YOUNG GIRL AT COVENANT HOUSE WITH PAINT CAN OF MOTHER’S ASHES
Some years ago I read the story of a young girl that came what became well known as Covenant House here in L.A….
“She came to our front door Tuesday morning, dressed in dirty rags, holding a little aluminum paint can in her arms.
From the second she stepped inside our shelter, she mystified us. Whatever she did, wherever she went, the paint can never left her hands.
When Kathy sat in the crisis shelter, the can sat in her arms. She took the can with her to the cafeteria that first morning she ate, and to bed with her that first night she slept.
When she stepped into the shower, the can was only a few feet away. When the tiny homeless girl dressed, the can rested alongside her feet.
"I’m sorry, this is mine," she told our counselors, whenever we asked her about it. "This can belongs to me."
"Do you want to tell me what’s in it, Kathy," I’d ask her? "Um, not today," she said, "not today."
When Kathy was sad, or angry or hurt--which happened a lot--she took her paint can to a quiet dorm room on the 3rd floor. Many times on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday, I’d pass by her room, and watch her rock gently back and forth, the can in her arms. Sometimes she’d talk to the paint can in low whispers.
I’ve been around troubled kids all my life, (over 43,000 homeless kids will come to our shelters this year!). I’m used to seeing them carry stuffed animals (some of the roughest, toughest kids at Covenant House have a stuffed animal). Every kid has something-needs something - to hold.
But a paint can? I could feel alarm bells ringing in my head.
Early this morning, I decided to "accidentally" run into her again. "Would you like to join me for breakfast?" I said. "That would be great," she said.
For a few minutes we sat in a corner of our cafeteria, talking quietly over the din of 150 ravenous homeless kids. Then I took a deep breath, and plunged into it....
"Kathy, that’s a really nice can. What’s in it?" For a long time, Kathy didn’t answer. She rocked back and forth, her hair swaying across her shoulders. Then she looked over at me, tears in her eyes.
"It’s my mother," she said.
"Oh," I said. "What do you mean, it’s your mother?" I asked.
"It’s my mother’s ashes," she said. "I went and got them from the funeral home. See, I even asked them to put a label right here on the side. It has her name on it."
Kathy held the can up before my eyes. A little label on the side chronicled all that remained of her mother: date of birth, date of death, name. That was it. Then Kathy pulled the can close, and hugged it.
"I never really knew my mother, Sister," Kathy told me. "I mean, she threw me in the garbage two days after I was born." (We checked Kathy’s story. Sure enough the year Kathy was born, the New York newspapers ran a story, saying that police had found a little infant girl in a dumpster--and yes, it was two days after Kathy was born.)
"I ended up living in a lot of foster homes, mad at my mother," Kathy said. "But then, I decided I was going to try to find her. I got lucky--someone knew where she was living. I went to her house."
"She wasn’t there, Sister," she said. "My mother was in the hospital. She had AIDS. She was dying."
"I went to the hospital, and I got to meet her the day before she died. My mother told me she loved me, Sister," Kathy said crying. "She told me she loved me." (We double-checked Kathy’s story ... every word of it was true. -Covenant House of California+
> Not only has that story always been a painful one as I consider the tragic loss such a young girl faced and had to process… but it captures something of the losses each of us may face in varying degree through life.
> We’re all going to have some paint cans in our lives… someone / thing we lose too early.
· Death of a parent … special friend…child…. or perhaps more relationally than physically… the death of a marriage or relationship…. a career or potential…dreams. We are facing losses here as a community. Most of you who attended last Sundays afternoon meeting or received and read our regular mailing this week… are aware of plans for Katherine, our associate pastor, to lead a church plant to Madison Wisconsin… and the Harlans, also on our staff, to likely face moving.
As some of the most special people in my life… we’re just beginning to face and feel such loss. It’s been a hard process … and will continue to be a process.
> When such losses come… like little Kathy we may want to hold on to a can… we may be afraid of letting go. The result can be that life is waiting for us to go through the loss so we can go forward in living.
As we continue in a series entitled “Facing Life’s Challenges… God’s Way”… I felt led to the issue of the losses that we may have to face in life. I realize that such losses may vary in degree… but we all will go through losses. Some may be in the midst of significant losses right now… while some feel far removed.
Such times have proven to be the rawest… and richest… and I believe we need the Lord to guide us through them.
> How is God able to be a part of such times?
John 11:32-36 -
When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. "Where have you laid him?" he asked.
"Come and see, Lord," they replied.
Jesus wept.
Then the Jews said, "See how he loved him!"
