I have been thinking over two responses to my last blog post. One person said generally that my friend’s positive response to her dire illness was hard to relate to and she would have liked to know more of the process of struggle to arrive at that place of acceptance. Another wondered if she knows how serious the dementia from Lewy Body Disease will be and will make appropriate plans for her care that are sustainable for her family members. I bring up these responses because others might have thought similar things. These are both helpful pieces of feedback which I thought were deserving of answers and clarification. My friend does know what an ominous path lies ahead and she does truthfully lament, while keeping mindful of the promise of heaven. She and her family are definitely grappling with a plan for the future. But alongside that, she is focusing on God as deeply as possible, and hoping that may temper some of the worst manifestations of illness. She is already finding that to be true. It seemed right to me to let her represent herself as she wanted – she wrote the middle section of the last post. It is biblical to trust in the power of God’s word: the psalmist writes in Psalm 119:11, “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” In the days while her mind is still clear, she is meditating on “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, …excellence, …worthy of praise, think about these things.” Among other things, she wants to prevent her own hard situation from making her critical of others whose lives are easier. Would we want her to quit doing that while she can still choose this positive path?
More generally, it is a conundrum trying to figure out a balance between positivity and lament. I remember another friend telling me how unwilling one of her parents had been to let her tell what a bad day she had at school. She was told that the only right reply to “How are you?” was “Fine, thanks! How are you?” That is perhaps an extreme example of something I may have done often in responding to weeping expressions of difficulty, urging people to see the good in their situation, the opportunities for growth from suffering. Truly we must allow people to grieve and to ask for companionship in that moment. Romans 12:15 tells us to “weep with those who weep.” I haven’t done that well enough, and I am sorry. If I did that to one of you, please forgive me and feel free to tell me.
In some ways, choosing between lament (or complaint) and positivity is a personal choice, rather than one which should be forced on us. But it is also a choice that affects everyone around you, and generates a feedback loop to one’s own heart. We need to know that how we choose to respond to a situation impacts our own future and our enjoyment of whatever time the Lord gives us. I have another friend, Jason Constantine, who is now with the Lord, who as a parent urged his children to reframe their complaints: instead of saying “Do I have to…?” he encouraged them to say, “I GET to…!” During his own 3 year illness with brain cancer, he lived this out, reveling in the opportunity to meet and treat lovingly all the medical personnel that his treatments required, reveling too in the scientific feats that his surgeries were. He did this to the end, because he had practiced living with an “I GET to” attitude for many years before his cancer was diagnosed. Many people were impacted positively by his attitude, including me!
Here is an example: recently, my grandchildren came to my house after Christmas, along with their parents. All of my grandchildren are picky eaters. I was bracing myself for the difficulty of pleasing all the different appetites among children and adults. I told my grandkids about my beloved friend in heaven, how he taught his boys the difference between “I have to” and “I get to.” The next four days together with my grandchildren was “I get to Camp.” It was kind of amazing that some of them understood the difference those words make in one’s attitude and real enjoyment of life. Throughout the days we all shared together, especially 6-year-old Jacob kept looking at me with a big smile and saying, “Grandma, I GET to eat broccoli (or whatever we were eating).”
Perhaps this will seem like whiplash to mention Amanda Held Opelt’s book Holy Unhappiness. Opelt is convinced many Christians have bought into a “spiritual prosperity gospel,” an expectation that faith and obedience to Christ will make our lives happy, even if we are neither physically healthy nor prosperous. She seeks to free us from unrealistic expectations of uninterrupted peace of mind but also of the pressure to constantly present publicly as rejoicing. “Rejoice in the Lord always” does not require us as Christians to ignore the fallenness of the world and the sorrows of our earthly existence. A shortened version of her book appeared in Christianity Today, but her book is well worth reading. I definitely felt freed as I read it from always judging myself for my moodiness. A book I am reading at present by Tish Warren, Prayer In The Night, also affirms that Christians need to be allowed to lament.
But we also need to trust those who genuinely see their trials through the eyes of faith and hope! It is not inauthentic to remind my own heart to “count it all joy.” I will end with a psalm of lament AND positive affirmation. I have chosen one I just read last week, but there are many psalms which both lament vigorously and include an expression of confidence in God. To my knowledge there is only one psalm which includes no direct positive resolution (Psalm 88). We see from all this lamenting in the Scriptures that God takes our sorrows seriously and does not suppress our voice.
O LORD, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me; many are saying of my soul, “There is no salvation for him in God.” But you, O LORD, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. I cried aloud to the LORD, and he answered me from his holy hill. “ Psalm 3: 1-4
The trials of life are real, and they are formidable. But the Lord, the LORD, He is the ultimate reality and He is our almighty Savior.