Pictured here are our three kids in 2000 — Christy, David, and our Russian daughter Yuliya.
The response to this series has been wonderful and heartfelt, and so I thought I would share a few thoughts about where I am now, three plus weeks out. Grief counselors talk a lot about reaching a stage of acceptance. But that word can mean many things. Acceptance of what? Acceptance that your daughter is dead? Well, Ann and I accepted the fact that that was true almost from the beginning, once the shock and hysteria began to subside. If ‘acceptance’ means accepting that she is gone and never coming back, honestly I don’t believe that. She has gone to be with the Lord, but she is coming back when Jesus comes to raise the dead. And what a day of rejoicing that will be.
Does acceptance involve accepting that she is dead in some sense? I do accept that in the sense that I laid her in the crypt in the box and said “ashes to ashes, dust to dust in sure and certain hope of the resurrection.” I accept that fact, and I accept what I have done with the fact. But here is part of the paradox. Although her mortal coil had been sloughed off and is no longer animated by life breath — Christy the person IS NOT DEAD. She is absent from the corpse or dead body, but in her spirit she is present and alive with the Lord. She may even have communicated with Ann post mortem, as I mentioned in an earlier post. If we ask when are the dead not dead, the answer is, when they have died in the Lord. I take great comfort from Jesus’ rebuke to the Sadducees whom he upbraids for thinking Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are all dead, as if they were some sort of shades in Sheol. No, say Jesus, God is not the God of the dead, he is the God of the living. Exactly so. Christy’s physical heart may have stopped. Her life did not.
If on the other hand you ask me what I have accepted about my own situation, I have accepted that there is always going to be a Christy-shaped hole in my heart. Yes, there will be healing, but no, that hole is not going to be filled or even sewn up before I go to be with the Lord or he comes back and raises the dead, whichever comes first.
I have accepted then that there will always be a residual sadness for me. There will be a grief that never parts from me. There will continue to be tears when I see her belongings or look at her pictures, or visit the places she loved. This weekend, I deliberately booked a reservation at the very hotel where she stayed last September on her last trip to Cherry Grove Beach. How she loved it! Me too. I wish she would be there with me in June to go body surfing and have some more crab soup at the Sea Captain’s but I accept that she will only be there in spirit with Ann and I. It will not be the same, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be good.
And besides sadness, there is also deflation, a feeling that someone let the air out of my joy balloon. As I write this I am looking at the balloons my family, including Christy, gave me for my birthday on Dec. 30th. The last Carolina-blue one has now wilted and has no more lift in it. It looks like I feel—deflated and blue. I understand and accept that my life in this world will never be the same again.
Yet I am not filled with regrets. I am not filled with ‘would have, could have, should have’ thoughts. We have been blessed with a rich 32 years, and I do not regret how we have spent it, nor do I feel entitled to any more than I was already given. Sometimes when a person has neglected another or mistreated a loved one, or failed to seek forgiveness from a loved one, there are indeed regrets post mortem, indeed even guilt. I am thankful I am experiencing none of that.
With the sadness, and the deflation, there is a certain sense of emptiness as well, and I realize I will be living a ‘new normal’ for the rest of my days, and it may in some ways be better or some ways worse, but either way, it won’t involve Christy directly. I accept that. It’s just that I am not happy about it, and I shouldn’t be.
I also realize I have an opportunity, perhaps even a duty, to honor Christy by living the best Christian life I can muster until I die. I have an opportunity to let this tragedy make me better rather than bitter. I have an opportunity to rededicate myself to the tasks the Lord has given me and do them with renewed zeal and vigor. And that’s what I intend to do. Part one of that has been that I finished the draft of my Invitation to the New Testament for Oxford U. Press early and dedicated it to Christy. It is with the press, as they say, and I trust Christy is proud of me. She loved her time at Oxford doing Shakespeare with my old English Prof. Christopher Armitage.
No time for a pity party when there is work to be done for the Lord, and Aslan is on the move in the land. Christy has not gone to a place where it’s always winter and never Christmas. She’s in a place where it’s Christmas every day, and as she would say, ‘I am doing my happy dance’. The challenge for me will be to do some practice dancing before I get there, so she won’t totally be embarrassed by my lack of ability to dance. For now, it’s a work in progress. I leave you with the words of my favorite English poet, John Donne:
“SINCE I am coming to that Holy room,
Where, with Thy choir of saints for evermore,
I shall be made Thy music; as I come
I tune the instrument here at the door,
And what I must do then, think here before.”
I’m thinking, and praying, and tuning up. How about you?
Thank you for your deep reflections, and my you feel God’s presence in your time of grief.
Your thoughts keep resonating with so many people, and provide a sense of hope so many need at these moments in their lives as they too are facing the death of a loved one. But like Christy, live in the Lord and so are simply not here, but alive in the best place. May God continue to bless you as you bless people for the sake of the kingdom.
Ben, I feel so proud of you. I salute you as you and your family walk this path of “now” and “not yet”.Thanks so much for sharing this.I have learned much about my own loss from your writings.I don’t know you personally,but i walk with you in spirit and prayers with great thankfulness for you.
