To Those Who May be Grieving ...

This past January a friend of mine, Rick Campbell, passed away. Rick was 46. Back in the day, he attended Lee University and left college became a youth pastor, then a church planter. We both started churches and named them Church of the Harvest.  Through the years, our lives went in different directions, but we both remained passionate for the Lord.

I followed Rick's sickness through CaringBridge.org. His wife, Deborah, has written several times since Rick's passing.  She and the girls are working through their grief and no doubt some days are better than others.  Deborah gave us a little insight in her pain with her latest post. I want to share her words just in case some of you may be going through the pain of loss.

Again, these words are from Deborah Campbell.

I hardly know where to begin as I have known for the last 6 days that I would be making an updated entry into caring bridge at some point today. Before, I get to what I really want to share, it is important to have some background information as to the state of my soul for the past number of weeks. I briefly shared about it in my last post when I shared about this being a time of testing of faith unlike any I’ve experienced to this point in life.

What I did not share at that time was that it has also been a time in which I have in many ways in my grief and suffering felt abandoned by God and separated from him. Now, I know that is a bold thing to say and is likely something that may upset the apple cart. So, for the record, let me say that it was terribly upsetting for me too as I know God’s word promises that “he will never leave us or forsake us”. Yet, to be gut level honest, this is what I have felt and at the same time not what I was expecting from God during such a difficult season of life.

Now, I’m about to say something that may rock your world as it has mine. As awful and unbearable as the pain of separation from my husband has been, it has seemed to me of late that adding separation from the Lord has just been an unfair heaping of misery upon misery.  With the lack of sensing God’s presence, I am aware that it has fueled my disappointment with God to an even greater degree. Not only did God choose not to heal Rick physically and keep him from dying, but when I need his comfort and presence most for some reason it has felt like he is not here. This has caused me to cry out in even more desperation in asking him to come and show up somehow, someway, so that I will know he has not turned away from me. The only option has been to cling to the promises of God and the truths of scripture even though not feeling the comfort that I have once known them to provide.

But, to cling to such words when you don’t feel the realness and closeness from the giver of these words creates an unsettling reality that is at times completely overwhelming. Questions of faith follow and are disconcerting when God has been the bedrock that you staked yourself too. This is really the part of which I’ve dreaded writing about because I know that I can not capture in words the degree of misery that such feelings of abandonment or separation bring. A double whammy of a two fold kind with the separation from Rick and the added separation from Christ has been frightening and in fact terrifying. The best comparison I can think of is to compare it to being capsized into the deepest depths of the sea in unchartered waters without any diving equipment. In such a case it would be abnormal to not have fear about what is lurking in the unknown below and abnormal not to wonder if and when rescue will come. Thus, this is where the details of separation get gory and more unpleasant and even do not neatly package into our pre-conceived notions of God.

When you lose someone so close, everywhere you go is a constant reminder of your loss and causes so much pain that you just wish you could avoid it all somehow. It’s not that you don’t want to remember the person; you just do not want to feel the pain of the reality of the loss. So, any brief moment of relief is welcomed even if only for a few seconds, yet it is not long at all before the familiar haunting returns.

One event that illustrates what I’m speaking about happened to me a couple of weeks ago when I went to Kroger one evening to get a few grocery items. There I was just walking down the aisle, pushing my cart, minding my own business and enjoying a few moments of mindless thinking when all of a sudden the loud speaker comes on with a Kroger commercial. Now, I will start by saying that I shop at Kroger a lot, and I don’t think that most days I’ve noticed them doing advertising over the intercom.

Anyway, as the advertisement began it did not take me long to begin thinking facetiously to myself, “well, thank you very much Kroger….I really needed that.” L The jolt of pain was immediately intense as the intercom blasted about Milo tea. So, what is so painful about Milo tea? You see, Rick bought that tea all of the time, and in fact he loved that brand of tea so much he would have been happy to have done the commercial himself!

