When I left for the Word Race last year, I was aware of the fact that I would miss out on big things in life while I was gone. I would miss weddings, birthdays, graduations, and possibly even funeral while I was abroad. Now, as I’m saying goodbye to family for a second time, I am making the same sacrifice. This time, however, I am being hit by the reality of what that really means. I understand it to a deeper degree, and it’s even closer than “close to home.” It IS home.
As many of you know, my dad passed away on January 8, 2020. It was something I knew was coming for a while, so I had already begun to walk through mourning the loss of my dad even before his passing. Still, there’s no way I could fully prepare myself for the reality of this loss.
If you have ever lost someone as close to you as someone you live with, you know what I’m talking about. The house suddenly feels thousands of times larger and quieter than it ever was. My dad wasn’t a very loud and talkative man, but you could still feel the gravity of his absence and the silence that followed. It was like the fact that his spirit was no longer in the world had torn a hole in space itself, and the vacuum that was left sucked all sound and emotion out of the world around it. Things grew dimmer and colder. Color seemed less vibrant and things that once brought me simple joy and pleasure suddenly felt monotonous and mundane.
But it didn’t end there. In this season of grief and mourning, I soon found out I was going to be rocked in ways I did not expect. You see, what I had begun to feel was abandonment. My dad was now gone, and the pain only got compounded by the difficulties of re-entry into American society.
Re-entry, or the process of reintegrating in American culture after the World Race, is always hard on alumni Racers. We come back and realize life has happened to a lot of people we loved back home, and some things are never the same again. Some of us have friends and siblings that get married and move away. Many of us lose friendships and relationships due to lack of communication. And a few of us also physically lose family members to the grave, never getting the chance to say goodbye. I was hit with the reality that the cost of following Jesus is higher than I had first calculated. And now, I was diving back in to another year of mission? Was I really ready to die to myself again, knowing I could lose even more relationships? Honestly, I didn’t know how many more losses my heart could take.
I wanted so desperately to run away. All I wanted to do was turn off my pain and go do something to distract my mind. I was hoping for a rescuer to come and say, “Hey man. I am sorry you feel this way. Let’s go somewhere else and get you out of the house. Anywhere but here. We don’t even need to talk. But I don’t want you to feel alone right now.” And when I felt like I was abandoned, I tried to find one for myself.
I started floundering, reaching out to other broken people for emotional support, hoping someone was strong enough to let me lean on them in the pain. And that didn’t work either. I think what happened when I came home was that I realized that nothing was certain, and I was desperate to hold on to something sturdy.
You wanna know Who is always certain and sturdy?
The Lord.
It may sound cliche, but that’s only because it’s the TRUTH. It’s truth that we always tell other people when they go through hard times, but until we go through the trials ourselves, we don’t really get to live out the fullness of that truth. We don’t really make it full “heart knowledge” until we’ve realized that Jesus is ACTUALLY our only hope and light in the darkness. Until you’ve exhausted every other “hope”, fallen on your face, landed on your emotional wounds, and looked up to see His shining face, beaming at you in the fullness of His love for you, you don’t know if you fully believe it or not.
Grief and goodbyes. Those are blessings. They are the trials that reveal whether or not we really believe the truth that we are saying to others. Is “God is always with you” really a cliche after all, then? Or is it a core truth that is truer than anything else we know in the physical world?
In this difficult time, I’ve grown to REALLY know what I believe about God and His love for me. I’ve grown in understanding His truth on a deeper level. And these truths are universal:
- God love me despite my circumstances. Death and dying is a normal part of life in this fallen world. When we encounter it in our lives, it isn’t because He isn’t a good God who loves us. It happens because ‘that which is perfect’ hasn’t fully come yet. God’s perfect purpose hasn’t been fully fulfilled. But He’s bringing it nonetheless. The hope we carry as His children of resurrection IS evidence of His love for us.
- He loves me regardless of how I respond to stress, even when I make mistakes. I mean think about it. He loved me even when I was still a sinner (Romans 5:8). Why would that certainly change now, especially after learning that I’ve received a spirit of adoption as His son? I ran to people and community for comfort. I ran to them to process. I fell into the sin of thinking I could heal my own problem by reaching out to the right person rather than letting God bring me my victory. Psalm 62:1 says our victory comes from the Lord; we just need to wait on Him. And He is so full of patience Himself, He waits for us to learn to rely on Him. What a good God He is!
- Jesus doesn’t always take away our hurts, but that is for a greater purpose as well. This past month may have been difficult, but I’ve been able to connect to people in a different way now. All the tears I’ve cried have opened up my heart to love others who are going through the same hurt I went through. Tears really do speak when words fail. What a privilege that God allowed me to experience this before going on mission this year.
These aren’t perfect answers. Grief is still painful, and goodbyes are still hard. Simply knowing in your head doesn’t suddenly make it better. Learning to rely on God in a time of mourning is bitter work sometimes. But it’s for our benefit in the deepest sense of the word. In the end, it yields the sweet fruit of peace that surpasses all understanding.
In all things, be blessed!
AG
