“‘Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise.”
– From the song, Blessings, by Laura Story

(*I wrote this piece last March shortly after my friend, Jennifer, passed away. It’s time to share it now…)

In the past two weeks, as family and friends gathered around Jennifer to be alongside her in her dying and birthing into new life, I have witnessed so many miracles that now I am certain of this: God is present in suffering.

But…though I “knew” that, there was a moment when I didn’t feel it. I didn’t hear God’s voice. All I heard was silence.

Here’s some of my story:

I sat there holding her hand. Jennifer was still lucid and having a hard time. I knew that I couldn’t “do” anything about her pain but I could abide with her in her struggle. I kept holding her hand, stroking her arm, whispering in her ear, being quiet, and just being there.

I watched her loved ones struggling – all in our own ways. I saw the nurse coming in and out. I saw friends come and go.

As I held her hand, as I watched her labored breathing, as I knew death was imminent, I asked inside my own heart, “God, where are you?”

And I heard nothing.

I didn’t see God. I didn’t feel God.

God was silent.

There was only the sound of the machines in Jennifer’s room, her cries, cries of others, her labored breathing.

At one point, when I was sitting right next to her, Jennifer opened her eyes, she moaned, and though I won’t share the particulars of what she said, she was struggling and asking me a direct question.

In moments like this – when we see someone we love in pain and wanting answers and comfort — there’s the “so very human desire” to not “screw it up.”   We can wonder what is the right thing to say as we struggle ourselves with how to make sense of living and dying. We want to comfort. We have waves of emotions coursing through us. We are afraid of losing everything we love. We feel helpless. The capacity of our human hearts is stretched.

Tears welled up in my eyes. I let my tears fall. I knew not to B.S. her. She never wanted that – in life or in dying. She asked me a question. Somehow (Grace) a deep stillness and peace came over me and I knew to soothe her with the truth I know within me. So I spoke from my heart.

The image of “birthing” came to me. As I stroked Jennifer’s head, I leaned in and whispered in her ear, “Jen, You KNOW childbirth. You birthed your two girls. You know the waves that come in birthing – the waves of doubt, pain, and thinking you can’t go on. And you know what always, always comes: birth. You, Jennifer, are being birthed into God’s arms. These are waves, these are waves. You will be birthed into God’s arms.”

As the words came forth from my mouth, I believed it. Death was like birth. I didn’t know how exactly. But in every fiber of my being, I knew that death is an experience of birthing into something else.

Jen was quiet, holding my hand. “I like that image, Lisa. Yes.”

Then she asked me what I thought heaven was like and what I believe comes next.

Tears streamed down my face and I couldn’t speak.

The irony made me both cry and laugh – of all people in this very moment, I was here — Me – answering this question. “Are you serious, God? ME?” Yes, I have a master’s in theology. Yes, I’m well versed in the Catholic tradition and beliefs. But I am also a practicing yogini and a life-long student of meditation. And I do not believe these all contradict themselves. In fact, for me, the “weaving together” of these has only enriched and deepened my prayer life and faith. I also don’t believe anyone – no religion – has the monopoly on truth. My beliefs tend to align with the mystics – those who are ok with not knowing and reverence this mystery by not trying to know or figure it out or coming up with pat answers.

So, I thought, wouldn’t it be better if someone else answered this – someone who can give her a “Christian” answer?

Yet here I was, ME – Lisa who???????? And I thought, “How am I supposed to give her a comforting answer?!!!”

Inside my heart I called out to God, “God, you know me! I don’t believe anyone or any religion has the monopoly on truth (yes, this is what I really said). What in the heck do I say? I only know the truth within me – ‘truth’ with a lowercase ‘t’!”

And I heard God say, “Lisa, speak that.”

Not from a theological text. Not what I “should” say. Not from the desire within me to make it all better. But from the “God Within ME.”

So I did. I stood up to get closer to her. I let my tears fall and my “lowercase ‘t’ truth” flow.

“Jennifer,” I whispered in her ear, “No one has the monopoly on truth. No one really knows…but you. I believe that heaven is how you have imagined it to be. I believe you are birthed into God’s arms and it is beyond anything we can imagine. I believe that whatever it is, it’s Love. Total, complete Love and Benevolence. I don’t know what ‘happens’ after we die – only that we are held in such Benevolence. We are met with Love.”

I kissed her cheek. She softly smiled and held my hand. She faded in and out of consciousness. I sat back down next to her.

I didn’t know if I had said the “right” thing. I only knew that I spoke so incredibly authentically from the depths of me. A deep peace embodied me.

And that’s the last time we spoke – consciously, verbally.

I watched her struggling to breathe, friends wiping her lips, dear ones coming in and out to be with her.

