Holy Week Lament: Sharon O'Connor (It Is Finished)

In this season that I do not have time to write, this is the idea God gave me:  Ponder and notice again the words I've already written once, keep praying the beads of memory to discover this sacramental life.  This Holy Week I'm sharing again the beautiful mourning stories six of my friends generously shared with us last year.  

An introduction to Holy Week Lament:

Jesus gave us a litany of last words as a Sufferer; we refer to them as the Seven Last Words of Christ.  The deathbed words of the Suffering Servant will serve as our framework for the stories of lament we share here this Holy Week.

I count it a high privilege to know -- at least in small part -- the mourning stories of the dear ones who will share here for seven days.  Their lives walk the path between celebration, yes, but also suffering -- illness, relational disillusionment, anxiety, joblessness, death of loved ones, death of dearly-held dreams.  Their stories have helped form me in my understanding of suffering and I believe they could also encourage you too.  

Brian and I know too many people who have suffered from cancer – including today’s storyteller.  From across the country, we’ve watched her embody beauty in suffering.  It’s because of Sharon and other dear people (including two who passed away since I last posted Sharon's story) that we began praying the audacious words:  God would you cure cancer?!?  If Jesus' death and resurrection means anything at all, doesn't it mean He's defeated dreaded disease? What does Sunday Resurrection look like for Friday sufferers?

In the meantime, good people are in pain.  And we will keep praying, keep hoping that the cry of a dying Christ hell-bent on defeating the curse of death means Good can come from this awful Friday:  It is Finished.

O'Connor family in 2010 before Sharon's first round of chemo

We sat in a medical office after learning the cancer had returned. I was weary of being offered only three medically approved options: surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. The doctor expressed hope that there might be something new to offer patients like me in, say, two years, if this second treatment gets me through that long. If? I grieved leaving the calm waters of being “clear” for the past eleven months. The conversation moved to what the progression of illness would look like if treatment proved unsuccessful. I listened, lamenting over the roadmap of a hypothetical hostile takeover by cancer. We were being thrust out of port towards roiling waves. Treatment choices had to be made.

I had mentally processed life with cancer in rolling tempests of grief. Towering whitecaps, each higher than the last, threatened our frail family boat navigating rough waters. We were scrambling to stay lashed to the mast and not be thrown overboard. My husband Tom and our girls had moved with me from one unsettling and all-consuming physical challenge to another. Just as we would get our sea legs, a new wave of surgery or treatment would threaten to capsize the vessel.

Many times I was too sick to notice how close my loved ones came emotionally to being tossed out of the barge. Our teenage daughters grieved from a distance. It was more bearable for them to spend time anywhere but home. I was often recovering from surgery; present but unable to actively participate in their daily activities. God lovingly provided safe havens for each of them. Tom drove me to treatment each morning. He held my hand in the waiting room then watched me walk through the doors for radiation twenty-eight times. Took me home. Went to work. Life had to go on. He felt helpless to change the hard new normal that was our daily routine. The only peace to be found in our humanly hopeless situation, and the only peace that still matters today, was fully trusting God.

I grieved the extension of this wretched journey through cancer. I longed for something different. Healing from disease should be achievable, shouldn’t it? The One who could calm storms and Who defeated sin was my God. Instead of healing, the grueling work of going through treatment had begun. Again.

“Look, I don’t mean to be disrespectful,” I hedged. I wanted none of the medical options being offered. “I’m not afraid of dying. I know where I’m going after this life.”

The doctor surely thought I was just an overwrought patient in denial. He checked his smartphone and looked back at me. I was not going along with a cut and dry visit schedule. I was being a little too blunt about my lack of appreciation for the options. I blubbered on.

“It is the suffering, because of ‘treatment’, that I dread. Not death. By the way – again, no disrespect intended – you doctors don’t go through your own treatment.”

The doctor patiently went on to explain what he thought best for treatment. The course he was charting included radiation and chemo for the second time in two years. There were no words for our grief.

Three months have since passed. Radiation and chemo are, again, complete. More tests lay ahead, but the view from our battered vessel shows a sliver of sunlight breaking through the stormy horizon.

Easter will arrive in a few days. I’m thinking of a far different treatment and earth shattering suffering. What must Christ have been thinking so long ago? Was He dreading the mistreatment He would endure? Did He grieve the details of what was ahead?

