You'll Get Through This Part 7

John Glenn knows how to fly a fighter jet. He completed fifty-nine missions in World War II and ninety in the Korean War. He knows how to fly fast. He was the first pilot to average supersonic speed on a transcontinental flight. He knows how to fly into outer s.p.a.ce. In 1962 he became the first American to orbit the earth.1 John Glenn knows how to win elections. He was a United States senator from 1974 to 1999.

John Glenn can do much. Give speeches, lead committees, inspire audiences, and write books. Yet for all his accomplishments, there is one skill he never mastered. He never learned to tell his wife good-bye.

The two met when they were toddlers and grew up together in New Concord, Ohio. Though John went on to achieve national fame, he would tell you that the true hero of the family is the girl he married in 1943.

Annie suffered from such severe stuttering that 85 percent of her efforts to speak fell short. She couldn't talk on the phone, order food in a restaurant, or give verbal instructions to a taxi driver. The idea of requesting help in a department store intimidated her. She would wander the aisles, reluctant to speak. She feared the possibility of a family crisis because she didn't know if she could make the 911 call.

Hence the difficulty with good-bye. John couldn't bear the thought of separation. So the two developed a code. Each time he was deployed on a mission or called to travel, the couple bid each other farewell the same way. "I'm just going down to the corner store to get a pack of gum," he would say. "Don't be long," she'd reply. And off he would go to j.a.pan, Korea, or outer s.p.a.ce.

Over the years Annie's speech improved. Intense therapy clarified her enunciation skills and improved her confidence. Even so, good-bye was the one word the couple could not say to each other. In 1998, Senator Glenn became the oldest astronaut in history. He reentered s.p.a.ce aboard the shuttle Discovery. Upon departure he told his wife, "I'm just going down to the corner store to get a pack of gum." This time he gave her a present: a pack of gum. She kept it in a pocket near her heart until he was safely home.2 Good-bye. No one wants to say it. Not the spouse of an astronaut. Not the mom of a soon-to-be preschooler. Not the father of the bride. Not the husband in the convalescent home. Not the wife in the funeral home.

Especially not her. Death is the most difficult good-bye of all. I write these words freshly reminded of the ache of saying good-bye. Our church has had five funerals in the last seven days, from the memorial for a baby to the burial of a ninety-four-year-old friend. The sorrow took its toll on me. I found myself moping about, sad. I chided myself, Come on, Max. Get over it. Death is a natural part of living.

Then I self-corrected. No, it isn't. Birth is. Breathing is. Belly laughs, big hugs, and bedtime kisses are. But death? We were not made to say good-bye. G.o.d's original plan had no farewell-no final breath, day, or heartbeat.

Death is the interloper, the intruder, the stick-figure sketch in the Louvre. It doesn't fit. Why would G.o.d give a fishing buddy and then take him? Fill a crib and then empty it? No matter how you frame it, good-bye doesn't feel right.

Jacob and Joseph lived beneath the shadow of good-bye. When the brothers lied about Joseph's death, they gave Jacob a blood-soaked tunic. A wild beast dragged the body away, they implied. Jacob collapsed in sorrow. "Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days" (Gen. 37:34 NIV).

Jacob wept until the tears turned to brine, until his soul shriveled. The two people he loved the most were gone. Rachel dead. Joseph dead. Jacob, it seems, died. "All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. 'No,' he said, 'in mourning will I go down to the grave to my son.' So his father wept for him" (v. 35 NIV).

Joseph lived with the same sorrow. Two decades pa.s.sed. No word from home. Birthdays, holidays, harvest days. Jacob was never far from his thoughts.

The moment Joseph revealed his ident.i.ty to his brothers, he asked, "I am Joseph; does my father still live?" (45:3).

Question number one: "How's Dad?" Priority number one: a family reunion. Joseph told his brothers to saddle up, ship out, and come back with the entire family.