That night, as I sat with my husband, Brian, after the kiddos were in bed, as I had my phone next to me waiting for a text about Jen, I started to look back at one particular moment that day sitting with Jen.

“Brian,” I said, “There was a moment there holding her hand and I was looking around and all I saw was struggle and death. Jen was struggling. And I asked God, ‘God, where are you?’ And I heard nothing. God was silent, Brian. God was silent.”

I thought of the story of Jesus on the cross, when he cries out, “My God, why have you abandoned me?” And God seems silent.

“Today with Jen, there was an ‘on-the-cross’ moment, Brian,” I said to him.

“I now see that there is a moment in death when we can feel so alone, Brian. It’s like the ‘transitions’ phase of childbirth when you think you can’t do it. When you think you are so alone. You think you want to quit. Everything you have put your faith in seems to be gone. I naively thought that as you get closer to death, somehow you felt God totally with you through it all. But now I see how there is a moment in dying when we feel alone, so utterly and completely alone – when God is silent. There is so much pain, so much suffering. And it dawned on me today that in dying, of course, we have an ‘on-the-cross moment’ and we cry out ‘My God, why have you abandoned me?”

And I went on, “AND THAT’S OK!!! Because, today, I saw how that ‘on-the-cross-moment’ of feeling so alone – when we do not hear, feel, or sense God – it is a wave. Just like in child birth! It is held in the ocean of God’s loving presence. It can be an incredibly strong and powerful, all-consuming wave. But it is a wave.

AND we don’t have to DO anything about it!!! We don’t have to try harder to believe or ‘connect’ with God. We don’t have to be more pious. We don’t even have to surrender!

Because it will be GOD – not us – who carries us from the cross to the resurrection.

God is the Ocean. And that wave of suffering, of feeling alone, it’s a part of the Ocean.”

Brian and I were quiet for a long time. I fell asleep next to him.

For the next few days, there were more waves. And there were more Graces. Graces through song, prayer, meals, embracing and presence. And while I have more stories to share from this experience and from Jen’s presence even after her death, today, this story is what wants to be shared.

I had never thought of death being like birth. It was Grace that filled me with that image – of how Jen knew childbirth and the waves that accompany the birthing process, of how death is like being birthed into a new life and into God’s arms.

Anyone who has experienced an “on the cross moment” knows what it feels like – when you feel so abandoned, so alone, so hopeless. No booming voice from the heavens seems to answer. We can feel weak because we are crying out. We can feel like we aren’t faith-filled because we ask God, “Where in the heck are you?”  And yet, these particular holy hours with Jen showed me that:

• Any form of suffering truly is temporary. It is a wave held in the Divine Ocean.
• It’s ok to cry out! It’s ok to feel abandoned!
• God doesn’t need us to DO anything. We don’t have to be more pious or try harder. We can cry out. Because it is in the crying out that we are turning to the Divine. We are calling on our God. We are surrendering. And it is GOD who holds us and brings us into resurrection.

However you define “God”, however you call on God, however you commune with God; whether God is the hand holding yours, or the sweet voice singing hymns over a dying friend; whether God is the unexplained Grace and Peace that arise in your heart in the middle of it all or the signs you see you in the sky; whether your God is the God of the rote prayers from your childhood or the God you’ve come to know through the quietness of nature – God abides with us.

We may not feel it or sense it. But we can cry out for it! And that crying out from the bleakest of times, from “rock bottom,” from the most hopeless of situations, is prayer. And it is actually a prayer of surrender: “Help me. I don’t know what to do. I am lost. I am hopeless.”

I believe now that we don’t need to do anything. We don’t need to try harder, work harder, or figure it out.

We just call out.

And like in childbirth or in dying, we can ask someone to abide with us. We can ask someone to hold space for us – to remind us that it is holy to cry out, that this suffering – though it seems all consuming and will never end – it is a wave.

And if someone is calling out to us? We don’t have to have the answers. We don’t have to be the god to make it all better. We can surrender to Grace flowing through us – even if we think God is silent. We can hold the sacred space for someone to find themselves breathing through the waves, knowing that it’s GOOD and holy to cry out. We can be a spacious vessel of presence that remembers these “on the cross moments” are held in the Divine Ocean. And death does not have the final word. Benevolence does.

For me, from this holy experience, I know how the Divine is present in it all. I will remember this now, deep in my bones, when I am suffering and feeling so very alone. I will remember this time when I did not feel or sense God. And I will remember that I don’t have to DO anything. I can cry out. I can surrender. I can let go into the wave that arises – and is held and returns to – the Ocean.

And when I can’t remember this and I am struggling, I pray that there is someone alongside me in my “on the cross moment” whose holy, human presence can whisper words of “I am here with you. This is a wave.  You are being birthed. I’ll abide with you.”

Blessings,