Grief...again

Right now my head is a little bit all over the place. The last couple of weeks have been fairly quiet at my desk, but all of a sudden this week my work has exploded and there's plenty to do. So it's not very helpful that I'm having trouble mustering my brain this morning. But I think the main reason would be grief.

Image by Michaela 💗 from Pixabay

Sometimes it's getting hard to write here because there are themes that just keep coming up and I wonder if I've said all I can say on them? Or if I'm boring my audience?

But then I run into a new-ish missionary who asks questions about the same themes I've experienced and I remember that they are also on a journey of learning, though perhaps not as far along as me, and that perhaps I can continue to speak on these themes helpfully...

This week it's grief. On Tuesday, part of my job was to write a short obituary-like piece that was used in our mission's social media yesterday. Just doing my job, but it's about someone about my age who I knew, someone I had lunch with in Brisbane last home assignment, someone whose daughter is around the age of my kids, someone who comes from the same part of the world that I do, and who was a missionary like me. Last night we attended his funeral (online). [Link to the post I wrote is here.]

In 25+ years of service more than half-a-dozen of our missionary colleagues have died (i.e. pre-retirement age, currently in ministry when they first became ill), mostly because of cancer. It's always a shock and the questions arise: Why Lord? Why now Lord?

Even if we didn't know some of those colleagues really well, it's still a shock and a grief, and I'm often surprised by how much I get affected by each one.

But I've come to understand that the missionary life is laden with a lot of other grief, so many goodbyes and losses, many more than most people encounter this early in their lives. And that grief piles up.

This week I Googled "missionary grief" and this nine-page article came up in my browser: https://www.emsweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/OB_Winter_2014.pdf I've yet to steel myself to read the whole thing (I'm pretty busy this week and also not good at reading longer articles on my computer), but these points from it grabbed my attention:

"HIDDEN LOSSES are crippling many on the missionary field and they don’t even know how to identify where it all began."

The article lists typical losses missionaries experience when they first go to the field, and, I would argue, ongoing losses:

• language (the ability to communicate)
• identity
• a place in society
• life skills
• sense of safety (less in Japan)
• family (knowing the wider family and seeing them regularly, and these goodbyes happen again and again)
• friends
• intellectual and professional peers
• places (e.g. favourite places in home country)
• things (e.g. favourite foods, familiar furniture, house)
• pets
• smells (familiar scents from home country)

Many of the above are "hidden" losses, many of these we often don't identify or notice. 

The difficulty with many of the losses of a missionary life is that there is no funeral, no socially acceptable way to acknowledge our loss. And indeed, it might even seem that we don't have permission to admit that we are grieving these things.

I am attentive when a younger colleague mentions a sadness that is in the list above, because I know that it is not going to get any easier, if they continue to work as a missionary. 

Life happens at a fast pace and missionaries make massive transitions that involve multiple griefs all at once, there is often simply a lack of time and emotional energy to process. As well as that, we live life amidst other missionaries who are also experience more transition than the average person. We build a friendship with a colleague at language school and they graduate and move to another part of the country. We build another friendship with a colleague who lives near our place of service and they go on home assignment, or we do and when we get back, they have moved somewhere else. No one is having a "funeral" about these losses; we sometimes get to say goodbyes, but they are hard to do again and again and again.

Another quote from the article, sorry it's a bit long:

“Ambiguous grief” is a response to “an unclear loss that defies closure.” This barrier stems . . . hidden losses. The losses are hard to acknowledge and therefore the response of grief is muted.  The groundbreaking work of Dr. Pauline Boss in her book entitled Loss, Trauma, and Resilience; Therapeutic Work with Ambiguous Loss is very helpful in understanding this barrier. Dr. Boss explains, “…ambiguous loss is the most stressful kind of loss. It defies resolution and creates long-term confusion…. With death there is an official certification of loss, and mourning rituals allow one to say goodbye. With ambiguous loss, none of these markers exists. The persisting ambiguity blocks cognition, coping, and meaning making and freezes the grief process.” Ambiguous grief is born from a loss that is often hard to recognize, therefore it is also hard to resolve. In order to overcome this barrier to grief we must make a concerted effort to name these hidden losses so that the grief process can be experienced.

