I wish you could’ve met my mother, Roxie, or Foxy Roxie, as those of us who love her call her. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in her early fifties. After being in remission for five and a half years, her cancer returned. It continued to spread into some of her organs, bones, and then into her brain. The doctors believed she wouldn’t make it to my wedding. But she did. They also said she probably wouldn’t be around for the births of my children, but she was. What doctors said was impossible, God made possible. Cancer does not have the final say, God does. There are limitations to what science and medications can do. There are NO limitations to what our God can do.
Hours before she died, I stood beside her bed and sang “Amazing Grace” and “Jesus Loves Roxie.” I knew she heard me, for her expression calmed at the sound of my voice. What a beautiful moment that I shall cherish forever. My heart was at peace as I realized that her eyes would soon behold God’s glory in its fullest sense.
At around 1:15 p.m., a dear friend called, and I stepped out into the hallway to talk with her. According to my call log, I returned eleven minutes later.
Eleven minutes.
That was it.
My life changed forever. My mother had died. Her death has left a deep void within me. Death does that to all of us. Even the dying of a relationship, material possessions, career, or a dream cuts deeply and takes away our happiness, security, even our identity.
In the months that followed my mother’s death I really struggled with how to move forward. Cancer had become such a part of my daily thoughts and life that I really didn’t know how to live without its disgusting fingerprints all over my thoughts. The same was true with my grief. It permeated my emotions and my thoughts. I just wanted to feel happy again, like my mother asked me to do during one of our last conversations.
But the happiness was not there at the beginning. The sight of pink ribbons and the phrase new normal made my stomach nauseous. All the money going to research and cures did nothing to save my mother. And I didn’t want a new normal, whatever that meant anyway.
Still today, grief sometimes overwhelms me and I miss my mother greatly. My normal should include my mother helping me raise my children. I’m supposed to be able to call her when I get stuck writing a chapter of this book. She would have prayed with me and helped me with the edits, and she would have squealed at the sight of the book cover.
But I’m raising my children without her. Foxy Roxie’s phone is disconnected. She utters no more prayers for me and has no idea that I’m even writing this book and that the cover turned out to be absolutely delightful.
All I have left of my mother is her memory. How I wish you could have met her, for she was a wonderful woman who loved Jesus. But one of the things I loved most about my mom was that she would always sign her name with a smiley face. In fact, she had a smiley face toaster and shirts and mugs with smiley faces on them; even her classroom had its share of the famous emoji all over it. On the day we celebrated her life I wore a bright yellow dress with a smiley face pin and a bright yellow pair of flip-flops because my mother loved yellow smiley faces so much. This beloved emoji symbolizes her legacy. She made the hearts and faces of her doctors, nurses, students, friends, and family smile. What type of legacy do you hope to leave? I pray that my legacy makes the faces and hearts of many smile as well.
While the majority of my memories of my mother are positive ones, the final memories I have of her are painful, as she suffered much from the cancer and all the chemo, dying too early from a human perspective. God still has not answered my questions about why my mother suffered the way she did, and why he called her heavenward before I was ready to say goodbye to her. But I am finally at peace with this and with his silence. If my mother were still alive, this chapter would not exist. I know this now. Out of all the chapters in this book, the previous chapter and this chapter are the most precious to me because of what I have walked through and lost in order to write what I am writing to you.
I used to be afraid of the valley of the shadow of death. Now I find purpose and peace within it. God is still good in the midst of grief. And grief, though it royally stinks, is good and necessary. Never have I cried or prayed for another person who is grieving as I do now. Never has the preciousness of time and spending it with people been more evident to me. Never has my faith been stronger. And never have I loved my God more. Because it seems the deeper the loss, the more I experience his love.
God continues to meet with me in my grief as he promised he would. He has filled me with his comfort and loved me, though I often question his purpose for bringing breast cancer into our family’s story. But since my mother’s death, God has restored my joy and filled my redesigned life with new dreams and new people. This does not mean my life is perfect and full of ease, but I’m making it in this world and am trying to comfort others the best way I know how as they try to make it through their own losses.
Where grief tried to put a period in my life I now put a smiley face instead, figuratively and literally. When I write a personal note or post something to social media, you can bet there will be a smiley face or two (or several) at the end of my words.
And now you know why this is.
Recognizing Restoration after Loss
Let’s look at one last person from the pages of the Old Testament who was in the thick of grief and who was honest with God about it. This particular man not only lived well, he died well too. His name was Job. He lost it all. His livelihood, health, family. I am guessing the losses Job experienced weren’t part of his plans. No, they were part of Satan’s desires for Job. Satan took them from him (Job 1:8–22; 2:3–7).
Job had some well-meaning friends who arrived on the scene and tried to discuss Job’s plight with him, but they were of no help to poor Job. Like most of us in the midst of grief and loss, Job had to face and question God alone. Job was a righteous man. God favored him. And yet, Job lost everything.
I despise my life; I would not live forever.
Let me alone; my days have no meaning.
What is mankind that you make so much of them,
that you give them so much attention,
that you examine them every morning
and test them every moment?
Will you never look away from me,
or let me alone even for an instant?
If I have sinned, what have I done to you,
you who see everything we do?
Why have you made me your target?
Have I become a burden to you?
Why do you not pardon my offenses
and forgive my sins?