I am grateful for Christ’s sacrifice. He was perfect. God’s Son. Sent on a mission He knew would end in disaster from a human perspective. But it was a stroke of genius… and holy sacrificial love… that would redeem us from the disaster of sin. Christ endured undeserved treatment to free us from sin and heal our relationship with God.

It’s Easter. Grievous journey. Eternal cure.

“Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.” Isaiah 53:4

A brief update from Sharon:

While only the Lord knows what the future holds, Sharon is grateful to share that her last two scans (August 2013 and February 2014) revealed “no cancer detected at this time.” She attributes this to the power of prayer, a high commitment to a wellness plan that includes juicing and raw foods, and also to the targeted radiation and chemo pill during her second round of treatment in January 2013. She continues to blog about the cancer journey in hopes of pointing others to the only real “cure” (Christ) for the disease of our souls. Readers interested in the various nutrition and wellness strategies Sharon has found useful on her personal cancer journey are invited to visit the page titled “What I Did that Helped” at www.sustainme.net.

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Sharon O’Connor is a cancer “surthriver” who was diagnosed with colon cancer at the age of forty.

Sustain Me: Notes on Cancer captures some of Sharon’s experiences weathering life with cancer. Her hope is that others facing illness will be encouraged to stay focused on the Creator.

Sharon is a graduate of Davis College. She is married to Tom, an athletic director, professional athletic chaplain, and life coach, who makes her laugh and is her best friend. They have two daughters and reside in Binghamton, New York.

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What mourning stories have formed your life
 and your faith in the mercy-giving Jesus?
Tell us about it in the comments below.
If you've written your own post, share the link.

Holy Week Lament: Nancy Gilmore Hill (I am thirsty)

In this season that I do not have time to write, this is the idea God gave me:  Ponder and notice again the words I've already written once, keep praying the beads of memory to discover this sacramental life. This Holy Week I'm sharing again the beautiful mourning stories six of my friends generously shared with us last year.  

An introduction to Holy Week Lament:

Jesus gave us a litany of last words as a Sufferer; we refer to them as the Seven Last Words of Christ.  The deathbed words of the Suffering Servant will serve as our framework for the stories of lament we share here this Holy Week.

On a few holy occasions I've watched firsthand the deathbed ministrations of crushed ice for the parched suffering.  Priest-like, caretakers spoon feed the dying, hoping this trickle of melting wetness tastes like love.  In today's mourning story, we remember the request of the human Christ -- the Creator of the seas hoping for a drop of comfort on his dried-out tongue.  Only a day before -- the day we recognize now as Maundy Thursday -- He'd lavished liquid love over the lowest, achingest parts of His friends.  Squatted on the floor with towel and bowl He showed them (and us) a new way to be human. The next day He died, parched and dirty, with no comfort for His lament:  I am thirsty.

The story my mom tells today echoes this ordinary care for extraordinary need, made possible for us by the common grace of a thirsty God.

The year was 1957 and the grass was just starting to grow over my father’s grave. With the stop of my father’s heartbeat, my mother had been thrust violently into the role of breadwinner, and during that summer of my tenth
year, she sat at a desk miles away from home working on a teaching degree.

For those six weeks, my two teenaged sisters were left to care for my younger sister and me. In their bobby socks and pony tails, they spent their summer feeding us from cupboards that were too often bare, hanging our clothes on
the line to dry, and keeping us safe at night.

In the afternoon of the day of my memory, I was taken to the doctor’s office with a dangerously infected toenail. Dr. Barrall bent his head, with its blazing red hair, over my foot, injected a shot of Novocain into my big toe, and
proceeded to rip off the nail. My screams shot down the hallway and filled the waiting room.

That evening I lay alone in my rumpled bed. There were no pictures on the walls of my bedroom; there were no curtains at the window to sway in the breeze. This was the house we had escaped to after our house on Main Street
had been taken away from us, after my father had sat down in the living room chair and died.

With my leg stretched out in front of me, I watched the stain of red seeping through the fat wad of gauze around my toe. The aching pain moved up my leg, and I sobbed. I had no mother; I had no father. I felt so very alone, in a house on the edge of town, with no pictures on the walls and no curtains at the window.