“Jesus wept”…. The shortest verse in all the Bible.
> God grieves. God experiences loss.
Is he grieving out his own sense of loss…. Or simply for the loss that Lazarus’s sisters and family may have felt? No one can say for certain…. But the most reasonable answer is BOTH.
God experiences loss… “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief…”Isaiah 53:3 (ESV) and is present in our losses.
> God knows about losses… He shares in them.
Part of the pain of a loss… is that we lose something that has been uniquely a part of us. Especially true if we lose the presence of one who has been a companion… whether a pet or parent… we naturally feel the loss of one who has shared so many moments that no one else has… moments that make up who we are… and as such we feel lost. ( Ex of losing my dos who’d had since 12.) No one else was there… looking…
> That is precisely where the presence of God becomes the most meaningful presence in life.
How can God lead us through our experience of loss?
1. God allows us to experience a process that is healthy… as a natural and needed process of adapting.
The Stages of Grief can be summarized most briefly as protest, disorganization, reorganization.
Protest is our natural reaction of refusing to face and feel… includes denial and repression … just too hard … overwhelming. There may be a certain shock that involves a state of numbness, distancing, disbelief, emotional outcry,
Includes anger… When we feel something taken we want to strike back… when we feel hurt we want to hit back. We may be angry at the person who left us… or someone we think caused it… or on up the ladder of responsibility to God.
Naturally we want to defend pain… anger is one defense from hurt.
Disorganization – We begin to really face and feel the loss… and depending on how anxious… we may feel lost… uncertain how to live without that which we lost. Depression.
Some refer to this as stage of regression…including : (1) return to childhood feelings of abandonment, helplessness and crying; (2) return to a childhood frame of reference of marked withdrawal, self-centeredness and self-absorption; (3) return to a childhood fear with magical thinking, superstition, primitive fears of punishment and matching fantasies of omnipotence (“I could have averted the tragedy if I had only . . .”). Anger, guilt, blame, scapegoating, paranoid fears, doubts, loss of faith, primitive religiosity, either/or judgments, obsessive preoccupations, deification or demonization of the one lost, anxiety and self-devaluation all flood the grieving person in cycles, which gradually spiral forward. The backward movement is necessary for the task of forging ahead through the loss. Regression is crouching in order to leap forward in gradual adaptation.
Reorganization – Step by step we find the stability to move beyond the reaction and regression …. And step out into the future.
· This process involves a healthy…maintaining of perspective.
What the gift of sorrow and grief is and isn’t.
Sorrow - One dictionary defines sorrow as “sadness or anguish due to loss.” Pure sorrow is a simple sadness over losing something that is important to us. It may be the loss of a person in death or physical separation; the loss of material things, such as house or property; the loss of a desired condition, such as the loss of one’s health, employment, or even reputation. It may be loss of emotional security due to a hurt or conflict in a relationship.
When we feel pure sorrow it does not mean we have lost faith.
…story of Lazarus’s death. In perfect faith and assurance of the coming glory of Lazarus’s resurrection, Jesus knew sorrow.
Sorrow and grief are natural and healthy emotions.
…sorrow is temporary. Jesus told His disciples, “Truly, truly, I say to you, that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned to joy” (John 16:20, NASB).
Despair. Despair is defined as “loss of all hope or confidence.”
o Sorrow and tears are not the same as despair, for despair means a loss of hope amid grief. As Christians we need never despair, because our hope and confidence are in the Lord Jesus Christ, His work, and His promises, which never fail.
o Perhaps Jesus intends “courage” to be the opposite of despair in John 16:33 (NASB)—“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage [don’t despair]; I have overcome the world.”
o David asks, “Why are you in despair, O my soul? . . . Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him” (Psalm 42:5, NASB). David often knew sorrow, but when his soul drifted over into despair, he remembered God’s faithfulness to him in the past and was encouraged.
o Even suffering deep anguish, extreme sorrow, does not mean we stumble in our faith. Jesus is described as “a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering” (Isaiah 53:3), yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). The writer of Hebrews tells us, “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission” (Hebrews 5:7). What anguish is described here, but no mention of despair.
o In 2 Cor. 4:8, Paul writes, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair.” He never claimed he was not sad, only that he was not despairing, not losing hope.
Self pity - “Self-indulgent lingering on one’s own sorrows or misfortunes.” “Indulgent” implies that we have drunk more than the cup of sorrow allotted to us. Likewise, “lingering” implies we have stayed too long in our sorrow, that the days of mourning have passed.