He supplied them with provisions for the journey. And he gave each of them new clothes-but to Benjamin he gave five changes of clothes and three hundred pieces of silver! He sent his father ten donkeys loaded with the good things of Egypt, and ten donkeys loaded with grain and all kinds of other food to be eaten on his journey. So he sent his brothers off, and as they left, he called after them, "Don't quarrel along the way!" And they left Egypt and returned to their father, Jacob, in the land of Canaan. (vv. 2125 NLT) Jacob's boys returned to Canaan in style. Gone were the shabby robes and emaciated donkeys. They drove brand-new pickup trucks packed with gifts. They wore leather jackets and alligator skin boots. Their wives and kids spotted them on the horizon. "You're back! You're back!" Hugs and backslaps all around.

Jacob emerged from a tent. A rush of hair, long and silver, reached his shoulders. Stooped back. Face leathery, like rawhide. He squinted at the sun-kissed sight of his sons and all the plunder. He was just about to ask where they stole the stuff when one of them blurted, "'Joseph is still alive, and he is governor over all the land of Egypt.' And Jacob's heart stood still, because he did not believe them" (v. 26).

The old man grabbed his chest. He had to sit down. Leah brought him some water and glared at the sons as if to say they had better not be playing a joke on their father. But this was no trick. "When they told him all the words which Joseph had said to them, and when he saw the carts which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived" (v. 27).

Sadness had sapped the last drop of joy out of Jacob. Yet when the sons told him what Joseph had said, how he had asked about Jacob, how he had called them to Egypt, Jacob's spirit revived. He looked at the prima facie evidence of carts and clothes. He looked at the confirming smiles and nods of his sons, and for the first time in more than twenty years, the old patriarch began to believe he would see his son again.

His eyes began to sparkle, and his shoulders straightened. "Then Israel said, 'It is enough. Joseph my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die'" (v. 28). Yes, the narrator calls Jacob by his other name (Gen. 32:28). The promise of a family reunion can do this. It changes us. From sad to seeking. From lonely to longing. From hermit to pilgrim. From Jacob (the heel grabber) to Israel (prince of G.o.d).

"So Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices to the G.o.d of his father Isaac" (46:1). Jacob was 130 years old by this point. Hardly a spring chicken. He had a hitch in his "getalong," an ache in his joints. But nothing was going to keep him from his son. He took his staff in hand and issued the command: "Load 'em up! We are headed to Egypt."

The text goes to wide-angle at this point, and we are given an aerial view of the entire clan in migration. By virtue of a census, the narrator mentions each family member by name. The sons, the wives, the children. No one left out. The whole gang of seventy made the trip.

And what a trip it was. Pyramids. Palaces. Irrigated farms. Silos. They had never seen such sights. Then the moment they'd been waiting for: a wide flank of royalty appeared on the horizon. Chariots, horses, and the Imperial Guard.

As the entourage drew near, Jacob leaned forward to get a better glimpse of the man in the center chariot. When he saw his face, Jacob whispered, "Joseph, my son."

Across the distance Joseph leaned forward in his chariot. He told his driver to slap the horse. When the two groups met on the flat of the plain, the prince didn't hesitate. He bounded out of his chariot and ran in the direction of his father. "The moment Joseph saw him, he threw himself on his neck and wept" (v. 29 MSG).

Gone were the formalities. Forgotten were the proprieties. Joseph buried his face in the crook of his father's shoulder. "He wept a long time" (v. 29 MSG). As tears moistened the robe of his father, both men resolved that they would never say good-bye to each other again.

Good-bye. For some of you this word is the challenge of your life. To get through this is to get through raging loneliness, strength-draining grief. You sleep alone in a double bed. You walk the hallways of a silent house. You catch yourself calling out his name or reaching for her hand. As with Jacob, the separation has exhausted your spirit. You feel quarantined, isolated. The rest of the world has moved on; you ache to do the same. But you can't; you can't say good-bye.

