As I write this five years later, I think about the question of why Becca’s death shook me so deeply. I’m surprised that even now I grieve this woman I didn’t know. My pastor, Steve Garcia, spoke at my new MOPS group recently. A different group than the one Becca had been part of. One that I felt compelled to help start because of the growth I experienced through her loss. One of those unexpected places where the ripples of her death are still felt.
We asked Steve to speak on the spiritual development of kids and how we as moms influence our children. Perched on a stool in his shorts and KEEN shoes, he was right to start the morning by saying, “We can apply these principles to our kids, but really this information is for us. For you. Because what you teach your kids about God will flow out of your own experience with him.”
His brown skin and Spanish surname hinted at his Mexican heritage. But it didn’t tell his story of growing up in East L.A., one of six kids, his childhood marked by the loss of two siblings. I looked forward to his time with us that morning because his words always conveyed a message of God’s pursuit of his people.
Steve handed a stack of purple papers to a mom in the front row. As she passed them out, I looked down at a hand-scribbled diagram with the words “The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith” written at the top. Steve held up a book and read the title by the same name.[4]
“I don’t really like the word stages,” Steve told us. “It implies chronological order, and these don’t have to happen in this order. For me, a lot of things happened out of sequence. I faced tragic loss at age fourteen, so pain preceded my discovery of God. But it was that very loss that helped draw me to him.”
I thought of my fourteen-year-old self. I knew my introduction to God’s love had been preceded by a life that pointed to my need for a heavenly Father. I’ve always been grateful that my path to age fourteen made it easier to accept God’s hope when I heard it.
Steve began reviewing the stages of our spiritual journey outlined in our handouts. First, the wonder of God—recognizing that he is who he says he is and all the amazement that goes with that. Then the learning phase—often called discipleship—where we learn from others. And finally, service—wanting to put our faith into action, discovering our gifts, and realizing the world needs our contribution. That’s where I was when Becca was killed. I was growing, learning, and serving.
“For many Christians, that is where their journey stops,” Steve said.
Glancing down at the handout again, I saw that there were three more stages outlined.
“And that can be fine,” he continued. “There could be much worse than knowing, learning about, and serving God. But for many, a crisis hits, often around a loss, and they have a crisis of faith.”
I looked down again at the violet-colored paper in my hand and saw that the fourth step had a subheading. “The Wall” was written in parentheses on the diagram.
I thought of Becca and the accident. It had been a stopping place for me. Something that knocked my very breath away. I couldn’t grasp how God would allow a woman who was creating beauty in the world, loving her husband and her kids, and telling people about Jesus, to be done here. There were so many people making destructive decisions for others or themselves. She was living clean. By the rules. Doing things the right way. And she was not spared.
Pastor Steve went on. “We can get stuck in this stage and stay here forever. Walk away from God. Or we can push through it until we are transformed.”
I had to push through that following winter and spring with tiny steps of trust. Figuring out how to help our group process the tragedy gave me purpose in those steps. A reason to get up each day and face the reality that God had allowed this to happen.
While sitting on our guest bed in the basement, holding the phone, feeling as though I’d been punched in the stomach, I’d had an overwhelming sense of a call that I was the person God intended to lead our MOPS group through the tragedy. It feels strange to write that even now, because it could be taken as arrogance, saying that God placed me in that group at that time as the coordinator. Despite my not wanting the responsibility, I knew it was true. I was transformed through leading when I didn’t think I could lead. In every task I relied on God to guide my hands and words because I was empty. Rather than Change me, my prayer was, Fill me, Lord. With discernment. With love. With you. I had to trust he would provide what I needed to lead.
“Once we push through, we are never the same again. We walk with a limp, but the limp becomes part of who we are.” As Pastor Steve went through the final step, I looked down at the diagram, and I saw scribbled in his handwriting the final step, titled “The Life of Love.”
“You may not care what people think about you as much here,” Steve continued. “You’ve been transformed.”
It was true. I had a new sense of God’s presence.
For many days after the accident, I thought of Becca every hour. Of what she would be doing if she was still living. If we would have been friends by then. What heaven was like, wondering what she was experiencing. I even talked to her out loud, feeling ridiculous as I did it. “Becca, I didn’t know you, but from what I’ve heard, I would have loved to.”
And Steve was right. Though I’d never thought about it in those terms before, I cared much less about appearances. It’s as though my priorities were rearranged, and I was grateful for every day my children woke up healthy. Even when I locked my keys in the car. When I had a screaming toddler at a restaurant. When Derek left his dirty socks on the living room floor. None of it mattered. We were alive and together.
And though I could have hit that “wall” and stayed there, questioning God’s love for me or any of us, I didn’t. I’m not sure why. Maybe because I figured the alternative was bitterness. I knew God was there. I knew he was there when Becca was killed. I didn’t understand it. I still don’t today. I probably never will. But as my Young Life leader Michelle told me as I was first beginning my faith journey, faith is believing when you still have questions.