Death stings. It’s deadlier than any other sting that one may have experienced. When a bee stings, it leaves its stinger in its victim. When death stings, it leaves its stinger in the hearts of those who dearly loved the one who died. The wound takes a long time to heal especially for those nearest to the one who left us. The pain is real, deep, and agonizing.
Philip Yancey in his book, “Where is God When It Hurts”, talks about different thresholds of pressure and pain various parts of our body can endure, ranging from the cornea of our eyes to our foot. For example, he writes about how our cornea has a threshold of 0.2g of pressure before it experiences pain while our fingertips have a threshold of 300g pressure. How I wish that we were able to measure the pain threshold of our hearts.
There is no pain that is greater than watching our loved one die. My earliest traumatic experiences in pastoral ministry were holding the hands of a 9-year-old daughter of young parents and staying with a middle-aged mother of three as she passed away. The debilitating experience of sensing a person’s body go cold in front of your eyes numbs your inmost being. I cannot imagine what Inba’s dear wife went through as she held her husband’s hand and felt it turn that telltale cold.
A few weeks before Inba’s last day, another family in New Jersey lost a loved father to cancer. Inba wept bitterly for that family and especially for the daughter, the father left behind. My wife asked me if perhaps her brother, Inba, was prophetically mourning for his own wife and son.
The only one who can provide healing and hope is someone who has experienced that very same pain themselves. And there was only one who experienced it profoundly. It must have hurt God the Father to see his own Son suffer on the cross and especially to know that his own Justice required that He turn his face away even while his Son cried out “My God, My God why have you forsaken me…” So, if anyone understands pain, our God does. If anyone understands hurt, our God goes. If anyone understands grief, our God does. Yet, it is out of that pain and that hurt on the cross that healing flows for all who hurt.
How can healing happen? When can healing begin?
While there can be no timeline for healing, it is healthy to begin pursuing healing so we can come out stronger and not let this crisis debilitate us forever. A life without healing is not the life our loved ones would have wanted us to live, despite our love for them. For healing to begin, three things need to change with respect to the present, past and future.
The Present
Time heals. Or does it? Time sure does enable us to start getting relieved of the shock and face the reality that the one we love is gone.
Questions of why and if only may surface with anger once the shock has waned away. There is no running away from these.
But, at some point, one has to face the reality that our loved one is no more and no amount of questioning or anger or any other emotion we experience is going to bring them back to us.
It is fruitless to get frantic or busy or silent and get into a shell. Neither of these is going to help bring our loved one back or help us begin to heal. The sooner we embrace this reality, the faster the healing can begin. What helps is to acknowledge the sovereignty of God even through and especially amidst pain.
Job was the most righteous man in all the Earth. He lost his health, wealth, and his dear children whom he loved all in the flash of lightning. Even his own wife cried out to him, “Curse God and die”. That would be what many who do not know God personally would suggest even now. But, Job was able to embrace his suffering as ordained by God for God’s glory and said, “The Lord gave and the Lord took away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
A week before Inba died his uncle visited him in New Jersey and preached on suffering in a church nearby. After that, during a coffee conversation, Inba reiterated his points as they discussed the death of a young friend saying that one cannot question the wisdom of God and that they need to trust. He perhaps unknowingly wanted to prepare us with what we would need to hear for questions we would ask once he was gone. The last words in Inba’s prayer journal were “We should expect suffering.”
The Future
The biggest mountain before us that prevents us from healing is fear of the future, the unknown.
Why should we die? Why should anyone die? What happens when we die? Is it just the natural, biological end of the human life cycle that just happens and has no meaning? Or, is it an escape from the brutal realm of human existence and an opportunity to merge with the absolute? Or, is it just the result of human greed, selfishness, and pride that originate from within all of us which the Bible calls as sin? This is no place for philosophical reasoning as it would probably generate more heat than light for many of us seeking answers.
Christ conquered death and makes us victors. The Bible says we will join our loved ones and have glorified bodies and will be able to say “Oh, death, where is your sting?” Now, that is more than just healing. It’s conquering. It makes us more than conquerors through Him who loved us. Though for a while, we feel the sting of death, it is only for a short while. The sting of the bee does not last for long. So is the sting of death. We will join our loved ones and come out as more than conquerors.
The Past
Once we are able to ride the present and future, the past can transform from bringing tears of sadness to smiles of celebration. We can start celebrating things the person cared for and emulating the best about them in our lives. That way, the person, though dead, can still live and be celebrated and honored.
Healing cannot happen in isolation. The best catalyst for healing is love. A person who is hurting needs love and care more than empty phrases, such as, “if you need anything let me know.” Though well-intentioned, very often a person in grief cannot think of what they need. So, just show up. Do what you see is needed, but don’t fail to show love. We cherish people, like Inba, who showed love and care.
This is where the healing begins. We accept the present, celebrate the past, and anticipate a glorious future.
For me, I still go back and forth between grieving and beginning to heal, as the memories are still fresh. But, I hope and believe and pray that the time will come soon when I will be able to say “Oh, death, where is your sting”, not only in the distant future of rejoining Inba in eternity but even now.