In the Shadow of Death

This post is a continuing story begun in a previous blog, about Alan’s struggle with love, trust, and healing as his wife appeared to be dying from metastasized breast cancer in the face of a promise they both hold in their hearts for her healing.

This second email came a few days after our first exchange.

From Alan on April 28, 2019 (two days after first email):

Lynn is still suspended between heaven and earth. She told me a few days ago she was ready to “leave” and I asked her why. (Just a few days prior and all along the journey she has said she is believing God will miraculously heal her). She answered my “Why?” with, “Because it’s God’s plan.”

I later took her by the hand and walked her to the door and said, “It’s okay, Lynn. You can go now. I’ll be along sometime.”

I thought she’d pass to the other side, but she is still in limbo. I think her body is not at the place of shutting down yet, even though she is ready.

So, I’m giving her water and juice as she needs, fluffing her pillows and staying with her. A lot of folks have dropped off as the journey has gotten more difficult, which is why your encouragement means more than I can articulate.

I still believe for a miracle in this realm, I feel as long as she is breathing, there is a chance. But, if she wants to go, I want her to go in peace. I will be devastated but will thank God she is with Him.

My Response:

I don’t’ know where I got this line in my head, but it has been a personal mission since I heard it—“I’ve done one thing in my life—I’ve loved a woman well.” Regardless of what else happens in and through my life, at its end, I want to be able to say I loved the woman God gave me well.  And even more importantly, I want to hear her say that I have.

You, my friend, are doing that. You’re loving a woman well, giving of yourself even in your sorrow and pain without anything in return. Bless you!  Bless you!  Bless you! So many stories don’t end as well as we are led to believe. We all want painless, easy passings into the life beyond. But death is a bear for most people. They linger far longer than we think they would, even when it seems like there’s no sense in them staying.

But dying has its work too, I think. It is shaping you and her for the transition she’s about to experience. So, just keep hanging in there, Alan. This is what love means. This is grace to the fullest when you feel it the least. May God give you all the strength and courage you need to love this woman well until there’s no more to love, on this side….

I write with tears in my eyes for you, Alan. I have a sense of how hard this must be for you. I have tasted a bit of that pain, but fortunately, not yet with my beloved.  Loving her through this process is a great work, perhaps the most significant thing you’ll ever do. May you have joy and peace that is beyond the moment and may it overwhelm your heart.

Joy beyond the tears, joy greater than the pain.

From Alan on April 30, 2019:

I am without adequate words to reply. I have no idea how you feel about the present day “gifts of the Spirit,” but let me assure you the Holy Spirit gave you the words that are like an arrow to the center of my wondering–why the lingering? Why not a healing? What is going on?

I thank you so much for being sensitive to Him, to write as He leads. You have been used by God like a huge hypodermic needle full of grace and love to encourage me… to help me go farther than I could fathom. I am blown away.

I’ve got the God-is-sovereign friends fighting the take-dominion-over-the-cancer” friends, fighting-the-have-you-tried-juicing-these-11-vegetables friends all vying for my attention. God has used you to blow all of that away and let me see that I have hope in Him – regardless of how this all ends. (I cringed writing that because I want it to end with her healed and living to 80, celebrating our kids getting married, having grandchildren and all of those things).

Trust me; there is nothing noble at this point in my asserting, “His will be done.” But, in the end, that is what I want, no matter how awful the future seems to be when I imagine it without my sweet Lynn.

Wayne, God has used you beyond my ability to say. Thank you so much! When so many things are vying for your attention, that you would let yourself be used by God to help me is an amazing blessing.

My Response:

I sensed Father’s voice in both emails I sent you.  That’s actually why I sent them. I felt they were more from God than me, but happy to be some fingers a keyboard for him, if that’s what is happening here.

Sadly, Christians are notorious for giving lousy counsel in the throes of death, more interested in making them feel better than in comforting people who are going through pain. I hope someday we learn simply to weep with those who weep…

To be continued…

Read Part 3 here. 

[If you’d like to receive this series in your email inbox when they are posted, simply fill in your email address in the box at the upper right of this page: “Receive Blog Posts via Email.”]

Last April, Alan wrote to me from what he feared would be his wife’s death bed. They were struggling because they both had a firm conviction that God was going to heal her. She had been diagnosed in late 2014 with metastasized breast cancer and given only months to live. Though she had defied those odds by years, her disease continued to progress relentlessly. Why wasn’t God healing her? What more did they need to do to make the difference?

Disease, healing, death, faith, truth, love, mortality, and eternity all converge in death’s shadow, where our emotions are rawest and where it isn’t always easy to separate reality from illusion. Do you keep praying for healing, or take advantage of those last days to have the tender moments to say good-bye to each other? If we do say good-bye, are we demonstrating a lack of faith that will nullify the healing we want? There are no easy answers here that will easily fill in the blanks. Discerning God’s purpose and resting in it can seem all but impossible given an outcome we want so desperately.

