As I type, I am beside my wife Dana who is in a hospice hospital bed in our living room, journeying through the likely final weeks of our fight with breast cancer.
I don’t feel strong. I don’t feel resolute. I’m nervous and grieving. One positive feeling I can muster up is simply…assurance. It’s the assurance that God is in this journey with us. Thankfully, along with the promises I know in Scripture, God has mercifully provided us with many no-doubter reminders of His presence in this journey.
Here’s one: As you might imagine, home healthcare is pretty intense. You try to stay ahead of the game in anticipating needs. Of course, your fight-or-flight adrenaline valve stays stuck on “wide open.”
For release, I take a rigorous bicycle ride on one of the many trails in our area. On a recent trip to the trail, I opened the hatch to the van and—no bike. This of course, is indicative of my mental state these days. Because it was late in the day and no time to run home, I decided to walk the trail. More accurately, I cried the trail. It was some of the most intense crying yet in this journey. There was something about a cool, cloudy, darkening evening that made things a bit unbearable; and I caved. Rather than a nice, brisk workout walk, it was more of a stumbling, teary shuffle.
Then it started to rain. Nice touch, I thought.
I felt a drop of rain on my face. Seeing a few more drops on the trail, I turned back toward the van. Then I noticed something about the drop I felt. It actually had dropped between my glasses and my face; then it followed the usual tear trail down my cheek. In fact, it kind of surprised me. That was all the rain that came.
I’m probably hyper-aware of God-touches these days, but the unique raindrop seemed worthy of notice. The cliché portion of my brain concluded God was crying with me. The cynical/sarcastic portion of my brain said, “Oh, that’s a nice thought. The rain being God crying with you. How original.” Then the Bible portion of my brain recalled
Bible scholar types have a lot of fun (in a Bible scholar way) speculating about why Jesus cried at the death of His friend Lazarus. Because Jesus knew He would be raising Lazarus, why the tears? Here’s my thought: He was grieving over watching His closest friends (His peeps, His Starbucks tribe) navigate the darkness (loss, pain, suffering) of the fallen world. A Greek word used in this scene to further describe Jesus’ behavior (NIV translates as deeply moved) expresses the idea of a “loud cry, or an angry snort like from a horse.” He was really crying. Maybe even snorting (
This pretty much describes my cry-walk on the bike trail.
One of the sweeping precepts of God’s Word is that God is with us no matter what. He does not promise to remove the pain. In fact, He might even call us into pain. He did that a lot in Scripture, but in all instances He said, “I’ll be with you.” It’s an intense with. He hurts with; He walks with; He cries with; He graciously reminds us, maybe as a tear drop from the heavens, of the promises He has already given us.
Many of our students already have experienced a lifetime supply of pain. They may be angry that God didn’t change the outcome, but they should be reminded God is with them. In fact, He’s snort-crying with them.
