Walking through the Storm

W hen it begins to storm in your life, where do you turn? I am asking this question to both believers and skeptics. The storms will come. Do you have an umbrella?

A Doctor uses the word “cancer”. A Spouse uses the word “affair”. Your child calls home from a jail cell. An ER physician says she did all she could.

Does suffering look any different for the person who has an active faith? Is the man who calls on God comforted any more than the man who relies on himself?

I was wrestiling with this question when I came across a passage from C.S. Lewis, who scribbled the following in a journal during the most trying time of his life (his Wife had just died of cancer):

“Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand.” (Lewis, A Grief Observed)

Often people in Churches will say they are doing just fine in the midst of the storm. Maybe you’ve seen one of them before. Their whole life has crumbled around them and they put on this face and talk about peace that passes understanding and, if you are human, wonder if they have lost their mind or if they’re on a healthy dose of valium. And here we have in the above passage one of the greatest theological minds of the 20th Century completely unraveling. You get the sense that he is not speaking into his journal, but shouting.

A friend of mine is 33 years old. Until this year he has lived at home with his parents. Not because he is unsuccesful and unable to leave the nest, but because his family is close and rooted in a deep and abiding love. In fact, this friend is very successful as an audio engineer. Tens of thousands hear his work every week on radio, television and on podcasts. He could have made his own home long before now but he had been waiting for his Bride.
Last year he met her. His first and only true love. Now, to give you an idea of the kind of purity I’m writing about, my friend had not kissed any other woman until he found her. This fact alone makes me blush at the recklessness of my own younger days.

A story book romance unfolded and crescendoed with a beautiful wedding in the rolling hills of Kentucky’s countryside. The ignited love between these two souls could be seen from space. My friend went from the home he grew up in to a new home. A home he had built for his very own family, and she was his crown jewel.

Nineteen days later his Bride collapsed in the bathroom one morning and she never woke up. A pulmonary embilism took her young life. Senselessly.
Nineteen days after putting a wedding band on her finger, he was in the ER saying his final goodbye. He kissed her lips and slipped the ring off. He now wears that ring on his pinky.

There is a kind of life storm that I can not fathom. Stories like this not only defy logic, they make a strong case for our Universe being void of any benevolence or design or purpose. But then I consider how my friend has responded to this tragedy.

For starters, he did not put the barrel of a .38 in his mouth and pull the trigger. He also didn’t fake it, making a show of his circumstance and proudly proclaiming that he was “just fine with Jesus”.
Instead he fell to his knees and surrendered to God – the same God he was already in a deep relationship with. The same God that he, in fact, loved more than his Bride. His submissive cry was, “Not my will, but yours.”

“I am with you,” was the response.

And all this, while still in the ambulance racing through the morning traffic.

My friend found the will to breathe in and out. To eventually go back to the new but empty nest he had fashioned. He told me of one of the nights after the funeral, visiting in her hometown of Louisiana. He was staying at the house she grew up in. Late that night, he had crawled into her childhood closet, in a ball, and cried himself to sleep.

There is no doubt he is forever changed. He is an amputee. Part of him will not grow back. But through him, this God he calls upon, will prepare the way for love and will reach other people through this suffering. In fact, the evidence suggests that my friend was chosen. He clearly had what it took to survive such a story as this and out of the ashes there would come beauty. His faith was tested. Did he really believe the whole Bible story? If so, then his Bride had already won. It was the rest of us, left here, that we should mourn. She had crossed over, into perfection.

Even my own marriage was impacted by these events. The night of his bride’s funeral, I held my own Wife’s hand a little tighter. I hugged her a little longer, and I drew closer to God as I cried out to Him to ease my friend’s pain. I thought to myself, “I will never take her for granted. Ever.” And I haven’t.

Some storms will forever change us. They will impact others around us in unforeseen ways. Does the person that walks with God have it easier? No, I don’t think so.

There really isn’t a way out of the storm, but there is a way through.

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My friend, JR, has been gracious enough to respond in depth to this Post, which I will publish in a few weeks.

Tagged as: C.S. Lewis, christianity, hope, life storms, loss, pain, suffering, wedding