That contact began a lengthy email conversation over the intervening months as he let me into the tenderest part of his heart. I wanted to provide a safe place where faith and honesty could walk together as he navigated the uncertain days ahead. With his permission, I want to share that exchange with you, which still continues to this day. I’m going to do it in multiple posts over the next couple of weeks to let you live through the story with us and the things we’ve been learning together, walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

This struggle is all the more complicated when people believe that God is still active today and that he still heals the sick and raises the dead. I believe that. God does make himself known through miracles, gifts of wisdom and discernment, and healing. I’ve seen God do outrageous miracles throughout my life. I’ve also been in many situations where healing seemed so important, but one didn’t come despite the ardent prayers and belief of those involved.

It is not always easy to understand why God doesn’t give us all the miracles we think his love would guarantee, especially when someone we love is at death’s door. We can quickly turn on him, thinking him unloving, or condemn ourselves for not doing enough for him to act. All of this comes into question during our conversation and the events that unfolded. We’ll all face it, with people we love and eventually with our own mortality. Learning how to transit the Valley of the Shadow of Death trusting a loving Father will make those days far easier.

It all began one day in April with this email:

From Alan on April 26:

I have been crying out to God for mercy as my beautiful wife, Lynn is literally at death’s door. She was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer three days before Christmas in 2014. The oncologist said it had spread all over her body and gave her 2 1/2 to 3 months to live. But she is still here, and I literally thank God for every day.

Still, I have prayed daily over these four plus years for her complete physical healing, which hasn’t come. Sadly, last December, a scan revealed that there were “places in her brain” where cancer had spread. She declined in a matter of a few weeks, and I had to call in hospice whose nurse said, “She will likely be gone in two to three days.” That was in early February.

Since then, she rebounded remarkably, going from being bedbound to walking around without assistance. We were so hopeful that the miracle of complete physical healing might be any day. It was weird, Wayne, because I could not understand why God did not just heal her all the way. Nevertheless, every night before bed, we would bump fists and say to one another, “Another day!”

Last week she plummeted medically and lost her balance. I preach on my podcast and in opportunities where I am asked to speak, Isaiah 53 and the horror Jesus endured for our healing. I genuinely believe miracles are for today and that the Word is true. I share things that I have learned through your ministry, and I do believe He loves me.

She told me a couple of days ago, “You need to let me go.” I was devastated. Up to this point, she was all-in for being healed in this realm. (I know she will be healed when she steps fully into the eternal realm, but we both were believing for her physical healing now in this body.)

Through tears, I walked her to the door and told her, “Go ahead, Lynn. Enter into your rest. Listen as God says to you, “Well done.” I guess her body is not ready yet to shut down even though she is ready to leave. The last three days have been brutal, watching her decline more and more, still asking God for a miracle, and wanting her suffering to end either by that miracle or by stepping into eternity.

So here I am, an ordained minister, a veteran Christian, and a crying, broken mess. It would not be so difficult if the statements in Scripture were not so affirmative. “Speak to this mountain and believe” “Ask anything in My name, and it shall be done” “By His stripes, you are healed” “If any two of you agree it shall be done” and on and on.

I find myself having thoughts like, “Why doesn’t it work?” I ask God, and He is silent. I know He is not a genie, but I find myself thinking if we can’t trust these healing Scriptures, why even bother to ask? I know the answers I would give to someone in my position, it just seems so much more difficult to walk through personally.

Wayne, it’s incredibly hard. The Bible says, “the two will become one flesh,” and I feel like I am being ripped apart brutally.

My Response:

Your email broke my heart this afternoon. I am touched by your need, the passion you have for Lynn, your confusion at the healing Scriptures that seem to put God’s power at our disposal, and the horror of standing at death’s door with the love of your life. I can’t imagine… My heart really goes out to you and please know that I am praying for you in this most trying of circumstances.

I have no answers, as you well know. Just a compassionate heart and one that will hold you and Lynn before the Father today. I know God heals. I have witnessed some extraordinary miracles in my life, and I’ve also seen people die in the face of the most ardent, sincere, selfless prayers. As far as I can tell, there is no rhyme or reason as to why this one and not that one, at least that we can see from here. I do know God heals. I also know that healing is not at my desire or even diligent prayer. Yes, the Scriptures are confusing. I know they mean something, but am pretty sure it isn’t what we are first inclined to think.

I also know it is exhausting for people to try to get healed, or to try to get a loved one healed. Even trying can rob us of the precious moments we could have with them if indeed they are the final ones in this life. In the end, I know that all of my life, and that of my loved ones, is in his hands. Not everything he does will make sense to me in the confines of this age, but will in the age to come. There lies our hope. Whether Lynn rebounds or slips more directly into Father’s hands, is not ours to control.

It sounds like you’ve loved her well. Keep on loving her to the end. Her healing was never in your hands. You’ve had to walk a most painful journey, and my heart goes out to you. If I weren’t in Norway at the moment, I’d give you a call just to express that more personally and to let you know you are not alone at this moment. That God understands ALL your pain and disappointment in these circumstances, and his love will swallow them all up in time.

Hurt with him. Grieve with him. Hold your question before him. He will get you through this. Faith does not rest on the outcomes we want most, but a Father’s love we can trust even when don’t understand.

Please keep me posted on what unfolds here. I’ll be praying for you both, that the comfort, power, and fullness of God’s presence will be your strength and refuge every day.

To be continued…

Next post in this series

[If you’d like to receive this series in your email inbox when they are posted, simply fill in your email address in the box at the upper rigth of this page: “Recieve Blog Posts via Email.”]