Perhaps it’s not a day or even the moment, it could even be a whole season, but there is a time when eternity steps into our lives, and completely reforms our living priorities.
This was the season of our lives in 2014, from July 1 onwards, and anyone could say it in terms of loss, but just as much as it was a season of loss for us, it was every bit that eternity stepped into our lives.
From hearing those words uttered from the doctor’s lips, the gravity of his words and a tear in his eye, to walking around aimlessly, to reconciling that we couldn’t reconcile this, to discovering hidden blessings within the pain, it wasn’t just grief, but there was a good portion of the extraordinary, the intangible, that had entered our lives.
It wasn’t as if we were only cut off from a physical world that could not relate, but we were attached just as much to a spiritual world. It’s not just a silver lining to the cloud. It’s much more than that, and we may not by default look past the pain and grief to notice it.
There were many times in this season of losing Nathanael that I seemed to have strength, insight, courage, and perseverance that I previously didn’t have. It was the same for my wife. There seemed to be a grace about her with all of what was going on, external to us, and internally within her own body. With a triad of tumult going on, not just the one grief but three, this was the season that should surely have broken us. But that wasn’t to be, at least not at that time. That came later when in 2016 we faced the circumstance of our once-supportive world turning away from us.
This day eight years ago we were only coming to terms with what was happening. We’d only had the confirming amniocentesis the day prior, and the dire results were conclusive. Even though Nathanael was growing like a steam train, he was on a perilous journey, as were we.
Still, and I can barely understand this, in this season I was still able to work pastorally and focus entirely on people’s needs before me. It wasn’t like I was partitioning or compartmentalising my life in any way. Our truth was ever before us. We never needed to deny it or look away from it or get angry by it. It just was.
There were times when we were upset, when the gravity of the situation came to be particularly heavy, and the insanity of other circumstances swarming around us. But these were fleeting moments where we simply looked at each other and continued to press on caring for our 16-month-old son and working together as a family. Sarah said many times in this season that she was thankful for my work. It was a necessary foil.
Eternity had stepped into our lives on a single moment in a single day for an entire season, and yet the gift we received is that that eternity never really left. It is the positive side of grief.
When part of anyone’s life is called heavenward, where there is a requirement to say goodbye, where there are no words to describe or to rationalise the feelings, eternity steps into our lives. Suddenly, as if overnight, part of the psyche is quarantined for special people in special circumstances.
Suddenly we found ourselves connecting with parents of special needs children. Suddenly prayer wasn’t just a cliché. We saw God, living and active, every single day along the journey of frequent medical intervention. We noticed the provision of energy to do what needed to be done, and only that. As husband and wife we grew close through observing miracles we saw each day, even if we weren’t granted the major miracle of having our son healed and restored to us to live.
When eternity steps into a person’s life, everything about the life of the person is redefined. I would call it a heavenly compensation, even if compensation is not the right word. Somehow for the believer, heaven steps down and makes good out of the horrendous circumstance. Though the situation of loss and grief does not change, something incredibly indescribable occurs that makes the entire experience not only liveable and survivable, but worthwhile, and especially memorable.
When I counsel people from a grief perspective, I try not to prejudge their experience. This is because our experience opened our eyes to the degree that even now, we cannot explain how blessed we felt even though it was the worst experience of our lives.
The only thing I can say is that in loss and grief, eternity steps into our lives. When eternity steps into our lives, we are shocked, but the fact is it lingers there eternally, and it visits each one of us at our appointed living or dying time, and for many the eternal encounter may occur several times in our lives.
Once we grapple with this idea, that loss and grief aren’t the end of life, but the concept itself is the very beginning from an eternal perspective, we quickly reconcile, at least in theory, that nothing can conquer us in this life.
There’s something very much of God in that.
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