As you get older you accumulate grief. I see this in older people—they're gradually losing their friends, parents and siblings, their professions, and their strength and health—it takes a toll. Missionaries accumulate grief at a faster pace, though:

 Accumulated grief is usually a result of ignoring many small losses and allowing them to build up. . . . Although the losses many missionaries experience may seem trivial and small, much like the paper cut, their accumulated effect cannot and should not be ignored.  (also from the above linked article)

Hence, I'm writing here today about grief. Because I have accumulated a lot of small paper cuts, and larger grief-wounds over the years and a death like we experienced in our community last week hits deeply. It's easy to rush into the next thing (my work on the magazine and in social media hasn't stopped, the emails coming across my desk haven't stopped, I still have a dental check up today and a seminar to attend this evening). But I'm instead taking a moment today to stop and process my thoughts by writing.

To newer missionaries and those who are headed that way: I don't want to discourage you. This calling we've received is hard, but it's not impossible. Indeed, the text that Steve chose for his funeral was Joshua 1:1–11. These are a bunch of instructions from God to Joshua, just after the death of Moses. He uses this phrase, or similar words three number of times: "be strong and courageous". Why? Because "I [God] will never leave you nor forsake you" (said explicitly twice in the passage, but also implied in other words multiple times). Because our God is great and has promised to be with us wherever we are, because he's called us into this work—he will provide all we need, he will be all we need. Fix your eyes on him, again, and again.

To those who have been around longer and are feeling this deeply. Take some time. Reach out to someone to talk it through. Journal. Take a walk. Acknowledge this accumulated grief.

To people who pray for missionaries: Keep praying. Let them know you are praying for them. See if there's anything practical you can do to help one of them. Remember when you see them that they are carrying some accumulated grief, and ask God how you can help. Ask good questions.

Endings

Funerals seem to be a bit of a theme running through this week. No, no one close to me has died, but we know about three separate people who have died in the last couple of weeks in three different countries. They are all parents of friends or colleagues.

But the other "funereal" theme that's creeping into our lives is something I've referred to in the past as a "living funeral". Something we've been the subject of every time we've made an international move in the last 22 ½ years (which is ten times now, by my calculations). Here are a couple of quotes from a blog post I wrote in 2015:

It happens when you're leaving. Everyone talks to you about leaving. It can be like a living funeral. The collective effect of all these conversations is sadness. Friends also stop talking to you in quite the same way, they don't want to talk about future events that you won't be a part of, so you are gradually eased to the edge of the community.

I guess it helps everyone cope with the emotions associated with parting with friends, but it isn't nice. 

And—

On Thursday afternoon in the space of a couple of hours I had multiple conversations about us leaving. It just left me feeling empty and sad.

This week I was part of a two-hour meeting, a committee that helps to oversee the social media work I do for our mission. If I had a dollar for each time something like the phrase "when Wendy goes on home assignment", I'd be able to shout a couple of friends coffee (the Australian phrase for "pay for other's food/drink"). They were doing some planning for the future and I felt a bit powerless, knowing I wouldn't be around to help them do what they want to do, and that I'm not sure how they're going to manage it. 

I'm encouraged, however, by what an older friend said to me on Tuesday, that sometimes we need to put a "ball" down and see who/how/if it gets picked up again. I'm about to put a lot of balls down, and it's not easy, but it needs to be done.

The other funereal thing has been downsizing: disposing of some of our worldly goods. Though in general that's making me happy, not sad! There are things leaving our house almost daily (or being earmarked to leave with a certain person). This is one thing that seems far more common in the missionary community than in other communities: the tradition of giving away your stuff (with or without money changing hands).

We’re giving away this beautiful  5 L Corning Ware
casserole dish, one of many things that has been
culled from our household goods.

So, back to funerals. At least our withdrawal is a planned one, an expected one (this home assignment date has been in the schedule for more than five years, maybe as many as eight). We do get to say goodbye and we hope that for many it’s a “see you later” farewell. I need to keep reminding myself, I should be thankful for that!

And when thinking about endings, this song is a good one to refocus us on what’s important and who is eternal and wise:  https://youtu.be/ara0P_pUMO4

 

"Come forth"

We had a rough week last week. I can't share the details—it's not my story to tell—but it involved the death of someone we knew. I've been a bit lost for words, but I did know that, in the midst of my current busy-ness I needed to find time and space to think about this loss and that writing is one way that I do that. So I took some time on Monday to go to a park and think about the week that's past (when the weather was warm and the rest of my family were home on a long weekend). But the writing I did then is not something I can share here.

