Like many women, I play a lot of roles: I am a wife; I am a mom to three kids; I work on staff at my church doing a variety of administrative roles. In June 2018, I also took on some leadership responsibilities in our women's ministry. Later that same month, my dad was hospitalized and diagnosed with congestive heart failure, adding to a host of other health concerns. He came home from the hospital weak and needing some watchful care. So, besides my own family and growing ministry responsibilities, my role as daughter also shifted. That summer included doctor visits, wellness checks, and bracing for what could be a roller coaster of ups and downs in Dad's health.
My word for 2018 was "obedience," and I had been asking God to help me to just be faithful to whatever He was putting in front of me. I didn't, however, expect there to be quite so much at one time. God gave strength for each day, but I was tired. My daughter planned to move in with my dad as she began her second year of college, so I was especially thankful for her coming and going, just to be another set of eyes and point of contact.
My husband, twin boys, and I were traveling home from Labor Day weekend in Michigan when I got a call from my daughter that I will never forget. She said, "Mom...Grandpa's gone...I don't know what happened, but he's on the back porch." I tried to stay calm and think clearly, asking whether or not he was breathing, and she answered very definitively, "He's not breathing, Mom...he's dead." It was sudden cardiac arrest—his heart had just stopped. The coroner assured me that he died instantaneously. But then he fell over, hitting the ground with such force that it knocked the bottom dentures right out of his mouth. He died alone. And he lay there overnight until my daughter found him some eighteen hours later. In the rain. His face blistered from the ninety-degree sun the day before. His eyes glazed over and his mouth crusted with dried foam. I had prayed that when it was time, God would take him quickly. I wanted so much for him to be at peace. But this? This I could not wrap my mind around. NOTHING about it was peaceful. I thought, Really, God? Outside? Alone? Like this?
In the days that followed, I could barely think straight. My mind raced in a million directions. Funeral arrangements had to be made; dress shoes had to be bought; the Bible study that I was now leading was due to start and I was nowhere near ready. And I wished with everything in me that I could make my daughter unsee what she had seen that night. All the roles I played jumbled into a heap of tears and grief that I couldn't even articulate. My heart physically ached from the pain. There was no peace in my soul.
That was just over a year ago. I made it through all the dreaded "firsts." And with each one, I’m realizing more and more, that all the time God is good. He continues to meet me in small moments as I wrestle with this grief. And I do grieve...but not without hope. The treasure of God's Word echoes in the depths of who I am. He reminded me through an old hymn that Jesus suffered and died alone. And because of that, my dad wasn't alone, not for a single second. As soon as his heart stopped beating, he was face-to-face with Jesus, before his body ever hit the ground. As rain fell from the sky the day we buried him, it was as if God was weeping right along with us.
Jesus intercedes for me time and again when I just can't find the words to pray. I'm learning to abide in Christ like never before. My heart still feels so heavy at times, but I cannot imagine enduring this without the hope that I have. The peace of Christ gives a sense of calm in the chaos of my wrestling. Honestly, I can't even explain it, nor do I claim to understand it. I just know it. My relationship with the God of peace is such a foundation of who I am that even when the storms rage around me, He is the anchor within me.
After Dad died, my role changed again from caregiver to executor. And I had to make some hard decisions about my other roles and what is best for me moving forward. God is teaching me that before I am anything else, I am His beloved. I'm learning that when roles and responsibilities overwhelm me, and the waves of life and grief threaten to overtake me, God picks me up, holds me close, and whispers, "Peace, be still." Christ alone is my strength. He is my hope. He is my Prince of Peace.