Ben, thanks for the courage and selflessness to share such intimate thoughts and feelings with us. I have some questions about some of your posts, but now is not the time. Right now I am reading, soaking in and learning about grief, grieving and comfort and comforting. And about a God who is God of the living.
May the God of all comfort be with youm and your family.
Thank you, Dr. Witherington for a wonderful series on grief. As a mom who miscarried many years ago, I was touched deeply by and resonated with many of your thoughts, especially on what not to say.
With your permission, I would like to use these posts as I minister to/with my congregation. There have been several deaths over the last year (including the pastor whom I followed), and I think these would be very helpful.
Of course anyone is welcome to use these. Christy would be happy about that.
Dr. Ben, I was always mesmerized by your lectures and am not surprised at your transparent sharing in this blog. I can almost see the tears in between the words and yet the smiles as you remember Christy’s life and her impact on you personally. Thank you for your courage and for sharing very real thoughts that we pastors can use to bring healing and wholeness to others. Still praying for you and the family.
As I read your post, I am captivated by the power of the Spirit of God in your life. I search for the words to comment like a blind man in corn field. Everywhere I turn, the words elude me. I am aware of your great intelligence and it seems that you know all things; however, we both know that you do not. What I can say is this: The way that the loss of your daughter has displayed your resurrection theology surpasses any textbook definition I have ever read.It has been said, “Theology is when the talking stops and the action starts.” Well, Dr. Witherington, there is no doubt about your theology. To see a father who was so close to his daughter be able to express himself the way you do so soon after your loss speaks volumes for the power of the Spirit. Thank you for sharing this with us. For the young man wanting to be like Christ, who desires to let the power of the Spirit mold him in order that he can endure with faithfulness in all situations, you have shown what this looks like. God be with you as come to know and understand Him more and more through this situation.
Thank you for your kind words Redeemed. God bless you.
This has been a powerful and helpful series. Thank you so much for sharing so personally, so honestly and for encouraging all of us to think through every thing that happens to us in light of our hope as Christians. May the healing power of tears and laughter, the joy of remembering, the sharing of stories, the overflowing of gratitude do their good work in your heart and life. May you be comforted all along this road called grief.
Thank you for these powerful words about grief and loss. I work in the Family Aftercare Services Office of Matthysse-Kuiper-DeGraaf Funeral Home in Grandville, Michigan and wondered if I would be allowed to include these blogs on our web site? (www.mkdfuneralhome.com) If you have any questions, please contact me by e-mail: marilyn@mkdfuneralhome.com
Thank you,
Marilyn Kortman
Thank you for your powerful testimony – your honesty in how you process your grief is invaluable.
Below are a few thoughts as I read your article for Christianity Today.
This is an incredibly strong testimony and so very gracious of Dr. Witherington to share.
There are several crucial elements which make his grief a good grief, which cannot be expected to come together like that in many cases pastoral care-givers would encounter.
1. In the Natural
The ability to observe one’s immediate reactions to shock – blood pressure, the need to keep on breathing… This role might fall to the care giver(s) in order to assure the physical safety of the person.
Coupled with that, the ability to express the experience in words has a therapeutic effect in and of itself. If the person is shut up in stunned silence, while this needs to be respected, it also needs to be monitored as a potential danger over the long run.
2. Theological
This is an excellent example that theology matters. If the person had a ‘strong faith’ but it was one in complete predestination, most likely combined with the narrow interpretation of how God protects his children from all harm, they might find their faith shattered to smithereens. It gives the evil one a broad inroad to accuse God of being a cruel God. So now the pieces need to be picked up on both fronts and I dare to say that if the right faith cannot be built up in prayer, intercession and study of the word, the family will have a hard time to be restored as well.
3. Honesty
Most impressive of all and crucial though is Dr. Witherington’s honesty. He does not pretend that holding on to God’s word was easy. It was an act of the will and yet a matter of ‘clinging on by the fingernails’. This is such a valuable testimony coming from a renowned theologian. Cold comfort, sorry solace and any and all other ‘canned’ words of ‘spiritual advise’ do more harm than good. I would differ with Dr. Witherington in that there are no stupid questions at that juncture. They are necessary to be asked, even better to be screamed out, so that they can be processed in the light. When they are stashed away it bears the danger of the evil one coming up with his kinds of answers.
4. Resurrection Life – a word of caution concerning small children
I want to share a painful experience our church went through many years ago. A family with two healthy children had a baby born with three defects, two of them deadly. After two weeks in intensive care and despite fervent prayer the baby died. The younger of the siblings was five years old at the time. He picked up on the talk about his little brother being with Jesus and in a better place. From there on, whenever he got into some kind of trouble, he stated that he was going to join his brother in heaven. He had also picked up more sinister language nobody knew where it was coming from. It did not help that the father had lost his faith – see point 2. Children take things very literal and they make logic deductions. I have learned through that experience that much more quality time needs to be given to children in a grieving family.
Christa Abhar
Acceptance:
It is true that this is a broad heading in the categories of processing grief. Having read your reflections, I am affirmed in the notion that acceptance will look different for every grieving person. It is probably the ability in and of itself to ask reflective questions that marks the road to recovery.
Christa Abhar