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When Rejoicing Together Becomes Mourning Together

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By Hannah Comerford

On December 30, 2018, Jason and I learned we were parents, our baby due the next September.

In those few short weeks, we had planned to tell only a few people. Yet the news was so long awaited and so unexpected. We were simply so full of joy that we couldn’t keep silent. Soon we’d announced it to our closest friends, our entire community group, the pastors and their wives, the elders.

We wanted others to rejoice with us, to celebrate with us the way Zacharias and Elizabeth’s friends had celebrated the birth of John the Baptist, the way Hannah celebrated the birth of her son Samuel, the way Sarah and Abraham had rejoiced over their son Isaac.

We’d been told this probably wouldn’t happen. And now it had.

And our friends rejoiced with us. With hugs and tears and encouragement and excited daydreaming. With squeals of joy and words of wisdom. With the promise of a party when the secret was open, when everyone knew what the Lord had done for us.

The first three weeks of January became some of the best weeks of our life together.

On January 22, 2019, we learned that our baby had died.

At some point around the same time we had started celebrating with our friends, our baby had stopped growing. My body did not realize this, had continued to move along as though everything were normal, as if our celebration would end in a joyful delivery just like any other successful pregnancy. When we saw our first ultrasound, an empty sac was all that remained.

A shame shadows the untelling of a pregnancy. In our culture, it’s often hard to remember that a safe pregnancy and birth are not guaranteed, just as no one’s next days are. Telling others that the very joy you’d celebrated not two days earlier was now no more, that you are reversing the happiness they’d had for you—it makes sense why so many wait until their pregnancy is “safe” before announcing.

The last week of January became one of the worst weeks of our life together.

In a time when our church is already struggling with loss and transition, how could we add another source of pain?

Yet that is what church is for.

It was little things that reflected this community: Text messages reminding us they’re praying for us. Buying toilet paper, Tylenol, and other household items so we didn’t have to leave the house. Ordering meals to be delivered. Cooking meals and dropping them off. Sitting and watching movies with me to distract from the pain. Being ready to comfort and help at a moment’s notice, but giving space when we needed it. Understanding when we couldn’t talk. Listening when we felt ready to talk.

The same friends who had celebrated with us mourned with us. This is friendship, community, family—Church.

Our God was big enough to grant us a child—a reminder of His strength, His goodness, His love. In sharing our news with other believers, we were able to share that reminder with them, that they might praise God.   

Our God chose to let us lose our child—a reminder that this world is fallen, that it will never be truly right until He returns. By sharing our griefs with our church family, we share in that reminder.

But our grief also carries a reminder of hope. The retelling of the book of Revelation in The Jesus Storybook Bible includes this description:

And the King says, ‘Look! God and his children are together again. No more running away. Or hiding. No more crying or being lonely or afraid. No more being sick or dying. Because all those things are gone. Yes, they’re gone forever. Everything sad has come untrue. And see—I have wiped away every tear from every eye!’

Our grief is not forever. If we mourn together, we can together remember that God will make all sad things come untrue.

We mourn together as those who have hope.

Note: We found the following articles and book helpful during this time. Regardless of whether you yourself have experienced this pain, we encourage you to read through them for a better understanding of this issue and its place in the Church.

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Are People Mostly Good by Nature?

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By Bill Naron

Doctrine and theology are terms that in our time carry a lot of negative connotations. Some people in the church find it boring or do not really understand it. For some, it is offensive because of the objective nature of the truth that it conveys. For others, they have heard so many false teachings on doctrine or theology that they are not even sure what to think.

One thing is certain: we live in a culture where ambiguity is king! Truth must be relative, and culture encourages us to go out and find OUR truth. “My truth is good for me, but it may not be true for you” could be the mantra of our culture today. In many ways, the Church has struggled with how to engage culture with truth in this time. We want to share Jesus with the world, but we do not want to come across as judgmental.

In this struggle, it becomes hard for us to see how to stand on objective truth. We then see the pillars of objective truth start to corrode. We can see this portrayed in the following survey from Ligonier Ministries.

In 2018, they gave people the statement, “Everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature.” Among evangelicals, 55% either strongly agreed or moderately agreed with this statement. Only 42% of evangelicals disagreed, and another 3% of evangelicals were not sure. When you look at the data from the overall survey group, which is inclusive of the general American public regardless of religion, they show that an overwhelming 67% of those surveyed agree, while 26% of those surveyed disagree and 7% were unsure. These numbers are astonishing!

The Church in majority believes that people are mostly good by nature. This is a huge contradiction to the truth of Scripture. In Mark 10:18 Jesus says, “Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.” Jesus plainly states the truth for us that no one except God is good. In Romans chapter 3, Paul expounds upon this point and lays out for us the state of humanity.

