“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD.” Job 1:21 (NKJV)Chapter 5, What in the World, in all the World, is Grace, was a difficult chapter. This was the chapter about the hard eucharisteo. Ann tells us the story of her sweet 7-year-old boy, Levi, who when working in the barn doing chores, puts his hand through a fan blade. As she runs to her son, unsure of what she'll see when she gets there, fear fills her body. And she knows... that THIS might be it. "The hard eucharisteo." As she describes on page 80. And she admits, "Now I know that I don't want to know it yet... Ever."
We pick back up on the bottom of page 80, top of page 81, when Ann and Levi return to the house following a three-hour hospital visit. "He has a hand." Ann says to her mom who knows the loss of a child. Who has lived the hardest eucharisteo. "He's cut up bad. But only the index is broken. They're booking us for a surgeon."
And in that moment... relief.
In that moment... praise.
But she wrestles with the tough question of this word... grace.
"And if his hand had been right sheared off?" She asks. "What of God's grace then? Can I ask that question?"
It's one thing to be thankful and to praise God in the good times. When things are going well. When we are in good health, when we are surrounded with the ones we love. When we get good grades. When our marriage is flourishing. When it's sunny. When bills get paid.
But what happens in those hard moments when God's grace is more difficult to see? What then?
Perspective is found on page 82 when Ann reflects back on what she hears on the radio on their way home from the hospital. "The obituaries after the noon farm news. A 13-year-old Mennonite boy, just down the road from the red-roofed dairy farm my husband grew up on. A farm boy, an accident. Date of death. Siblings. Funeral details. No mention of the state of his mama's heart, delta fractures slitting her through."
A boy. Only 13-years-old. Death. Tragic. Sudden. No warning.
Isn't THIS this hard stuff we've feared?
We're all faced with these hard days.
Maybe it was a call from a doctor... bad test results.
Maybe it was a call from a sibling... death of a parent.
Maybe it was a call from the school... a hurt child.
Maybe, like me, it was a call from a friend. A call that would rattle me to the core when I was only 18. Nothing up to that point had been harder. A call that came from a classmate in the middle of the afternoon. "Are you alone?" He asked. WHY was he asking this? Why in the world would it matter? "Yes." I said. "What happened?" And then I felt it. Maybe it's what I heard in his silence. Maybe it was the peircing sound of the silence that followed that gave way for fear to seep in. But I knew something bad had happened. Nothing could have prepared me. I hadn't rehearsed this part. And then it came, "Robbie's been in an accident, Wendy. And he didn't make it."
"He didn't make it."
In that single moment I couldn't define these words. I could not make them out. I heard him... but I didn't know what that meant. Didn't make it?
And then the whole world went black.
A shooting accident that claimed the life of my friend was a turning point in my life. It's amazing how these things change us. For me it was as if the life I had known up to that point ended. And a new one began. The old me was no longer. I was now looking through the lens of grief. Pain. Sadness. The hard eucharisteo.
And I had known Jesus. I had known about this love. This forgiveness. This grace?
But where was grace the day my sweet friend was ripped away, violently, from this world?
And I read it again on the pages of this book and I am reminded... "God is always good and I am always loved." (page 100)
Always.
And isn't that what life is? A balance of the grace moments and curse moments? And then what about thanksgiving? If in the grace moments we are thankful... what are we to do in the curse moments?
Perspective.
I love how her eyes are opened to the perspective.
"I hang up the phone" she says, "and I stand for a long while, just watching Levi breathe. Watching Levi live. He had an extra serving of ice cream on his plate last night and licked the mint right off his plate. He might not have. He slept in a bed last night, on clean sheets, and beside his brother. What if he hadn't? He woke and walked out across the dew grass this morning, the blades all sewed up in dangled gossamer of spiders. Why him? He worked alongside his dad in the barn, swept the broom hard; and when his dad said he was growing quite the muscles, he had laughed. He might not have. Who deserves any grace?" (page 93)
"Why are we allowed two?" Ann asks. "Why lavished with three? A whole string of days? Isn't even one grace enough?" (page 93)
Perspective. How we see.
And how can these pain moments lead to gratitude? CAN we be thankful through the pain? In the midst of pain?
How can we possibly be thankful for the death of a child? For the ominous diagnosis? For the accidents and the senseless crimes and the pure heartbreak? How?
Because the pain will come. For each and every one of us. One day. Maybe today. Maybe next month. Maybe 12 years from now. But it will come. And there's no warning. It will. Just. Come.
In chapter five's video I am reminded of the resurrection.
The resurrection was bloody. It was painful. It was messy. It was the hardest eucharisteo the world has ever seen.
And yet THROUGH the nail-pierced hands we can find hope.
THROUGH the blood-soaked rags we can find strength.
THROUGH the brutal beating we can find refuge.
Not IN this pain... but THROUGH this pain.
Because God wastes nothing. He "makes everything work out according to His plan." (Eph 1:11).
He wastes nothing. Not even your pain. Because God's grace... really is enough.
In the video Ann so appropriately illustrates how gratitude NOW paves the way for dealing with the darkness LATER. She says there's no warning for darkness, but we can prepare ourselves by practicing the discipline of gratitude so that when the days come we have a foundation to stand on.
It's what she calls the ugly-beautiful. "That which is perceived as ugly transfigures into beautiful." And she continues, "The ugly can be beautiful. The dark can give birth to life; suffering can deliver." (page 99)
God is always good and I am always loved. There it is again.
She closes the chapter... "Because eucharisteo is how Jesus, at the Last Supper, showed us how to transfigure all things - take the pain that is given, give thanks for it, and transform it into a joy that fulfills all emptiness."
God wants our questioning of Him to be smaller and our desire for Him to be bigger. Because I am convinced that He is using the pain in our lives to transfigure it and redeem it into something beautiful that only He can use for His glory! The question now is will we allow Him full access to transfigure our ugly into beautiful?
I am praying for each and every one of you.
Thank you for continuing on this journey with us!
Below is the video from week five. (Remember to scroll to the bottom of the blog to pause the music from my playlist in order to hear this video.)
One Thousand Gifts: Chapter 5 from Bloom (in)courage on Vimeo.
We would LOVE to hear your story of redemption! How has God taken the ugly in your life and made it beautiful? In class on Thursday nights we are each participating in a challenge... To reflect on and record 3 evidences of God's grace towards you. And if you are willing - we'd LOVE for you to use this place to share with us how God is transfiguring the pain you've experienced. Simply click on the COMMENTS link just below this post.
Finding JOY in the JOurneY,
www.wendybender.blogspot.com
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