"There is a significant birthday coming up at my house, and I'm finding myself thinking about it quite often. When I do I feel a lump forming in my throat, and tears begin to burn behind my eyes.

Soon the day is coming when our daughter, Hope, would be ten... Our daughter's life was marked by days rather than years; she lived 199 days. In other words, there were not nearly enough of them, in my accounting. And as I'm anticipating what would have been her tenth birthday, I'm also anticipating the day that comes 199 days later--the day that will mark a decade since I have held her and known her. It feels like an ever-widening chasm as the years take me further away from her, even as they bring me closer to her.

Honestly I had not know much sorrow in my life before Hope introduced me to it. And one might think that in loving and losing her, I along with my husband, David, and my son Matt, had received our full share. But only two and a half years later we buried her brother Gabriel, who was born with the same fatal metabolic disorder as his sister had and lived a mere 183 days.

I don't remember all the specifics of what our pastor said the two times we stood at the grave where Hope and Gabe are buried together, but I do remember that what he said really mattered. At Hope's graveside service, he said something like, "This is the place where we ask, 'Is the gospel really true?'"  There was a deep yes inside me as he spoke, and I had been thinking about that question a lot in the months that led up to that difficult day" (Hearing Jesus Speak into Your Sorrow, Nancy Guthrie, pp xiii, xiv).

Situations like Nancy's, thankfully, were absent from most of my life and ministry. It caused me to make the common mistake of an incomplete theology.  While I studied about God and sought to have a meaningful relationship with him through prayer and worship, my faith was not very well connected to the reality of suffering and grief. Consequently my theology  sought to produce a perpetual good mood filled with excitement while in pursuit of world changing results for God's kingdom.  Therefore, my ministry was one dimensional and rather shallow.

"Ignoring our emotions is turning our back on reality; listening to our emotions ushers us into reality. and reality is where we meet God... Emotions are the language of the soul.  They are the cry that gives the heart a voice... However, we often turn a deaf ear--through emotional denial, distortion, or disengagement. We strain out anything disturbing in order to gain tenuous control of our inner world. We are frightened and ashamed of what leaks into our consciousness. In neglecting our intense emotions, we are false to ourselves and lose a wonderful opportunity to know God." (The Cry of the Soul, Dan Allender and Tremper Longman in The Emotionally Healthy Church by Peter Scazzero, p. 55). 

When I entered the world of hospice as a chaplain, my shallow theology was exposed. As my skills to care for others grew, the personal benefit of discovering my own need for care grew also. Then my theology expanded to give meaning to the importance of care for people in suffering. 

Care is more than kindness toward those who suffer. It is the willingness to go to the pain and dark places with people and ask the hard question of where is God in the suffering.

Sometimes, I wish I was less involved in the world of loss and grief.  I would prefer a more motivational and positive ministry. But, it is at the times of loss and grief when our theology is most tested and also becomes intimate, complete and transcendent. Then we can be honest in our emotions, more complete in our knowledge and closer to God in our experience. We become stronger and wiser.

So, I will continue to walk alongside the hurting, disappointed, suffering and grieving. Opportunities abound. And when I see healing begin to take place, light start to shine in darkness and warmth in the cold, I will thank God for calling me into a caring ministry and enjoy the fruit of redeemed lives.