“As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips” (Romans 3:10-13).

Paul lays out for us the state of humanity. We are trapped in sin; we are not seeking after God. We are by our nature opposed to God. In this it is seen that no person is without sin, that every person has fallen short of God’s glory. Because of this we were subject to God’s wrath, we deserve the penalty of sin, which is death.

There was seemingly no hope for us. Like a corpse, we were lifeless; the members of our body could not seek out for our Creator, nor were we able to commune with Him, because we were so diseased. Jesus was the only one who could do what He did; He was and is the only one who could and can save us.

We now have hope! We are now aware of our sin, and while we strive to live a life wholly dedicated to God, our flesh is still inclined to sin (Romans 7:18). Our justification was instant, but our sanctification takes time.

If it were true that people are mostly good by nature, then why did Jesus come, and whom then did He come to save? We diminish the sacrifice of our Savior with this type of belief. Since our beliefs will influence our actions, this false belief may also cause us to take a more apathetic approach to outreach, when the reality of what we see in the Scriptures and the examples of the apostles show us that this should move us to compassion for those who are lost.

Feel the weight of what we were saved from, knowing that those who are lost are subject to the same fate. Jesus endured the cross for His bride that we may be reconciled to the Father. He also endured the cross for those around us. Let us boast in the cross of Christ and rejoice in His resurrection, that we may go forth and share this hope with the world.

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DEATH

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By Martin Schlomer

Death. No matter how often we encounter it, we never get used to it. Even when we expect it, when it happens, it feels unexpected.

This morning at 6:30, I received a call from my sister-in-law telling me that my father just passed away. He had been in very poor health for many years, yet he lived to see 89 years old. If you’ve been around Elim for a few years, you know that my father’s relationship with his children was conflicted. For 50 years, these relationships were complicated by his physical and emotional pain and, to some degree, mental illness. He didn’t want to be this way. No one ever does. It just is. There were times when he would be kind, empathetic, and even joyful. Then there were times when that would all change. No one understood why, and I suspect neither did he. 

As I processed our family’s loss, I was able to experience deep gratitude to my father and to my heavenly Father. I know Earl Schlomer wasn’t the man he wanted to be.  I can’t hold this against him. Instead, I can identify. All of us feel this way! However, I rejoice that he is now a new man! He is now the man he aspired to be (1 John 3:1-3)! This never takes away the tears, but it does fill them with hope and meaning.

No one is ever born with the tools necessary to overcome their physical, emotional, and even mental challenges. All of these demons conspire to sabotage our most sincere aspirations of who we long to be. This is why we work together to learn from one another, to equip and encourage one another in these aspirations, and to show grace when we fall short, which will happen daily! This is why it is critically important for us to bear with one another in love (Ephesians 4:2). Don’t lose hope! On some expected but unexpected day, we will be the person we aspire to be! Until then, we choose to give grace, love well, and hold onto hope. God’s grace is GREAT!

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The Church as the Center of the Community

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By Bill Naron

To the believers amongst the body of Elim,

I have been meditating lately on the hope we have in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. How sure is our hope because He gave his body for us and rose victorious over death and sin. He paid the debt that we were enslaved to from our birth. Jesus is our hope and the catalyst that began a revolution, the original counter to culture, and we are called to follow suit.

Comparing today’s American Christian churches with that of the first-century church, I see vast differences in the way they operate. One of the more apparent changes is that the overwhelming number of programs offered by today’s churches tend to be more self-help, fellowship, or inward-focused. I cannot help but be bewildered by the stark contrast to that of the first-century church, where the body of believers were more network-minded, fostered community, and seemed to be more outreach-oriented.

Realizing these important distinctions only reinforced my excitement for the direction our leadership is taking us in 2018! Because while fellowship, self-help, and community all help believers grow in communion with Christ, these things cannot be the only mission of a Christ-minded church. The apostles and community of believers mentored the unsaved and walked through life with them. The church had a major impact on society and culture, and the Gospel spread like wildfire.

What will this more evangelistic, Gospel-spreading mentorship look like? I cannot say for sure. This is different than anything I have seen implemented in my years as a follower of Jesus Christ. I know that in the 1800s it was not uncommon for a church building to be the center of the community in many ways, including hosting schools and courthouses. While I am not suggesting we go back there, I am curious what it would look like for Elim to become such a prominent place of community again, a place where we the believers physically invite others to join in the life-altering power of the Gospel! And that we as believers could somehow regain that Christ-focused impact for good even on public institutions such as schools and courthouses. Let us not only be hearers of the Word, but also doers of the Word.