My sisters’ friend Flossie had stopped by the house, and the three girls were whispering nervously in another room. They should have been giggling together, like teenagers do on hot July evenings, but instead they were responsible for a wailing, inconsolable child.

Quietly, Flossie stepped into my room carrying a pan of cool water and a wash cloth. She sat down on the edge of my bed and placed the pan on the nightstand. As she reached into the pan to saturate the cloth, she started cooing soft and soothing words.

I can still see her hands—dipping the cloth in the pan, wringing out the water, wiping my face, my damp forehead, my swollen eyes. Her hands—dipping the cloth in the water, wringing it out, wiping my face, my forehead, my eyes. Making soft, soothing sounds.

My sobs stopped, my body relaxed, and now it was just the murmuring of Flossie’s voice, the swishing of the water, the cool cloth to my face.

A gentle grace-filled quiet entered the room—and I slept.

Nancy's dad and two older sisters on a family vacation
 a couple of years before he died

Epilogue:  When I first wrote this story, my daughter Kaley emailed this comment:  "I did my share of crying as well--it's a beautiful, painful story. What struck me is that her actions affirmed your pain--which is what you needed at that time more than anything."

And over 50 years later I can still see Flossie's hand dipping into a bowl of cool water...

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soothing and story telling
(yes, that's me, age  3?)

 My mother, Nancy Gilmore Hill, says that the kind deed of a teenager left a life-long impact on he. All six of her children and sixteen of her grandchildren want to thank Flossie for showing our mother and grandmother the beautiful, healing powers of a cool cloth on a troubled forehead. 

When my mom's not soothing suffering faces of her family and friends, she is telling stories to her English-as-a-second language students and anyone else who wants to listen.  

Would you like to listen?  

Click play to hear my mom read today's story:

Podcast Powered By Podbean

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What mourning stories have formed your life 

and your faith in the mercy-giving Jesus?

Tell us about it in the comments below.

If you've written your own post, share the link.

Holy Week Lament: Brian Murphy (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?)

In this season that I do not have time to write, this is the idea God gave me:  Ponder and notice again the words I've already written once, keep praying the beads of memory to discover this sacramental life. This Holy Week I'm sharing again the beautiful mourning stories six of my friends generously shared with us last year.  

An introduction to Holy Week Lament:

Jesus gave us a litany of last words as a Sufferer; we refer to them as the Seven Last Words of Christ.  The deathbed words of the Suffering Servant will serve as our framework for the stories of lament we share here this Holy Week.

I count it a high privilege to know -- at least in small part -- the mourning stories of the dear ones who will share here for seven days.  Their lives walk the path between celebration, yes, but also suffering -- illness, relational disillusionment, anxiety, joblessness, death of loved ones, death of dearly-held dreams.  Their stories have helped form me in my understanding of suffering and I believe they could also encourage you too.  

For twenty-three years I've been lucky enough to live with the man sharing his story with us today.  For the past eight of those years, we've had the privilege of praying with small groups of men and women seeking healing and reconciliation in their broken relationships.  I've heard Brian tell the words he tells today with each new group.  I asked him, if he might be ready to put them in print?

I was not in the room when he pointed his question at God, but I've watched him listen to the merciful answer every day since: My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

Brian in 1979, two years after Pete's Dragon

Our fathers name us. Make no mistake; mothers can try. But one way or the other our fathers are the responsible party for naming their children.

My father left our family when I was six months old. I cannot recall too much about our relationship when I was young; he was an absent father in every sense of the word. For many years I could not even remember times when my dad and I spent any time together. These memories were blocked by anger, sin and sadness.

It was not until I was 29 years old that I could even talk about the pain and loneliness that I had lived with my whole life.

Through much processing and praying with faithful friends, family and pastors I came to two realizations. One, I had been carrying the weight of false names – “no good”, “unlovely” and “undeserving”. Two, although I really hated and blamed my father for his abandonment and rejection, I was not too pleased with God either.

Actually, I was furious with God. I would have told Him, but I was too afraid to say how I felt out loud. Why would a God who called Himself good leave a little boy all by himself?  When a friend finally gave me permission to say it out loud,  I fell on the ground under the weight of my sadness. Through tears and clenched teeth I yelled, “Why God, why did you leave me? Where were you?”

