I think there is something wrong with me. January 8, 2023 marks the tenth year memorial of my father’s passing. He suffered a life-ending heart attack, and died almost immediately. At the time, I was in the middle of teaching a course on the Pentateuch. An intensive formatted class that met all day, every day for the week. It was nearly midnight on Tuesday when my mother called to let me know what happened to my dad. My initial reaction was one of shock and a numbing emotionless haze. Then, it hit me. He was gone. There will be no more phone calls to the grandkids (he used to call at least once per week). No more encouraging words of wisdom. No more looks of fatherly pride and joy. That was when I felt this sense of hollow emptiness, then isolation and loneliness, then an agonizing realization of loss. I knew I had to finish the class (my dad would have wanted this), so I took a deep breath, bottled up my grief, finished teaching for the week, then went to be with my family.
I think about him often. In fact, a day has not gone by in the past ten years that I have not thought of him. When I do, I have this overwhelming sense of sorrow. It took me several years before I could openly talk about his death. Even now, I do so holding back tears. When I do think of him, I still have that emotionless pain, a numbing agony. I don’t know how to really articulate it. All I know is that something inside me hurts, and I can’t do anything about it. All I do is wait for it to pass. Thankfully, it always does.
I think there is something wrong with me. I keep thinking: “This ten-year (and counting) experience of mourning cannot be healthy or proper.” After all, I’m a Christian, an ordained minister, and a seminary professor. I teach and preach about the hope of the resurrection all the time. Shouldn’t my faith in Christ be strong enough to override this sense of loss? I remember a prominent Christian leader who lost his son, years ago. He was a very public persona, and he took this loss as an opportunity to try to promote his Christian faith. He said: “I’m a Christian, and I wanted to show what faith looks like in the midst of a painful loss.” He expressed no emotion, no sorrow, or grief. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to look like? Why can’t I?
Again, maybe something is wrong with me. In my course on Old Testament Poets, I spend a lot of time talking about psalms of lament. I have found a lot of comfort in them over the years, and I’ve been re-reading them in the past several weeks. I am comforted to know that many psalmists also experienced similar struggles. Their poetry is saturated with images and thoughts very similar to my ten-year journey. They say such things as “Why, O LORD, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Ps. 10:1). And also, “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” (Ps 13:1). And even, “I say to the LORD, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you’” (Ps 16:2). The value of these psalms are immeasurable as they provide words to my heartache and allow me to lift my sorrows as a prayer to the Lord for help. Before, all I did was mumble and groan, but now I can pray.
I went to my father’s gravesite today. I wondered how I would react. Would I still feel this sense of deep sorrow? Would I still have this emptied agony? Would I still shed tears? I thought I could hold in my grief. I was wrong. As I wept by my father’s side, I was reminded of two verses. The first is Psalm 42:3, where the psalmist says “My tears have been my food day and night.” I love that image. I envision someone with such heart-exploding grief that he is weeping all day long, so much so that the tears drip down the side of his face, his cheek, and slowly seep onto his lips. He has lost his appetite, his desire for food. His tears have become his only source of sustenance! Wow!
The second is Psalm 6:6-7, “I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping. My eye wastes away because of grief; it grows weak because of all my foes.” The psalmist is weary from weeping—all day and night, every day and night, everywhere he goes. The image of his bed and couch drenched in his tears is powerful! A deluge of tears that makes it impossible for him to see clearly. I can indeed relate!
Is there something wrong with me? From a certain perspective, yes! Not only me, but all of us. We live in a world corrupted by sin. I see it everyday, and now I personally suffer the pain of death that came into our world as a result of it. In Romans 8:21, Paul personifies creation and says it longs for the day of resurrection when it “will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” Creation was never intended to be a burial place for the dead. That was not what God intended in Genesis 1. But that is what it has become because of sin, and thus, it grieves. Creation hates sin. So does the Lord of Glory. Frankly, so do I. Sin has been the source of all my sorrows and it continues to be. No wonder people weep. No wonder I weep. Perhaps we don’t weep enough.
Is there something wrong with me? From another perspective, no! Not for those in Christ. For us, not only do we know there is no condemnation for us, but we also know the power of resurrection of Christ (Phil 3:10-11). Just as creation awaits the day of resurrection, so we do as well. There is life for those in Christ. As much as there is grief in the psalms, so there is also glory. My dad knows this! Someday, I will know it as well. Maybe this is why followers of Christ can mourn more deeply and freely, yet not be completely devastated and our worlds coming to an end. Our world is not ending, but it will be transformed into something extraordinary, supernatural, and all-together beautiful with a radiant, consummated, eternal glory. We mourn painfully because we know the power of sin. But we also can rejoice more joyously because we have a true hope that is only found in the gospel.
Remembering my father is difficult, but I don’t want to be ok…if that means I do forget the power of sin. If I forget that, then I fear I will also forget the greater redemptive power and grace in resurrection. I would rather mourn now and do so deeply, remember the grace of a blessed father, and the pain of not having him with me anymore. It reminds me of how blessed I was. It also reminds me of the eternal life that my father know knows. It reminds me that he is the one who is well; I’m the one in need. I envy the joy and glory that he knows. I envy that he finally has that perfect sweet communion with Jesus. I’m eager all the more, from day to day, to know that heavenly worship and rest as well.
On this day of my father’s ten year memorial, I reflect with gratitude for a blessed father. I look with eager expectation for the joy of being with him in eternal glory. I pray for Jesus to come, so that I…
“…be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Phil. 3:9-11)
Maybe I’m doing pretty after all!
Redeeming Chillingworth 