This was one of those moments that would be added to the thousands already experienced since Rick’s passing in which it felt like everything started to swirl around me as all kinds of memories quickly invaded my mind and as the tears started to make their well known path of descent down my cheeks I was left reeling and wondering if I would be able to re-gain my composure. My brief moment of reprieve had once again been interrupted by the most unimaginable pain. This latest blindside of unexpectedness was for at least a few moments crippling and disabling.

I suspect that the paradox in all of my talk of feeling abandoned or separated from the Lord will seem strange to those reading with what I am about to say. That is because even in this separation, I have felt that God has been teaching me some things. Now, I know that may seem on an intellectual level like a bit of a contradiction. You might argue, “Deborah, if you believe that the Lord has been teaching you things, then how could you possibly say that you have felt abandoned?” But, the kinds of things that I have been learning about are a result of the separation from the Lord not the result of a close communion with the Lord like I’ve known in times past.

Instead, my thoughts have transitioned to ponderings about Christ as he wrestled in prayer with God in Gethsemane the night before facing the cross as he cried out to his friends (the disciples) and to his father (God), “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death…. My Father, if it is possible may this cup be taken from me…” (Matthew 26:36-42) I’ve thought also about Jesus crying out on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)

I know my suffering has not been that of what Jesus endured, but I do know now about an emotion that I’ve not ever experienced before which is “sorrow”. I find it to be a better word picture to describe the despair of separation and forsakenness that the word “grief” can not begin to encapsulate. In this pondering, I’ve thought about the age old questions. So why would Jesus, God’s son leave his place in heaven to come to this earth to suffer as he did, endure the cross and be separated for a time from his Father?  The only reason that makes sense is there was no other way and because of his love for us. He willingly did so in order to make a way that we would not have to be separated from him forever.

Only, God really knows how awful such an eternal separation from him will be, but in my weeks of feeling separation from the Lord as well as the 6 months without Rick the thought of eternal separation is a horrifying one. I have become more aware than ever of my soul. That is the part of me that is a spiritual eternal being, which was created with a longing for God that only he can fill and satisfy. In the past, it is in that unexplainable place of me, of my soul where I have experienced communion with God where the Holy Spirit came to reside after asking Jesus to come into my life. In that deep center of my chest, where I feel my strongest emotions of joy and sorrow, it is there that faith takes hold and is where the link to my spiritual soul and true self has been. So, to have Christ’s communion seemingly ripped from my soul for this period of time during the loss of Rick has truly been excruciating.

I have been blessed to have others in my life that have been willing to listen, pray and walk with me through this dark abyss of separation from Rick while also being willing to allow me to honestly voice my feelings of despair regarding the Lord. I have shared with these others while also continuing to pour my heart and soul out to the Lord praying various Psalms while being aware deep within that it seemed it was going to take something major to help me re-gain my hope and trust in the Lord.

In fact, I know that I have had brief moments of inward lament before the Lord of, “oh, Lord if you could just write it in the sky then I would know.” I only allowed myself those longings for a brief moment as I would quickly try to dismiss what I thought to be a foolish and impossible, childish wish. So here is where things get interesting and why I wrote such an important and lengthy prologue.

On Thursday, June 30th the girls and I left for a trip to Orlando to Disney World. Family vacations have always been very important to us and was one of Rick’s favorite things. I felt that it was important to continue the tradition and wanted it to be somewhere fun given the kind of year that we have all had. Therefore, we flew out on Thursday evening  planning for a nice trip through the 5th. We went to Epcot Friday morning, the MagicKingdom on Saturday and on Monday, the 4th of July we went to Hollywood Studios. 

One of the attractions at Hollywood Studios is the Tower of Terror which is located in a199 foot tall structure in which the ride drops at least 170 feet. This is definitely one of the rides that did not have my name on it and was created for Ashley and Sarah only. Anyway, the girls were anxious to get to this ride, and it was one of the early morning attractions that they wanted to head straight to. While making our way there, the girls and I noticed a group of people kind of gazing upward, so we naturally looked up and saw the word “GO” in the sky. We remarked to each other “well that’s interesting” and briefly wondered what reason someone would have a pilot create the word “GO” from his airplane exhaust.