For I will soon lie down in the dust;
you will search for me, but I will be no more. (Job 7:16–21)
What I find interesting is that God did not immediately respond to Job with a Kleenex, chocolate, or condolences. Which is surprising since we know that Job was a righteous man whom God loved (Job 1:1). No, God never answered Job’s why, but what he did reveal was Job’s who—which was himself (Job 38–41).
I can relate to Job in this respect. I love to ask questions. And chocolate or Kleenexes do not rain down from heaven onto me either whenever I ask them. Bummer, because that would be rad. What I often hear in my heart as I ask God why are the promises of Scripture that remind me of who my God is as my tears fall. And this is communicated not in condemnation toward me but in an effort to comfort me.
Never will I leave you nor forsake you . . . though you walk through the deep waters, I will not allow them to overtake you . . . (see Heb. 13:5; Isa. 43:2)
I am close to the brokenhearted . . . (see Ps. 34:18)
I have plans to give you hope and a future . . . (see Jer. 29:11)
In this world you will have trouble but take heart for I have overcome the world . . . (see John 16:33)
I have loved you with an everlasting love . . . (see Jer. 31:3)
I am the resurrection and the life . . . (see John 11:25)
There is a pattern here, do you see it?
I, I, I. Over and over. God is continually redirecting my focus back on to him, just like he did for Job.
The LORD blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. And he also had seven sons and three daughters. The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch. Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers.
After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. And so Job died, an old man and full of years. (Job 42:12–17)
Yes, sometimes God will provide an answer to our questions, but sometimes he just answers our questions with the truth of who he is. How did Job respond to God’s revelations? He repented and continued to love and trust his God. Job could have pulled away from God as a result of his discouragement and grief, but he didn’t. Job inserted his own smiley face of faith where grief intended to put a period of discouragement.
In the end, God restored Job. He filled his life back up with new blessings. I imagine that Job’s face was smiling once again because of God’s faithfulness. I am no longer depressed when I think of Job’s story because now I see it as one of restoration, and his example and my God inspire me.
My friend Holly is also an inspiration to me. She has gone from feeling alone in her grief to feeling alive again in her faith, and has seen God restore joy within her. Be encouraged by what grief is teaching her and by the very verse that brings her hope:
I knew when my father passed I would experience horrible grief, but I was not prepared for the finality and totality of it. I found the silence of grief deafening. As people went on with their lives, I felt alone in my grief and felt that God was the only one who understood my pain. I searched the Scriptures looking for comfort and I came upon this verse in Psalm 126:6: “Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.” Grief may be part of our journeys, but it is not our final destination. We can choose to move forward with it, to let our heavenly Father use it to sow goodness and transform our lives and those around us. We will mourn and weep, sometimes for a long while, but may we keep looking up as we journey home sowing seeds of hope and knowing this: our joy and harvest are coming.
~Holly Haynes
Ways to Experience Joy When We Weep
As Holly explained, it is possible for those who weep to experience joy again, even though this often seems and feels impossible at some points in our grief journey. Loss and death interrupt our plans, causing us to weep and wobble. But seasons of despair and shock are exactly the right times for us to turn to God, our focal point, and trust he is using grief to redesign us. The negative space that death creates within us causes us to pause and seek answers, or love that was lost, or comfort—all of which are ultimately found in the positive space or personhood of God. He is everything that we need, and God uses this principle to restore balance to the brokenhearted.
We become better or restored by filling ourselves up with him. This is why I believe that death isn’t ultimately about loss, but about restoring us back into a deeper, more fulfilling relationship with God. So how can we experience joy or fill ourselves up with God when we become drained with grief? Here are some things that have helped me:
Being honest, asking God to fill you with what you lack, and comforting others with the comfort you’ve received from God yourself are ways that you open yourself up to being filled and blessed when grief is draining you.
Your Loss Matters to God
God will do something similar in our lives as he did for Job, although it may not mean he will give us all our fortunes back or double all that we have (see Job 42:10). Our blessings may include these things, but they may look different and will be according to God’s one-of-a-kind, couture designs for our lives.
And just look at how many lives Job’s story continues to touch. He had no idea God would use his suffering in the way he has. The same is true for us. We have no idea how God will use our suffering to touch the lives of those around us. Our God wastes nothing. He places us within community and gives us tools like social media so we can share and testify to the goodness and comfort of God with those around us in person or online like never before. So what will we do with the awesome responsibility of sharing God and with the honor of comforting others? I pray we steward it well. When we stay the course, our faces will smile again, and as my friend Holly said, our God will harvest from our seasons of brokenness.
This is why your grief matters. What or who you have lost matters. I know this is not what you want or had planned on happening. And I also know the pain of watching others go on as if they have lost nothing, while you have lost everything. Maybe the person or the thing you have lost no longer matters to the world, but your losses still matter to God because he allows them to be part of his design for your life. Seasons of grief are among the finest we will live. They are not the most fun, but they are some of the finest.
Be comforted and encouraged. Do not despair or compare—none of our losses will look the same. Our grief is individual because we are couture. No one can completely understand what you are going through, because he or she wasn’t designed to understand! God is the only One who understands you because he is the positive space that your heart encircles. He is the only One who can ultimately comfort you and fill the negative or empty spaces within your heart. Allow your pain to point you back to the positive God who loves you.
No matter the diagnosis. No matter how many relationships or dreams die.
Fix your eyes on the Focal Point. Fill yourself up with him.
One day you will meet Jesus face-to-face.
Die well.