If you can't, take heart. G.o.d has served notice. All farewells are on the clock. They are filtering like grains of sand through an hourgla.s.s. If heaven's throne room has a calendar, one day is circled in red and highlighted in yellow. G.o.d has decreed a family reunion.

The Master himself will give the command. Archangel thunder! G.o.d's trumpet blast! He'll come down from heaven and the dead in Christ will rise-they'll go first. Then the rest of us who are still alive at the time will be caught up with them into the clouds to meet the Master. Oh, we'll be walking on air! And then there will be one huge family reunion with the Master. So rea.s.sure one another with these words. (1 Thess. 4:1618 MSG) This day will be no small day. It will be the Great Day. The archangel will inaugurate it with a trumpet blast. Thousands and thousands of angels will appear in the sky (Jude 1415). Cemeteries and seas will give up their dead. "Christ . . . will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him" (Heb. 9:28 ESV).

His coming will be the only event witnessed by all humanity. "Every eye will see Him" (Rev. 1:7). Moses will be watching. Napoleon's head will turn. The eyes of Martin Luther and Christopher Columbus will widen. The wicked despot of hades. The white-robed martyr of paradise. From Adam to the baby born as the trumpet blares, everyone will witness the moment.

Not everyone will want the moment, however. "Unready people all over the world . . . will raise a huge lament as they watch the Son of Man blazing out of heaven" (Matt. 24:30 MSG). Just as the book of Genesis lists the family of Jacob, the Book of Life lists the family of G.o.d. He will call the name of every person who accepted his invitation. He will honor the request of those who refused him and dismiss them for eternity. Then he will bless the desire of those who accepted him and gather them for a family reunion.

What a reunion it will be. "He will wipe every tear from their eyes" (Rev. 21:4 NIV). His first action will be to rub a thumb across the cheek of every child as if to say, "There, there . . . no more tears." This long journey will come to an end. You will see him.

And you will see them. Isn't this our hope? "There will be one huge family reunion with the Master. So rea.s.sure one another with these words" (1 Thess. 4:1718 MSG).

Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife, Mary Beth, are banking on this promise. In May 2008 their beautiful five-year-old daughter was killed in an automobile accident. Since Steven is an internationally known and beloved Christian singer, words of support and concern poured in from all over the globe. Letters, e-mails, phone calls. The Chapmans were deluged by messages of kindness. One conversation in particular gave Steven strength. Pastor Greg Laurie, who had lost a son in an auto accident, told Steven, "Remember, your future with Maria is infinitely greater than your past with her."3 Death seems to take so much. We bury not just a body but the wedding that never happened, the golden years we never knew. We bury dreams. But in heaven these dreams will come true. G.o.d has promised a "restoration of all things" (Acts 3:21 ASV). "All things" includes all relationships.

Colton Burpo was only four years old when he survived an emergency appendectomy. His parents were overjoyed at his survival. But they were stunned at his stories. Over the next few months Colton talked of his visit to heaven. He described exactly what his parents were doing during the surgery and told stories of people he had met in heaven-people he had never met on earth or been told about. In the book Heaven Is for Real, Colton's father relates the moment that the four-year-old boy told his mom, "You had a baby die in your tummy, didn't you?"

The parents had never mentioned the miscarriage to their son. He was too young to process it. Emotion filled his mother's face.

"Who told you I had a baby die in my tummy?" Sonja said, her tone serious.

"She did, Mommy. She said she died in your tummy." . . .

A bit nervously, Colton . . . faced his mom again, this time more warily. "It's okay, Mommy," he said. "She's okay. G.o.d adopted her."

Sonja slid off the couch and knelt down in front of Colton so that she could look him in the eyes. "Don't you mean Jesus adopted her?" she said.

"No, Mommy. His Dad did!" . . .

Sonja's eyes lit up, and she asked, "What was her name? What was the little girl's name?"

. . . "She doesn't have a name. You guys didn't name her."

The parents were stunned. There is no way Colton would have known this.

