Mount Moriah
What is it of promises that make it hard to let them go?
Are they so utterly convincing
In their arrival before we are prepared
To take another step in relationship?
Or is the preparation what we so misplace our trust in?
Must all promises be honey-coated and milk-dipped?
Must all journeys be from strength to strength,
And known for their final destination,
That we might know we have got there,
And that we finally belong to somewhere?
But what of sacrifice, and leaving things behind?
Farms and friends, hopes and ambitions, minded
Like sheep that stray on the pastures of possibility.
Is it the vision of what might be
That captures us in fear or in desire?
What was invested in this son of my old age,
A promise that he might be the future?
Someone to inherit all my hopes and dreams
Sacrificed to prove that love
Can resurrect and be so empty of my flesh?
* * * * *
When I was 34 my second daughter Rachel was born dead. I was in full-time ministry and had just been in an accident where I suffered a compressed fracture of the spine, though fortunately, the spinal cord was unbroken. I was in bed in hospital under strict orders not to move, lain flat on my back. The one thing I remember feeling above every human emotion was the tangible presence of God’s grace. My wife needed to feel that too as she had to carry Rachel to full term, which amounted to a month.
Listening to one of Brad Jersak's Q&A sessions on death, hell, atonement, I found some answers that I had long hoped for but could not categorically say were certain. I received a scripture from an internal voice saying, “I will wait for you in the land of the living,” which I interpreted as Rachel waiting on the other side of death.
Having worked through the unexplained deaths of co-workers and being called to ministry through several means, one of which was the Keith Green memorial concert, I had laid aside the question why as not being one I could answer for the present. I was, as John Wimber said, change in God’s pocket, though I still feel that is a very human perspective and not God’s (I’m still learning).
At the autopsy report back the doctor said that Rachel had a herniated diaphragm which had allowed the organs of her body to prevent the heart to grow fully and this distressing situation had caused the brain some damage. Whether this was congenital or from the accident in the car we cannot know. However, as I listened to St Macrina's analogy of being pulled through a narrow opening like a rope to allow the mud to be separated from one’s soul a fresh insight came to me:
It was clear that Rachel would not have been able to survive with her condition, the body she then was about to inhabit was no longer fit for purpose. On the outside, she looked fine but inside she was reportedly in bad shape. It seems she opted for heaven and Jesus, in his mercy and trusting in our response, took her to himself. I felt more confident than ever that that was why I received that verse and the profound sense of grace while I lay on the bed. We cannot know in full but we can be sure in the Holy Spirit that God is good. We remain sojourners until that day.
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