Monday was an unusually spring-like day, even
if many of the trees are still leafless.

But I also remembered that I'd decided to work my way through a book called Come Closer by writing about one verse a month (corresponding to one chapter in the book). And it turns out that the next chapter in that book is about death. About the story of Lazarus' resurrection:

Jesus said, "Lazarus, come forth" (John 11:43.)

Oh, don't we all wish that the Lord would say that for loved ones we've lost? We groan in this death and pain-marred world.

We don't want it in our lives, we try to deny that it happens. But can we allow it to turn our eyes to the truth? That we were made for Eden, a perfect world, with no sin or death. That our longings for an unmarred world are really longing for that, and for life everlasting in heaven. Read God's words:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new. (Revelations 21:3–5 ESV)

Right now we don't know the answer to the "Whys?" And that's not comfortable. But for those of us who follow the God of the Bible, we do know that there is a future in which all of this pain will be gone. And for those who have gone before us, that their pain is now all in the past. That is something to hold on to, even as we mourn their loss to us.

I'm also left with the question, like last time I wrote on this "Come" series—how can I live abundant life now, even as I get weighed down by the griefs of this life? I think one key is found in one of my favourite passages. Looking to Jesus—

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that
you may not grow weary or fainthearted. (Hebrews 12:1–3 ESV)

Music played a part in my reflections at the park on Monday. Here's one song I missed, though:

 

 

Another friend passes away

In August an American friend and fellow missionary passed away in Japan from a brain cancer. She'd battled it for nearly two years (I wrote about praying for her in this post in 2016). She and her husband were long-term members of the CAJ community, and also our Japanese church. She'd taught our boys and served us in the library many times. We watched the memorial service on our computer.

Last week another important person in our lives passed away from cancer. Carole was our pastor's wife at our church in Australia in the late '90s. She and her husband did pre-marriage counselling with us, and Geoff married us and baptised our eldest son in his strong Irish brogue. 

When I met them in Japan in 2012.

They were a great encouragement when we were just taking baby steps towards becoming missionaries. We served on the church's missions committee together and my husband served with Geoff in leadership at the church. During that period they also had a near-fatal accident and I visited Geoff in the spinal injuries ward. Then later they themselves came to Japan as short-term missionaries, teaching English in a rural church. 

They were always encouraging us and standing behind us as we continued on this missionary journey. They were always full of questions and keen to know how we really were. I wrote here about when I met up with them in Japan when they were visiting in 2012.

Carole was a bright, lively spark. There was never a quiet moment when you were having a conversation with her—her words often tumbled over one another like a waterfall. When they first arrived in Australia from Ireland (1996) it was difficult to understand her Irish accent spoken at quite a rate. It's hard to imagine that spark has now been snuffed out...at least on this earth. I'm sure that she's now livening heaven with her beautiful enthusiasm and passion.

As I write, David is at her memorial service. Another funeral I couldn't attend! The timing of it conflicted with school pick-up and having called in one favour from a friend for that yesterday (we had a work-commitment), didn't feel like I could do it again today. 

In April I wrote a poem called "Dates" that I published here on my blog. The final stanza read:

There is no end, indeed, on this sad earth. 

The dates keep piling up and I can no longer keep up

The worst are the farewells that can only be marked as "thank you for what you were".

But I rejoice for those who've been called heavenward, for as Paul says in Philippians 3:

But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the powerthat enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body (vv.20 & 21 NIV).

Carole and Lois were both ladies who lived significant portions of their lives in countries that they weren't born in. Their true citizenship, however, was in heaven. They've truly, finally, gone home. We miss them, but we also must be happy for them, for they are now in a place that has no "death, mourning, crying, or pain" (Rev. 21:4 NIV).

The gift of being able to be present

People come and go in our lives; celebrations happen, then are over;
time moves relentlessly onwards. It is good to sit, sometimes, and ponder.
Being able to be present at key events in loved-ones lives is a gift I no
longer overlook.

