grace and suffering

It was two years ago on this day when my dad passed away. Since that day, I have deeply felt his absence in my life. I have especially needed his fatherly words of wisdom to guide me through these tragic last two years. In moments where I intensely feel a need for his presence, his words of wisdom from the past come into sharp focus.

"I experienced grace in the midst of suffering."

He was interpreting the events of his life that covered a span of 12 years, yet little did he know these words would guide me through events that were not foreseen at that time.

It was a typical phone conversation that we were having one Sunday afternoon in October 2005. He felt inclined to share with me about how he was able to see things differently because of all he had been through. He explained that he would not change the suffering he had been through for the grace that he received in the midst of it.

He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma when he was healthy as a horse at 45 years old. He went through numerous chemotherapy and radiation treatments, a stem cell transplant, lots of blood transfusions, hospitalizations for pneumonia, neuropathy, (years of) catherizing himself, constant feelings of exhaustion, and much more. In addition, he was approaching his second stem cell transplant. His sickness made him completely weak and vulnerable. It had slowly worn him down over 12 years.

He wouldn't change all this to enjoy living a healthy life again? Apparently, what he experienced was better than the promise of health again in this life. He experienced grace in a way that I do not understand.

I tried to make sense of it when I spoke at his funeral. I asked the burning question I had at the time (and still have), namely, "how was my dad able to say this?" I clung to what I knew of the Scriptures in an attempt for an answer. I explained that he could say this because of what he knew here and what he knew about there (heaven).

Here, my dad knew that Jesus shared in our suffering and death. Jesus even wept over it. In John 11, Jesus wept over the death of his friend, Lazarus before he raises him from the dead. Jesus is not just weepy over the loss of his friend here, he was also deeply upset and angry with death itself. Jesus claimed, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and . . . shall never die." In the very next chapter (John 12), Jesus said, "the hour has come" for him to face his own suffering and death. My dad knew that Jesus had entered our world to share in our suffering and death so that we might have true life.

There (heaven), my dad knew that he would share in Jesus' victory over death. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul proclaimed, "Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death where is your sting?" Paul explains that our perishable and mortal bodies will put on the imperishable and the immortal. Paul described all this about the resurrection after he claimed (earlier in the chapter), "by the grace of God I am what I am." My dad identified with Paul's experience of grace and looked forward to being changed from the perishable to the imperishable.

At my dad's funeral, my family also decided to play a song called "Peace in the Valley". My dad sang it at his own funeral (he had recorded it before he died). It was his favorite spiritual song that summed up the latter part of his life and echoed his words of wisdom that have stuck so close to me. Here are the lyrics:

Oh well, I'm tired and so weary

But I must go alone

Till the Lord comes and calls, calls me away, oh yes

Well, the morning's so bright

And the lamp is alight

And the night, night is as black as the sea, oh yes

There will be peace in the valley for me, some day

There will be peace in the valley for me, oh Lord I pray

There'll be no sadness, no sorrow

No trouble, trouble I see

There will be peace in the valley for me, for me

Well the bear will be gentle

And the wolves will be tame

And the lion shall lay down by the lamb, oh yes

And the beasts from the wild

Shall be lit by a child

And I'll be changed, changed from this creature that I am, oh yes

There will be peace in the valley for me, some day

There will be peace in the valley for me, oh Lord I pray

There'll be no sadness, no sorrow

No trouble, trouble I see

There will be peace in the valley for me, for me

Peace in the valley. Grace in the midst of suffering. These words are an anchor for me during the storm and a light in the darkness as I navigate through my journey to grieve with hope.