Good news. My Heavenly Father answered. I was able to see God’s leading through my childhood and formative teen and college years as He provided good men to call out of me my true name – passionate teacher, emotional pastor, hard worker, wounded healer, good husband, kind father and beloved son.

More good news. As I began the long journey of forgiving my dad, I was able to see the good things that he had passed along to me.

One repressed memory about my dad’s kindness came back to me through the clean lens of forgiving him. My dad called the house one evening and made plans to take my brothers and sisters to see a movie. I was too young to go. I was heartbroken. I cried. Not the kind of private dignified crying that we adults would like to show when processing wounds but the sobbing, wailing and shaking that we as children feel with fresh rejection and abandonment.

To my dad’s credit he recognized what was going on and got me on the phone. He very kindly explained that I was too young to attend the movie with the older kids but that he would pick me up the next day and take me to a movie –Pete’s Dragon.

With the whole family holding their breath and waiting with me by the front door, I sat expecting the day of my life. To everyone’s relief, dad showed up. We saw the movie; we ate popcorn; we laughed. I would have floated home after the movie, but the day wasn't over. Dad took me to a little bar that he frequented near the theater.

Dad and I entered the bar in grand, theater-entrance style, and he announced, “Hey, everyone, this is my son, Brian.” The whole bar erupted in welcome of my dad and me. The TV channel was changed to something more kid appropriate, the swearing stopped, the cigarettes were extinguished, the pretzels were presented and the soda flowed. I sat on a stool next to my dad and listened to his stories. I felt accepted, loved. I felt like his son.

I would like to tell you that my dad and I had a great relationship from that point on. He was still mostly absent. I would like to tell you that everything is okay between my dad and me. I still process anger and unforgiveness from time to time. I would like to tell you that I always live out of the strong place of my true name. Occasionally I still choose the false name.

James Thomas Murphy II, my dad, passed away about six years ago. I remember that day too. I remember being pissed off that he was going to ruin my plans for a long weekend. I remember going to the hospital. I remember being heartbroken. I cried. Not the kind of private dignified crying that we adults would like to show when processing grief but the sobbing, wailing and shaking that we as children feel when we lose our dads.

While waiting in the receiving line at my dad’s funeral, I received one of the greatest encouragements of my life. My mother-in-law came to me, held my face in her hands as loving mothers do, looked me right in the eye and said, “You are the best thing that your dad ever did. He gave the rest of us a gift, Brian.”

Because of forgiveness, I was able to receive her words of naming. I grieved, and honored my dad. I can recall all of the good things about him -- a great sense of humor, an ability to light up a room, the grace to remember everyone’s name. I was able to see where these qualities were passed to me and where I need to aspire to be more like him.

I am able to tell the story about a little boy and his dad spending one glorious day together.

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Most readers here should already feel like they know the good man who is my husband, Brian. But maybe you don't know he's the youngest of five amazing siblings: JoAnn, Jim, David and Kevin. I tagged-along with this Murphy crew almost twenty-three years ago when they let me share their name. I've never been much prouder to be in their family then the day I watched them stand around their father's hospital bed, caring for his needs as he died. They honored him well and I have no doubt all those years, he was proud of them. (To process my own grief, I wrote about that day here: Grief.)

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What mourning stories have formed your life 

and your faith in the mercy-giving Jesus?

Tell us about it in the comments below.

If you've written your own post, share the link.

Holy Week Lament: Haley Ballast (Woman, behold, your son!)

In this season that I do not have time to write, this is the idea God gave me:  Ponder and notice again the words I've already written once, keep praying the beads of memory to discover this sacramental life.  This Holy Week I'm sharing again the beautiful mourning stories six of my friends generously shared with us last year.  

An introduction to Holy Week Lament:

Jesus gave us a litany of last words as a Sufferer; we refer to them as the Seven Last Words of Christ.  The deathbed words of the Suffering Servant will serve as our framework for the stories of lament we share here this Holy Week.

I count it a high privilege to know -- at least in small part -- the mourning stories of the dear ones who will share here for seven days.  Their lives walk the path between celebration, yes, but also suffering -- illness, relational disillusionment, anxiety, joblessness, death of loved ones, death of dearly-held dreams.  Their stories have helped form me in my understanding of suffering and I believe they could also encourage you too.  