Yesterday I attended a memorial service for the Japanese missionary, Mr I, from our mission who died in April. At the time his funeral was held in Nagoya, only two days after he passed away. Yesterday they held a memorial service in Tokyo where and when many others could attend. I'd never met the man personally, only been at a meeting where he spoke, but I was asked to go as the pianist for the performance of "For the Cause" that OMF missionaries had been invited to perform.

OMF is an interesting mission in that many of the countries we work in also send missionaries to other places. That is the case in Japan. We have both a "home" office and a "field" office in the same building. Mr I and his family had been serving in another East Asian country, but battled his cancer in Japan. The OMFers who performed were from a variety of homesides, some sent to Japan, others sent from Japan.

What particularly struck me were the missionaries who came from overseas to this memorial service. They didn't come far, not as far as the Scottish pastor who flew over when our field director died, but they came. These were colleagues of Mr I, people who'd served with him overseas.

I was struck because there are a number of funerals I haven't been able to attend because of distance. During the 17 ½ years David and I have been in Japan four of our OMF Japan colleagues have died (if my count is right). All were cancer-related. That's not counting relatives and friends who have died. Often distance or finances or schedules prevent us from being present. It isn't easy. Funerals and memorial services have a place in the grieving process and when you can't go to one, there is no space to remember that person in community with others who knew them. Life moves on at a rapid space as if nothing happened, as if the world wasn't the poorer for the passing away of someone. 

It's a source of grief for missionaries as we miss many key events in the lives of those we care for, including funerals, but also births, birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, etc. As our circles are widened, by serving with people from many different nations, we "acquire" more people we care about and more events that we cannot be a part of.

So, I'm simply grateful that I could, in a small way, help others grieve yesterday. And in a similar way to how weddings I've attended after I myself was a married woman made me reminisce about my own wedding, this memorial service made me reflective about all the funerals that I've missed over the years. Being able to be present is easily overlooked as a gift to be treasured.

How to pray when life is hard

We prayed for nearly a year for our missionary colleague who died just over two weeks ago, as he struggled with the ups and downs of cancer. Our prayers strayed wildly between two possible outcomes of this: that God would heal him or that God would take him home to heaven. Of course our hearts were more in the first prayer than the second, but we prayed them both nonetheless, knowing that obedience was important.

Only a week or so before our colleague passed away I was reading a portion of Timothy Keller's book, Prayer. I mustn't have been near my computer, because I typed all of the below quotes on my iPhone. I think they're worth sharing now, for while that particular situation is now resolved (we know the answer to our prayer) and now we pray for his family and the witness he left behind, while we live on this aching earth we're going to continue to encounter people dying. More and more as we age.

A quick aside about the witness our colleague left behind. There were two parts to his funeral. The public part was all in Japanese and there were something like 60 Japanese teenagers there. They were friends and soccer team-mates of our colleague's two younger sons. The gospel was clearly proclaimed. We continue to pray for these seeds that were sown in a way that never would have been possible if God had answered our prayer for our colleague's healing here on this earth.

Nevertheless, it is good to know how to pray in these situations. Keller sheds some light on the situation by looking at Augustine's teaching on prayer:

Even the most godly Christian can't be sure what to ask for when we are enduring difficulties and suffering. "Tribulations . . . may do us good . . . and yet because they are hard and painful . . . we pray . . . that they may be removed from us." Should we pray, then, for a change in circumstances or just for strength to endure them? Augustine points to Jesus' own prayer in Gethsemane, which was perfectly balanced between honest desire . . . and submission to God" p. 87, 88.

And further on, he makes some startling statements about prayer: 

Augustine . . . "argues that not only can we grow in prayer in spite of these difficulties but because of them. He concludes his letter [to a young widow who'd lost almost everything in the sacking of Rome in 410AD] by asking his friend, "Now what makes this work [of prayer] specially suitable to widows but their bereaved and desolate condition?" Should a widow not, he asked, "commit her widowhood, so to speak, to her God as her shield in continual and most fervent prayer?" What a remarkable statement. Her sufferings were her "shield"—they defended her from the illusion of self-sufficiency and blindness that harden the heart, and they opened the way for the rich, passionate prayer life that could bring peace in any circumstance. He calls her to embrace the situation and learn to pray" p 88.