After our look upward, we proceeded on with our mission to get the girls to the ride as quickly as possible to avoid waiting in line. After they went into the building, I wondered around for a while outside. Eventually, I decided that I should go over to the gift shop area located in the Tower of Terror to sit in the shade as that is where the girls would be exiting off of the ride, and it seemed like the most logical place to meet them.

As I began walking that way, something caught my attention from the corner of my eye, and I glanced up. To my astonishment and amazement I could hardly believe what I was seeing. As though in perfect banner form over me, my eyes focused on the upward sky as I read the words “GOD 4 U”, then “GOD 4 US”. To say that I was dumbfounded given my secret longings for God to write it in the sky would be an understatement, but I did manage to gather my senses enough to take a couple of pictures.

I continued to look upward and walked forward until some trees that were to my left were not blocking any of my view while also gazing back and forth to the right as the airplane finished adding the last letter, which was an A to his message. When I got past the trees, I saw the dissipating remnants of the word “Thank” in the sky just to the left of the message that I had already read. At that point, I realized the pilot was writing the message “Thank God 4 USA”, I suppose because it was the 4th of July holiday.

After snapping my pictures, I went to sit down to ponder through the thoughts that were now spinning through my mind. I must say that my knees felt very shaky and even weak beneath me. Was this all just a coincidence? Was it possible that God had used a pilot writing a message for the 4th of July to share with me his own message? Was it just a coincidence that I looked up at the exact right moment and that I was standing at the exact location needed for my eyes to only be able to see the message “GOD 4 U” and then the “GOD 4 US”? Could this be God answering the deepest longing and hope that he knew that I would not even allow myself to believe possible of that he could write it in the sky? Was this not just some strange, irony that had nothing to do with God that I would be standing there at that moment while at the tower of terror in a theme park when in real life I was facing the biggest terror of my life with the loss of my husband and the terror of feeling that God had left me? Was this God answering the prayer of that song that I have been singing, “I lift my hands to believe again, let faith arise”? Was this astonishing event going to be the major thing that would finally help me re-gain my faith and let hope arise again?

While I know all of this was only a few minutes long, it seemed like time froze and stood still for a while. Soon, however, the girls were joining me, and I got out the camera and told them I wanted to show them something. While I was able to view this astonishing sight in the immense size of the sky, they were only able to view it from the tiny size of a digital camera screen, but still it gave them comfort and wonderment.

I tucked the camera away knowing that this was something to share with others but at the same time not really wanting to expose the longings of my heart. After all, what if my faith was not renewed? What if the hope that was instilled into me in that moment ends up not being sustained? Should I really tell anyone else about this? So, I have waited until I could not keep it in any longer. Two of my closest friends came over for a visit with me on Thursday evening and then another two on last night. I had to share the story and picture with them, and now I have decided to bravely share this on caring bridge as well as a copy of the photograph that I took.  

With each declaration, it seems that faith and hope are rising within me, and I pray that perhaps others may feel the same. When I shared the photo with my first friends a couple of days ago, I saw something that I had not noticed before. If you look at the bottom left corner you will catch a glimpse of the tower of terror with one of its tips pointing directly at the letter G. I didn’t even realize that I had captured part of the tower in the photo, but it gives such a good glimpse into understanding how perfectly located the message was. Rick gave his life to help others know about the Lord so that they would not know the terror and horrible pain of soul separation from the Lord, and I pray that I become more courageous to tell others about the Lord and his goodness as well. I will close by sharing a passage from Romans 8:35-39:

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:

 “For your sake we face death all day long; 
   we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”[a]

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[b] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

With a full heart of thanksgiving,

Deborah

If you are suffering, let me join with Deborah and pray that the Lord will give you peace.

Sincerely,

Marty