M. Craig Barnes - Sacred Thirst: Meeting God in the Desert of Our Longings

T he church was packed for Lindas funeral. On the front pew sat her parents, husband, and two children. I sat in the ministers bench directly in front of them and gazed into their faces as the Twenty-third Psalm was read.

This family was lost in heartbreaking grief. They were wondering the same thing everyone in grief wonders: How can the world go on so easily, as though nothing has happened? Linda was once a vibrant, loving, young mother, but now breast cancer had taken her away from us.

I tried to concentrate on the psalm, but a relentless sorrow kept piercing through. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Except for Linda. I wanted Linda back.

When it came time for the eulogies, two of Lindas friends spoke first. They wept a bit as they described how much they loved Linda and how desperately they already missed her. The congregation and I expected these words and held up pretty well as we heard them. But the third eulogy was given by Lindas nine-yearold son. We werent ready for what he had to say. It wouldnt have mattered if we had been. There was no defense against this moment.

I can still see him standing behind the podium, stretching up toward the microphone. Like a brave little soldier, he read dutifully from the paper in his hands: Thank you for being here today to say good-bye to my mother, who has gone to heaven. I want you to know a couple of the things that my sister and I will miss about Mommy. Well miss the way she always greeted us when we got home from school. She would be in the kitchen and we would run into her arms, and it felt good to be home. Im going to miss that. At nighttime, when we had to go to bed, she would race us to our beds, then wed jump in them and have tickling contests. And she would read us a story. Im going to miss that too. Then he folded up his piece of paper, stuffed it into his pocket, and sat down.

As if that werent enough to completely undo us, the tenor soloist began to sing softly, Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly. The music gently found its way into the protected corners of every heart there. How could such tenderness wage war on all our defenses and illusions of immortality? By the time the song was done, we had surrendered to the sorrow.

Now it was my turn to speak.

But I couldnt. So I sat there in the silence, dabbing my eyes. Eventually, of course, I had to say something. Im the pastor; its my job to speak into the silence.

SACRED SILENCE

Ive seen this silence before. Its created not only by little boys with broken hearts but also by lab reports announcing the presence of cancer, bosses trying to explain a downsizing, and notes on a dresser that say Im leaving. The silence is produced by gravestones, nursing homes late at night, children with dangerously high fevers, and coming across the Christmas stocking of a spouse who recently died. It can even be found on the heels of successes and achievements that are never quite what we thought they would be, leaving us empty and disappointed.