Most of us aren't widows, but shouldn't we too turn our griefs, our sufferings, into a shield, one that helps us pray all the more fervently and protects us from going astray in our own strength?

Difficult news to get our heads around

I'm feeling overwhelmed by a number of things, but the biggest is that we've had two missionaries in Japan die from cancer in the last two days (one from Scotland, our Field Director, and one from Japan who was working in another part of Asia). 

As I try to put thoughts down, my words are a shambles of bits and pieces, please also excuse my lack of clarity. Whatever I put down seems to be inadequate. I'd like to be profound, but the case is simply that we don't understand. It makes no sense to our mortal minds. I wish I could be a fly on the wall in heaven today as these two men figure out what was going on, why they've been called to heaven so early and left those who loved them behind.

What I can say is that my emotions are mixed. On the one hand I feel a bit like David when his first child with Bathsheba died (2 Samuel 12:15-23). He pleaded with the Lord for this life of his child while he was ill so much so that his attendants were afraid to tell him when the child died, however David cleaned himself up and appeared to be "normal" again:

22 He answered, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.’ 23 But now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him,but he will not return to me.”

So, in a way, it is a relief that we now know these men are with Jesus. Yes they will be missed and we still don't understand why they had to die in the midst of fruitful ministry, but the end of the waiting period is over. I hope that doesn't sound callous, if it does, please keep reading.

I feel like the grieving has continued on several levels for months, but especially these last four weeks or so. Obviously when we first heard last year it was a shock and we've prayed ever since. Then in February things were looking up, it looked like the stem-cell transplant had taken for our field director, but in late March the news was bad again and continued that way.

Periodically we heard news that cheered our hearts. Our Field Director's wife (my OMF line manager) was particularly good at pointing out all the good that God was doing in the midst of this horrible situation. For example, after they knew there was no earthly way to recover from this they had a few weeks to say all they needed to say to one another before he went to heaven.

It is only just over two years since another OMF missionary in his 50s died from cancer. I wrote about that here. On top of that a teacher from CAJ is also battling what looks like terminal cancer and less than two years ago another missionary in the CAJ community also died from cancer. It feels like an epidemic and it's easy to give in to fear, but I know our Lord doesn't want that. Sometimes it seems hard enough that we've been called to minister in a land that shows little fruit, but this too? 

It is scary to me, putting this down in black and white with the intention to hit "publish" when I'm done. However the psalms give me courage. Psalm 42 is a good one to dwell on:

vs 3 My tears have been my food
    day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
    “Where is your God?”

vs 5 Why, my soul, are you downcast?

    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God. (NIV)

The night before my birthday early this month we received what turned out to be the last email from our Field Director. Here is a portion of what he wrote:

I challenge you to keep on with the good work and ministries you are engaged with in Japan in the hope that many will turn to Jesus and be built up in Him. 

We are not a people without hope. We have found the words of one of the verses of Stuart Townend’s song very helpful in recent days:

There is a hope that lifts my weary head, 

A consolation strong against despair,

That when the world has plunged my in its deepest pit,

I find the Saviour there! 

And the second half of the first verse:

I stand in Christ, with sins forgiven;

And Christ in me, the hope of heaven!

My highest calling and my deepest joy,

To make His will my home. 

May God be glorified in all things.  We all have the hope that one day we will meet again in a better place.

Your brother in Christ.

Here's the whole song: 

Here are the lyrics of the whole song:

There is a hope that burns within my heart 

That gives me strength for every passing day

A glimpse of glory now revealed in meagre part

Yet drives all doubt away

I stand in Christ with sins forgiven

And Christ in me the hope of heaven

My highest calling and my deepest joy

To make His will my home.

There is a hope that lifts my weary head

A consolation strong against despair

That when the world has plunged me in its deepest pit

I find the Saviour there

Through present sufferings future's fear

He whispers courage in my ear

For I am safe in everlasting arms

And they will lead me home.
There is a hope that stands the test of time

That lifts my eyes beyond the beckoning grave

To see the matchless beauty of a day divine

When I behold His face

When sufferings cease and sorrows die

And every longing satisfied

Then joy unspeakable will flood my soul

For I am truly home

Indeed, our colleagues are now truly home. And those of us left behind who still suffer, will have courage whispered in our ears and hope that lifts our weary heads.