2 Cor. 1:3-4 “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”
God allows us to experience a healthy sorrow…. That maintains perspective.
· This process involves a healthy… balance of personal reflection and outward expression.
· David upon hearing of his sons illness… begins to fast and pray… yet calls for others. You may find it strange to see the role of public mourning in the Bible and still active in many cultures today.
· Jesus… when he hears of John the Baptist’s death… retreats… but soon is given to the crowds again.
· About 3 or 4 years ago… pregnant with our third child… visiting my parents… miscarriage… spent time together feeling the very personal sense of loss… returned late Saturday night… Sunday morning just slipped into the back… someone’s hand on my shoulder… began sobbing.
Ø Things become more real when they’re shared.
· You may find it strange to see the role of public mourning in the Bible and still active in many cultures today. > Among other things… others can help us face and feel the sorrow we so may be so afraid to enter in.
· This process involves a healthy… length of time.
The timing of this recovery process is a matter of the individual spirit and conscience. That is why we cannot judge when another person has cried enough or mourned enough. He needs to grieve with a pure sorrow, and he will be comforted. When a person is in pain, we cannot decide for him when to change his sackcloth and throw away his ashes. We must not rush him for our own convenience, our own emotional comfort, or worse yet, to reassure ourselves that God is still working. The only instruction we are given about how to handle those who weep is to weep with them (Romans 12:15).
Perhaps we are in a bigger hurry than the Lord to see hurting people emotionally “up,” testifying and “counting it all joy.” The Lord only asks them to “take courage” rather than despair (John 16:33), not necessarily to continually present a smiling face. That will come, but it may take time.
2. God allows us to experience a process that is honoring… as a means of embracing and expressing significance and love.
To grieve is to honor. The paradox of the pain we feel when we face a loss…. is that the pain reflects also our We want to avoid the pain of losing someone of value… but the pain itself is the very expression of that value.
Every sense of loss… every sign of pain… says ‘they mattered.’ God allows such a process because significant relationships do matter. An Eastern worldview tries, hard as it may, to live with the ideal of an impersonal power behind reality…as such… the highest goal is to become detached… and perhaps our goal at the loss of a loved one should be indifference. The true and living God stands over such misconceptions… declares that people matter… He suffers long to redeem relationship.
Recently took part in a funeral for the father of one of our leaders… Rick Norris… his son Devon wrote of what his grandfather had meant to him… couldn’t finish… While I went on to read what he wrote… his own sorrow said it all.
If we allow such grief to recognize the significance…the Lord allows us to embrace that significance.
· We are constantly internalizing the significant people in our lives…. their hearts, values, insights. > God made us that way. And in the midst of loss… He wants us to know that we don’t lose their influence in our lives.
· As I stated in the letter I sent out this past week regarding the moves of key people in my life … these lives have been voices into our your life and who you are. No voice can be replaced… but we can discover that the Lord helps those voices remain in us as part of who we are… even as He raises up new voices as we go forward.
3. God allows us to experience a process that is hopeful… as a condition that reflects neither our original or ultimate destiny.
Everything Jesus saw was temporal… He knew that Lazarus would be raised again…. but he also knew they would be separated again for a time… but only for a time.
God never intended separation and loss. Genesis only describes it as a by-product of a fallen world…. a world that God is redeeming in Christ… and into the experience of Christ who is now eternally in the unchanging goodness of heaven. For Jesus… it was that reality that shaped his experience of loss.
Hebrews 12:1-3
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. [2] Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. [3] Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
That’s why he spoke to his disciples about being gathered again… face to face… in a great banquet that will never end.
And that’s our future if we receive his life in us…
Rev. 21:4
“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
A certain lady loved flowers and plants. She planted a rare vine against the stone wall near the back of her yard. She nurtured it, and it grew well. It was vigorous; it was beautiful. But it had no blossoms. She was disappointed.
One day she stood there looking at that vine with the beautiful foliage but no blossoms. Her neighbor called across the wall, asking her to come over. The lady went over to the other yard. The neighbor said, "Thank you for planting that vine. Look at these beautiful blossoms." You see, the vine had crept through the stone wall, and the blossoms were on the other side. The owner hadn’t seen them yet.
And that’s the way faith is.
Communion
As Jesus came to the point of preparing for the ultimate loss and separation… summed up how God leads us through the losses of life…. as he broke bread… passed cup… and set these elements in common we are about to take.
In these elements he says…”I partner with you in the suffering and separation… I enter that place.”
Remember me = honor me… embrace my life in you.
Teaches true sorrow… neither despair… for this meal contains hope… living hope… nor self-indulgence.
