, a home, an eternal existence where we will never have to be angry over sin again.

For now, though, anger and hope sit on the same bench in my heart like reluctant partners for some school project. And yet, my faith sits there too right in the middle of them, encouraging in the hard work they have to do together.  And boy, don’t we all have our work cut out for us in that?

But I think in all of it, I have been brought closer to Jesus. I feel him calling me to Himself. And while I don't know how long I will have to wait until that day, I know you'll save me a spot right by you. Stupid death won’t even have a place at the table.

Love,

Amanda