I'm grateful to introduce you to a friend whom I've never met in real life, and still we've managed to journey together through  motherhood and ministry for at least three or four years now.  Actually, it was Haley Ballast's lament story that first got me thinking about framing this series around the Seven Last Words of Christ.  Her recognition of the grief in motherhood -- and not only the daily sort of dying to self, but the dying to experience that comes with mothering by adoption -- has given me a richer understanding of Jesus' dying words to his friend John and his mother Mary:  Behold your son.  Behold your mother.

meeting Zeke for the first time

I was not the first woman to mother my son. Not the first to kiss him goodnight, or comfort him when he cried, or carry him on a hip. I didn't see his first steps, hear his first word, or celebrate his first birthday. By the time I met Zeke, he could kick a soccer ball, drink from a cup, and throw a right wicked tantrum. I had missed a lot.

None of this came as a surprise to me, of course. These small losses are par for the parenting course in international adoption, and they pale in comparison to the much heavier losses sustained by my sweet little boy before he reached his second birthday.

Insignificant as they may be against the backdrop of my son's experiences, these missed milestones are part of my story. They have woven a thread a grief into the fabric of my mothering, one that shows itself at turns, often with the power to unravel me at the seams.

When my daughter was born in January, I held her close and it was different this time. My first two newborns were every bit as precious, but my heart was as yet unseasoned and I didn't know what I didn't know. Waves of overwhelming love for this tiny pink person washed over me and I cried: I missed this. These days of warm weight on your chest and the smell of breastfed baby, of tucked-up legs and fuzzy cheeks, they sink down deep into mother hearts and become the strength we need in the whiny witching hours before Daddy gets home, the pity-parties because everyone else's mom lets them watch that show, and (I can only assume) the nights of missed curfews and eye-rolls and dented fenders.

What happens when you tap into that tank and its empty? What happens when you find yourself squaring off with an angry toddler trying to cash a massive emotional check from an account with far too few deposits in its balance history? These moments have been peppered throughout Zeke's time in our family, and they have been moments of deep grief for me as a parent. Grief for all that my son lost before he came to us. Grief that my gut reactions to his angry behavior are often selfish and lacking compassion. Grief, and even shame, that I should have to work so hard on something that I feel should come naturally (namely, motherly love and affection). And grief that even after two years in our family, my son is still waiting for the other shoe to drop, still keeping a lookout for the next upheaval, still guarding his heart.

Sometimes we take turns grieving, him falling to bits over the wrong kind of breakfast cereal, me crying through our bedtime prayers. Often though, we are in the trenches together. He won't hug me when I pick him up at preschool and I am not gentle when I put on his jacket. If he is testing me, I'm failing, and we both cry on the way home. It's not because he hurt my feelings, though that does sting for a moment. It's because he has to be so smart in all the saddest ways -- a baby learning that people leave, that everything can change at any minute. Learning how not to need anyone, how to keep a distance, how to prove we've all failed him, even if it's only in the small things, like jackets after preschool.

By faith I believe that these hard realities are the fertile fields where God is at work, that these bitter truths will somehow bear sweet fruit in the end. But we are not at the end: we are in the thick of it. What do we do in the thick of it? We grieve, and we let our grief become lament. In grief we can be alone, but in lament we are never alone, because lament places our particular pain within God's greater story. So here we are, my son and I. We get home, and I say a prayer through shuddery breaths, remember Jesus leaving the ninety-nine to go after the one. I get us both a tissue, letting Zeke wipe my eyes because he likes to have a job. We have lost, but we are loved. We are together, and when it is hard to be together because of all we have lost, we lament, and we are not alone.

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Haley lives with her husband Jon 

and their four children 

(3 boys ages 7, 5, and 3 and a one-year-old daughter) 

in the Pacific Northwest. 

She blogged here about the adoption process 

and Zeke's first year home, 

and now writes bits of poetry on her phone 

while nursing and breaking up fights 

over Star Wars figurines.

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What mourning stories have formed your life
 and your faith in the mercy-giving Jesus?
Tell us about it in the comments below.
If you've written your own post, share the link.