Being an oasis of renewal in our community can only begin with the gathering of the community. We must break down our walls of insecurity and fear and truly be intentional fishers of men.

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In the Bleak Midwinter

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by Brian Waple

As I began reflecting on writing a Last Word for this week, I asked myself, “What would people need to hear?” Do they need to hear how much God loves them? Probably—we all need to be reminded of that. Or perhaps they need to hear about Christ’s substitutionary atonement for their sins. Again, in and of itself that’s good stuff, but not this week. Maybe they need to hear more about Pastor Martin’s new vision for creating a culture of being “disciples who make disciples among those who are not disciples” outside the walls of Elim. He promised we would hear more about that in the weeks to come.

Okay, so what then? I was ruminating on this and looking out the window and watching the rain, and then it dawned on me. As you may or may not know, winters in the Pacific Northwest can be difficult for some people (myself included). There is a bleakness to the winters here that makes us all groan for summer and warmer weather. That’s an interesting word—bleak. Dictionary.com gives this definition: “without hope or encouragement; depressing; dreary.” I have said many times how dreary the winters are here … but hopeless?

There is a wonderful old Christmas hymn that I remember singing as a kid. It’s called In the Bleak Midwinter, and the words of the hymn were written by Christina Rossetti in the late 1800s. The last line of the hymn goes like this:

“What can I give Him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd, I would give a lamb; if I were a wise man, I would do my part; yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.” (my italics)

Giving one’s heart means not holding back at all. In the hymn, Rossetti is speaking about what we have to give the Christ child. And even in the midst of our most abject poverty, when we have nothing left to give, we can still give our heart! It is interesting when we reflect on what God gave us. Almighty God could have given in to the desires that spring up from our wildest dreams. But He didn’t; instead, He gave us the most precious thing He had to give: He gave us his Son. He gave us His heart. And with that gift, we are not hopeless.

So, when life seems as bleak as a Pacific Northwest winter, the hope that we who call Jesus Lord and Savior have transcends the bleakness, the dreariness, the hopelessness. And that hope should encourage us to be willing to give our hearts to others. Maybe it’s toward your neighbor; maybe it’s toward a stranger; maybe it’s toward a friend; maybe it’s toward a family member. For many of us, this is all we can give. But it’s the giving of our hearts to others, as God freely did toward us, that helps transform us into the people God created us to be.

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Candlelight

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by Hannah Comerford

You take a candle at the door of the dim church. You stick the candle through the paper circle and hold it underneath, the wax malleable if you grip tightly enough. You clasp it gently, just enough to feel the thinnest residue on your skin.

How hard it is to wait until the last song of the Christmas Eve service to light the wick.

You find a seat in the fourth row of the right section. You leave space on the other side of you for friends who may or may not come.

You don’t need the lyrics to the carols, but you look up at the projected words anyway as you sing “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” A cello adds an especially mournful note tonight. You sing quietly, your voice lost in the crowd of fifty or so voices.

 O come, O come Emmanuel
and ransom captive Israel
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear

Your mind doesn’t think of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Instead, you think of Elizabeth, her cousin. The one who spent decades of marriage childless, the pity of her village.

Suddenly the words aren’t about the Messiah anymore. In your heart, they’re about Elizabeth’s missing child who never was. The cries of the strings become her cries of mourning as she reaches middle age without conception.

They become the cries of Anna, the prophetess whose husband died in their first short years of happy marriage.

It becomes the cries of the shepherds, living outside with animals, never invited to celebrations, lonely and poor.

It becomes the cries of the Magi, the wise men who longed for a King who would not disappoint them like every person in whom they had trusted.

The song becomes the pain suffered by so many in this well-known story.

And the song becomes every heartbreak and loneliness you’ve known this last long year. 

Rejoice, rejoice
Emmanuel
shall come to thee O Israel
Emmanuel shall come to thee.

And in this you remember that their cries were not just for the missing child, the dead husband, the loneliness of being outcast, the disappointment of failed heroes. Whether or not they realized it, their cries were for a Savior, one who would make “everything sad come untrue.” A Savior who would come.

Rejoice, rejoice
Emmanuel
Shall come to thee O Israel

Shall come.

The music ends not on the completion, but on the hope of completion. The last note feels dark and unsettled, begging for the lighter sounds of the refrain, like a fairy tale missing the “happily ever after.”

The song does not recall the end of the story. It does not meet you in the happiness of Christmas morning, but it meets you in the long waiting of Christmas Eve. Like Isaiah, it looks forward to the hope that is yet to be.

You grip your candle tightly as you wait for the chance to light it. You know the time will come. 

O come, O come Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel

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