Mark, I am so sorry about the difficulties you have and are experiencing. May God give you strength my friend. Thanks for sharing.

Michael,

I can relate, maybe more analogously, than directly to what you have experienced. First, my older brother was born severely disabled, and died of pneumonia at age 34. To make a long story short, the number of people that came to the funeral was overwhelming. My brother who could not do a thing for himself, could only communicate (he was intelligent) by movements and sounds, had touched so many people it was well incredible. It wasn’t because of the sin of his parents that he was born, but for the Glory of God.

Second, my mother lost her mother and her 2nd husband withing 7 days. She died in 2005 of MRSA.

Third, in December 2007, I had a weird stroke, and this is the part that reminds me of Angie, and was, due to needing a brain MRI, diagnosed with MS. My depression has, I really believe, been at least nearly as deep as your sisters. Medicines have not helped, and I do believe God told me last year that now is not the time for healing. Experiential, and I could be wrong, but nonetheless, regardless of what happens I continue to go on, oh my marriage to a Christian woman, is disintegrating too.

Do I know if will always make it thru the day? I don’t. So often I get lost in thoughts of dying, depression and pain.

Maybe I’m not saying anything helpful, I dunno, but I do understand what Angie went thru, way too well. And I am truly sorry for the hand this fallen world has dealt her, you, and your family. Never forget that however we talk about experience, Jesus has been with you every second of every minute of every day of your life and will NEVER EVER leave you.

And know that Angie is in GOOD hands now. To our God, the only one of whom it can be said that He IS Love and IS Good. We can only attempt to show love, do good, but we are not the essence of these things, He is. Let Him experientially show Himself to you, let Him experientially comfort you. That will be real. The Comforter is waiting for you to ask and He will be there, NOW! Amen and amen, for all time.

your loving brother,

Mark

CMP–I have always been moved when I read posts about your family experience. You have handled your grief with such grace and vulnerability. At your expense I believe God has taught me what allowing Him to walk with us through/in our pain looks like. Thank you.

With reference to the comment in which I was quoted above #6:
CMP–Would you say your “experience” with the circumstances leading up to and including your sister’s death make experiencing God in non-intellectual ways and coming away with a correct understanding of the character and nature of God impossible? And, can, in your opinion, our intellectual reasoning and the ways we decide to interpret scripture also result in incorrect understanding even though we can “show” how we have unwrapped our conclusions carefully, with historical and Biblical support?

Sorry, Michael.

The next-to-last sentence should read, “I hope you find the grace to one day get her skeletons out of your closet.”

Michael, I am so sorry for your loss and the pain that you and your family went through. I pray that you will all continue to feel the presence of God, even through this experience of loss. I am humbled and grateful that you would share such a personal experience and the lessons that you are learning with the rest of us, in order to help us grow as well.

May God continue to show his presence to you and your family, to comfort you and to provide the assurance that you will be reunited with Angie one day.

God bless you,

John

Michael:

I don’t know that you’ve said before that Angie changed overnight the way she did. That does not sound like depression – a psychological phenomenon – but something neurological: not a thought, mood, or experiential problem but something organic.

Her doctors probably were aware of that and checked into it. But with a brain disorder/malfunction like that, she was doomed from the moment it first appeared. There’s nothing you or anyone else could have done. Including Angie. God wanted her home, I believe.

I hope you find the grace to one day get her skeletons out of her closet. She wouldn’t want you wrestling with this for so long, would she?

Michael,

I guess I’ve read every account that you have posted concerning Angie’s death and it always breaks my heart for you and your family.
Your comments about being careful about how we interpret experience reminded me of a book I read about 5 years ago. I’m sure you are familiar with it. DECISION MAKING AND THE WILL OF GOD by Gary Freison. Even though this is about making practical decisions I still feel that it gives great insight into how we must use God’s revealed Word to make decisions and in your family’s case interpret experience.

MISLED BY EXPERIENCE

“The problem is, the experience was misleading to all of us.

Did we misinterpret God? Yes. Experience can be a beautiful thing that clearly communicates messages about particulars in our life that cannot be found in Scripture. Indeed, experience is something we cannot live without. But it can also be very misleading, giving us a message in which we set our hope, not realizing that we have misunderstood God’s voice through it.

We must be very careful when interpreting experience.”

VERSUS

Minnow from the Belief is No Good without Practice and Other Stupid Statements (Part I’m Done):

(CMP) “It is only when we have intellectually wrestled with and reflected upon it that we can recognize his majesty.”

BEEEEEP! Wrong. I can recognize (know, experience, sense) His majesty without intellectually wrestling. I can see, hear, smell, feel, taste and know.

You continue: “It is only when we recognize his majesty that we can recognize our sinfulness, hopelessness, and helplessness without him.” Perhaps.

Then you say: “It is only by doctrine—right doctrine—that we can come to a state of brokenness.” Again I disagree. My mind does not have to lead. I am able to be broken through experience that reaches outside of my reasoning mind and that experience can then inform my thinking.”

Thank you CMP for sharing your experience that experience “can also be very misleading.”

This just made me cry. Sorry that you have to live with those painful memories, and such a sense of loss….very hard.

…pardon me for leaving Michael’s name in my previous message…

I received this devotional e-mail today that really touched me and thought it would appropriate to post here. (I hope that is the case–I’m not accustomed to posting on online blogs.)

HOPE…

The scene recorded in Luke 24:13-24 fascinates me-two sincere disciples walking along the dusty road to Emmaus telling how the last nail has been driven in Israel’s coffin. God, in disguise, listens patiently, his wounded hands buried deeply in his robe. He must have been touched at the faithfulness of this pair. Yet he also must have been a bit chagrined. He had just gone to hell and back to give heaven to earth, and these two were worried about the political situation of Israel.

“But we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.”

But we had hoped … How often have you heard a phrase like that?

“We were hoping the doctor would release him.”

“I had hoped to pass the exam.”

“We had hoped the surgery would get all the tumor.”

Words painted gray with disappointment. What we wanted didn’t come.
What came, we didn’t want. The result? Shattered hope.

We trudge up the road to Emmaus dragging our sandals in the dust, wondering what we did to deserve such a plight. “What kind of God would let me down like this?”

You see, the problem with our two heavy-hearted friends was not a lack of faith, but a lack of vision. Their petitions were limited to what they could imagine-an earthly kingdom. Had God answered their prayer, had he granted their hope, the Seven-Day War would have started two thousand years earlier and Jesus would have spent the next forty years training his apostles to be cabinet members. You have to wonder if God’s most merciful act is his refusal to answer some of our prayers.

Our problem is not so much that God doesn’t give us what we hope for as it is that we don’t know the right thing for which to hope. (You may want to read that sentence again.)

Hope is not what you expect; it is what you would never dream. It is a wild, improbable tale with a pinch-me-I’m-dreaming ending. It’s Abraham adjusting his bifocals so he can see not his grandson, but his son. It’s Moses standing in the Promised Land not with Aaron or Miriam at his side, but with Elijah and the transfigured Christ. And it is the two Emmaus-bound pilgrims reaching out to take a piece of bread only to see that the hands from which it is offered are pierced.

From Max Lucado