This is a sermon I attempted to preach on August 2. I’m having voice issues, so I was not able to complete this sermon, but this is the way I intended it to be heard.
If you asked Joyce how she was doing anytime during the last six months of her life, she would respond by looking at me and saying, “Tell them how many years we have been married!”
She was proud of the fact that we were married over 47 years, especially considering the fact that so many people had said it would not last.
This Friday, August 7, would have been our 48th wedding anniversary. It will be a difficult day. But I’ve had many difficult days. It has been almost 6 months now, 6 months since Joyce passed away.
In his book, “Lament for a Son," Nicholas Wolterstorff, talks about the uniqueness of each death and the solitude of suffering. We say to people, “I know how you are feeling,” but we don’t, even if we are walking down the same road.
I want to talk about grief from the perspective of the Psalms. There are three movements in the Psalms: “Orientation” “Disorientation” and “New Orientation.”
Orientation is the way life is supposed to be. A great example is the 8th Psalm: “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is thy name in all the earth. When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and stars which thou hast ordained”.
For most of our life together, we lived in the orientation of life, the way life was supposed to be. We had a very happy marriage, we served three loving churches, we have a great family, 4 children, 5 grandchildren, one great-grandchild. . . wonderful friends . . . life was good.
But we know how quickly life can descend from orientation to disorientation. Psalm 22 is a Psalm of Disorientation. It opens with the words: “My God, My God why have you forsaken me.” You recognize the words Jesus uttered on the cross.
We suddenly find ourselves in the valley of darkness . . sickness, tragedy, brokenness, suffering, disease, death
But the Psalms also promise a new orientation . “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”
23rd Psalm contains all three movements: Green Pastures, still waters, paths of righteousness . . . life the way it is supposed to be. But then it descends to the valley of the shadow of death . . . disorientation
But I want you to note the wording; yea though I walk through the valley . . the promise is that we will emerge from the valley one day into a new orientation . . . a table is prepared, my cup runneth over, goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. The new orientation is a gift from God.
One of the painful realities of grief is the realization that life will never be the same … new orientation is not a return to the life that we knew, it is a new way of life, one that we have never experienced before, a new reality that is akin to a resurrection.
Six months after losing Joyce I have not arrived at the new orientation. I often find myself in the darkness. It takes a long time to walk through the valley—months, even years. But I am moving, ever so slowly, I am moving to the source of light knowing that new orientation cannot be planned or predicted. I don’t know when I will get there, but God will surprise me as he always does.
Joyce’s death now defines my life. I have not gotten over her death, and in many ways I never will . . . and that is okay, for Joyce is now my inspiration, my motivation. She inspires me to live my life with renewed purpose and to honor her by serving God and serving others.
As I continue my pilgrimage through the valley, here are a couple of observations.
I am lonely, but I am not alone. My friend, Curtis Leonard who lost his wife to dementia said simply, “It is lonely.” If you go into a restaurant they will ask, how many? “One,” I will say. “One, just one?” will be the reply. When I walk into my house there is just one.
But while I am lonely, I am not alone, because I have the most wonderful church family and I live in a great community. A lot of people don’t like small towns because they say everyone knows you and they know your business. I have a whole town who knows me and they know my business, and they supporting me and praying for me. People I don’t even know will stop me at times and tell me that they are praying for me.
I cannot begin to tell you what my church family, has meant to me. You have been there for me, you were there for Joyce, and you continue to be there for me.
Life is a gift. John Claypool, who lost his little 4 year-old daughter to leukemia, was finally able to come to terms with her death by realizing that her life, short as it was, was a gift. He said, “I did not deserve her for a single, day, but I had the gift of her life for 4 years.”
I have been so blessed. Joyce and I had 47 wonderful years together. When you first enter the valley, you are consumed by the pain of what you have lost. But as you begin to emerge from the valley, you can focus on the blessing of what you had. I realize that not only was her life a gift, but my life is a gift from God and I want to use the time I have left to God’s glory
Since Joyce died I have been listening to Country Music. Country Music speaks to the soul, it if full of stories of pain, brokenness and loss. One day, shortly after Joyce died, I heard a Garth Brooks song, "The Dance." It tore me out of my frame.
Joyce loved to dance. One of the biggest regrets of my life is that I never learned how to dance. Joyce tried her best, but she could never teach me to dance. Once she enrolled me in a dance class without my knowledge! I went, but it did not turn out well.
In the final months of her life, Joyce would often say, “Do you want to dance?” She could be sitting in her chair, early in the morning, middle of the night . . . we went through a long period of her not sleeping much at all . . . but she wanted to dance.
At Abbotts Creek one day, (the rehab center) I was trying to get her to stand up, just so I could help her pivot and sit in her wheelchair, I finally said to her, “Do you want to dance?”
She was able to stand, I held her close, but she could not dance, And I knew then, it was too late. It would be soon be over.
Lookin' back on the memory of
The dance we shared beneath the stars above
For a moment all the world was right
How could I have known that you'd ever say goodbye?
And now, I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end, the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance
I could've missed the pain
But I'd had to miss the dance
I want to always keep Joyce’s memory alive. In the Apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus, there is a beautiful hymn titled, “In Honor of our Ancestors.” One line reads, “Their bodies are buried in peace, but their name lives on generation after generation.”
Marty Stanbery, who serves as our organist and pianist, is also a gifted quilter. Marty made a beautiful quilt for me in memory of Joyce. It has my initials and Joyce’s initials. It has a couple of sayings from a sermon I preached shortly after Joyce’s death. “Eyes blinded by tears cannot see the stars,” and “Love never dies.” But it also has the picture of the baptism in the Jordan River from 2018 when I baptized Joyce. I don’t know how Marty got the picture on the quilt, but it is a beautiful tribute to Joyce.
The quilt has found a permanent home on Joyce’s side of our bed. I will keep it there to honor her and to keep her memory with me every night and day. And I know that Joyce will always be with me. She will continue to inspire me to be the best person I can be. And I am sure that when we do meet again on that heavenly shore, the first question she will ask me will be, “Do you want to dance?”
No comments:
Post a Comment