But he had one more memory. He shared it before he went out to play: "Yeah, she said she just can't wait for you and Daddy to get to heaven."4 Someone in heaven is saying the same words about you. Your grandpa? Aunt? Your child? They are looking toward the day when G.o.d's family is back together. Shouldn't we do the same? "Since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses . . . let us run with endurance the race that G.o.d has set before us" (Heb. 12:1 NLT). High above us there is a crowd of witnesses. They are the Abrahams, Jacobs, and Josephs from all generations and nations. They have completed their own events and now witness the races of their spiritual, if not physical, descendants. Listen carefully, the pa.s.sage compels, and you will hear a mult.i.tude of G.o.d's children urging you on. "Run!" they shout. "Run! You'll get through this!"

Our final home will hear no good-byes. We will speak of the Good Book and remember good faith, but good-bye? Gone forever.

Let the promise change you. From sagging to seeking, from mournful to hopeful. From dwellers in the land of good-bye to a heaven of h.e.l.los. The Prince has decreed a homecoming. Let's take our staffs and travel in his direction.

CHAPTER 14.

Keep Calm

and Carry On

See the hole in the skyline?"

I leaned forward and followed the finger of the driver. He was a rotund guy named Frank. Neck too big for his collar, hands too thick to wrap around the steering wheel. He pointed through the windshield at the forest of buildings called Lower Manhattan.

"The towers used to sit right there."

He could tell that I couldn't see the spot.

"See the hole to the left of the one with the spire? Three days ago that was the World Trade Center. I looked at it each day as I came over the bridge. It was a powerful sight. The first morning I entered the city and saw no towers, I called my wife and cried."

To reach the epicenter of activity, we drove through layers of inactivity. Empty ambulances lined the road. Loved ones mingled outside the Family Care Center, where the USNS Comfort, a hospital ship, sat docked. Everyone waited. But each pa.s.sing second took with it a grain of hope.

Three checkpoints later we parked the car and walked the final half mile. A week earlier this road had been full of flannel suits, cell phones, and market quotes. But on this day the sidewalk was muddy, and the air was thick with smoke. I decided not to think about what I was inhaling.

I didn't expect the fires. In spite of the rain and truckloads of water, flames still danced. I didn't antic.i.p.ate the adjoining damage. Neighboring buildings were devastated. Intact windows were rare. The next-door Marriott had been gutted by the c.o.c.kpit of a jet. Any other day it would have made the cover of a magazine.

But most of all I didn't expect the numbness. Not theirs, not mine. A flank of yellow-suited firemen, some twelve or so in width, marched past us. The same number walked toward us. Shift change. Those coming were grim. Those leaving were more so, faces as steely as the beams that coffined their comrades.

My response wasn't any different. No tears. No lump in the throat. Just numbness. Several thousand people are under there, I told myself. Yet I just stared. The tragedy spoke a language I'd never studied. I half expected-and even more, wanted-to hear someone yell, "Quiet on the set!" and see actors run out of the ruins. But the cranes carried no cameras, just concrete.

Later that night I spoke with an officer who guarded the entrance to the Family Care Center. He was posted next to the plywood wall of photos-the wailing wall, of sorts-on which relatives had tacked pictures and hopes. I asked him to describe the expressions on the faces of the people who had come to look at the pictures.

"Blank," he said. "Blank."

"They don't cry?"

"They don't cry."

"And you, have you cried?"

"Not yet. I just push it in."

Disbelief, for many, was the drug of choice.

We can relate. Calamities can leave us off balance and confused.

Consider the crisis of Joseph's generation. "Now there was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very severe, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished because of the famine" (Gen. 47:13).

During the time Joseph was struggling to reconcile with his brothers, he was also navigating a catastrophe. It had been two years since the last drop of rain. The sky was endlessly blue. The sun relentlessly hot. Animal carca.s.ses littered the ground, and no hope appeared on the horizon. The land was a dust bowl. No rain meant no farming. No farming meant no food. When people appealed to Pharaoh for help, he said, "Go to Joseph; whatever he says to you, do" (41:55).

