Pursuing Holiness

The Anchoress has a way of addressing life and death issues that just resonates with me. And makes me weep, but not in a bad way.  And the video in her post is heartbreakingly joyful.

I read of a couple who chose to deliver a baby that every doctor said they should abort, because the baby would likely never live outside the womb. They had the baby - they gave him life, named him, blessed him, held and kissed and loved him for the 45 minutes he lived. They cooed and took his picture and said to him, “we welcome you, we love you; we are yours and you are ours; we thank God for you, we will see you again.”

A few years ago, as my brother was dying, I wrote about the saying goodbye - how hard it is, but also how beautiful, and than life should be lived, while it can be.

We try so hard to avoid and minimize it yet it is terrible not to feel pain.  I think of my husband’s chemo-induced peripheral neuropathy.  (His feet have been numb ever since he was treated for cancer.)  While he may not suffer as much from a stubbed toe as I do, he also can’t enjoy a good foot massage the way I can.  For a long time I was quite numb emotionally; treatment for PTSD/dissociative disorder helped a great deal.  Before then, I didn’t feel pain but neither did I feel joy.  Since then I have learned to welcome both as much as I am able, and my capacity grows every year.

Jesus wept at the loss of his friend Lazarus; he didn’t try to avoid the pain or do anything to make it more convenient for himself.  He knew it was coming, and didn’t delay or hasten it.  He waited stoically, knowing his friend was suffering, suffering along with him in that knowledge, and knowing that there are more important things than temporary pain.  Could the joy in healing Lazarus from his illness have equaled the joy everyone felt when he was raised from the dead?  No.  Avoiding the pain means avoiding part of the blessing as well, as the families in the Anchoress’s post who suffered the death of their baby understood.  To hurt less means to love less.  Joy in life and comfort in death can be found in that God-given tenderness, because as the beatitude informs us,

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
(Matthew 5:4)

written by Laura