Joseph faced a calamity on a global scale.

Yet contrast the description of the problem with the outcome. Years pa.s.sed, and the people told Joseph, "You have saved our lives; let us find favor in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh's servants" (47:25).

The people remained calm. A society that was ripe for bedlam actually thanked the government rather than attacked it. Makes a person wonder if Joseph ever taught a course in crisis management. If he did, he included the words he told his brothers: "G.o.d sent me before you to preserve life. For these two years the famine has been in the land, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. And G.o.d sent me before you" (45:57).

Joseph began and ended his crisis a.s.sessment with references to G.o.d. G.o.d preceded the famine. G.o.d would outlive the famine. G.o.d was all over the famine. "G.o.d . . . famine . . . G.o.d."

How would you describe your crisis?

"The economy . . . the economy . . . the economy . . . the economy."

"The divorce . . . divorce . . . divorce . . . divorce."

"Cranky spouse . . . cranky spouse . . . cranky spouse . . . cranky spouse."

Do you recite your woes more naturally than you do heaven's strength? If so, no wonder life is tough. You're a.s.suming G.o.d isn't in this crisis.

He is. Even a famine was fair game for G.o.d's purpose.

I enjoyed breakfast recently with a friend. Most of our talk revolved around the health of his fourteen-year-old son. Seven years ago a tumor was found behind the boy's spleen. The discovery led to several months of strenuous prayer and chemotherapy. The son recovered. He is now playing high school football, and the cancer clinic is a distant memory.

The discovery of the tumor was the part of the story I found fascinating. When the boy was seven years old, he was horsing around with his cousins. One of them accidentally kicked him in the stomach. Acute pain led to a hospital visit. An alert doctor requested a series of tests. And the tests led the surgeon to discover and remove the tumor. After the cancer was removed, the father asked the physician how long the tumor had been present. Although it was impossible to know with certainty, the form and size of the tumor indicated it was no more than two or three days old.

"So," I said, "G.o.d used a kick in the gut to get your boy into treatment."

Then there is the story of Isabel. She spent the first three and a half years of her life in a Nicaraguan orphanage. No mother, no father. No promise of either. With all orphans, odds of adoption diminish with time. Every pa.s.sing month decreased Isabel's chance of being placed in a home.

And then a door slammed on her finger. She was following the other children into the yard to play when a screen door closed on her hand. Pain shot up her arm, and her scream echoed across the playground. Question: Why would G.o.d let this happen? Why would a benevolent, omnipotent G.o.d permit an innocent girl with more than her share of challenges to feel additional pain?

Might he be calling for the attention of Ryan Schnoke, the American would-be father who was sitting in the playroom nearby? He and his wife, Cristina, had been trying to adopt a child for months. No other adult was around to help Isabel, so Ryan walked over, picked her up, and comforted her.

Several months later when Ryan and Cristina were close to giving up, Ryan remembered Isabel and resolved to try one more time. This time the adoption succeeded. Little Isabel is growing up in a happy, healthy home.

A kick in the gut?

A finger in the door?

G.o.d doesn't manufacture pain, but he certainly puts it to use. "G.o.d . . . is the blessed controller of all things" (1 Tim. 6:15 PHILLIPS). His ways are higher than ours (Isa. 55:9). His judgments are unsearchable, and his paths are beyond tracing out (Rom. 11:33). We can't always see what G.o.d is doing, but can't we a.s.sume he is up to something good? Joseph did. He a.s.sumed G.o.d was in the crisis.

Then he faced the crisis with a plan. He collected grain during the good years and redistributed it in the bad. When the people ran out of food, he gave it to them in exchange for money, livestock, and property. After he stabilized the economy, he gave the people a lesson in money management. "Give one-fifth to Pharaoh, and use the rest for farming and eating" (Gen. 47:24, author's paraphrase).

The plan could fit on an index card. "Save for seven years. Distribute for seven years. Manage carefully." Could his response have been simpler?