I recently found myself in the garden, tending to some flowering bushes I have attempted to grow over the past couple of years. My beloved dog is buried amongst the fragrant gardenias and sweet olive trees.
I had Molly for almost 14 years. As college sweethearts, Chris and I took a stroll through our college town many years ago and wandered into a small pet shop. Thinking we were simply filling our day with happy moments, we meandered past fish and kittens into a room with several puppies. The shop had a habit of setting up a baby gate in the doorway and letting the puppies loose to play with any customers who came inside. I remember sitting on the floor, a dozen puppies of all sizes romping across the tile, chasing toys and each other, thrilled to be released from their usual cages. One cream-colored bundle of fluff bypassed her peers, making her way directly towards me and curled into my lap, resting her chin on my chest and stared into my eyes.
Have you ever had a moment that you knew would forever alter your life? As trivial as a story about a dog may sound, this was one of those moments for me.
That tiny puppy wriggled her way into my heart immediately and I knew I was in a world of trouble. As Chris and I parted ways at the end of that day, tears streaked down my face, my heart missing this silly little dog who had somehow permanently gripped my heart in a few short minutes hours before.
I didn’t know it, but over the next couple of weeks, Chris secretly picked up some odd jobs to earn enough to cover the small fee to return to the pet shop and place her back into my arms. He knew I was soon moving out of the dorms into a small 1 bedroom rental and didn’t want me to be alone.
Molly became my closest friend. She sat next to me as I studied for exams. That little puppy curled next to me on dark nights when I was sick. She licked my tears away on my worst days. Her little legs raced laps across the floor when joy flooded the room. And several months later, she posed with us for engagement pictures as Chris and I dreamed about marriage and happily ever after.
She welcomed home each of my babies, from both hospitals and foreign countries, and walked me from the end of my teenage years into middle age.
Burying her in the backyard over a decade later near the kids’ swing set was agony.
Losing her was brutal enough on its own, but the grief tore open decades of buried pain from a myriad of sources. We lowered her into the dirt and my mind flashed with memories of burying people I desperately loved but whose bodies also now lie still under green grass and shady trees. Saying goodbye to her brought up the ache of all the friendships that have come and gone over the years. The pain of betrayals that had been wept into her fur no longer had a comforting place for the tears to fall. I considered the people I have wounded and ached at the hurt others have felt at my own hands.
I stood at the gaping hole in the ground and felt the weight of it all.
She died in late autumn as the weather was turning chilly. And some pull in my chest told me to push tulip bulbs into the soil over her little wooden box before night fell and we raked the last of the dirt over her. I prayed that when winter was over, spring would burst into color over her resting place, bringing a smile with her memory instead of the excruciating pain of losing her.
Today, I can see her flowers from the kitchen window as I wash dishes and watch the children play.
Grief and trauma are funny things. Losing a pet is difficult, but for whatever reason, for me, this event ripped open every unhealed wound, washing my soul in both fresh and ancient grief.
At 34 years old now, I don’t consider myself an expert at life, but I have lived long enough to learn that none of us move through the years without pain. Loved ones die. Catastrophes occur. Relationships end. People hurt each other.
I don’t understand why or how but it also seems that some suffer significantly more than others in this world. Scripture tells us that we were fashioned by a loving God to dwell in a perfect utopia, but sin entered the picture and all of creation was cursed as a result.
Not content to leave His creation in its groaning, Jesus stood at the ready to sacrifice Himself to redeem all things. And now we live in the in between.
Christ’s work is finished. But the world still holds its breath, waiting for the end of all terror and the birth of a new heaven and earth.
For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
Romans 8: 22 & 23
And while the work of salvation is complete, God is pleased to continue history until all His saints are brought to Himself. In the process, He uses all things to make us more and more like Jesus.
When I look around, I see that no one has escaped pain. Especially not Christians. But I am at times perplexed at why some seem to endure crisis after crisis and others are allowed to learn many lessons from watching others walk through the fire.
Think of those you know who not only must fight their own flesh, but generations of trauma passed down to them. So many were not protected as children and now spend their adulthoods scrambling to live out their faith while battling scars they never should have endured. Consider those who must navigate the waters of forgiveness and boundaries while desperately seeking to honor and love their fellow man.
I have heard this quote on several occasions and do not know the original source, but it has stuck with me. “Jesus lives in my heart, but grandpa is in my bones.”
And while I don’t necessarily completely align with the wording of that, the premise is fascinating. Jesus may very well be your Lord, but in this life, you are not separate from the heritage that runs in your veins. Somehow, we must learn to untangle the generational patterns, addictions, and sins that have marked our family trees while marching forward as conquerors through Christ.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
Romans 8: 35-37
This is good news to the believer because regardless of what the current world drags you through or what history you must drag yourself out of, nothing can separate us from this Great Love. Not only that, but Jesus also promises that because He conquered all things, we stand with Him in that same victory. We may not see the complete fulfillment of that until we cross into eternity but the assurance of it both earthside and in heaven stands unwavering.
This is how we persevere under all types of suffering, whether it is deadly persecution of the Church or circumstances birthed from a fallen world.
Consider the ocean during a hurricane. The wind and the waves are in chaos. But what does the ocean floor look like?
The sand remains smooth and still.
In the same way, suffering in this world may wreak havoc on our lives. Our very bodies may tremble under the triggers and trauma, but our souls can remain steadfast. Our nervous systems will respond to the pain, but the anchor will hold steady.
“I shake, but my Rock moves not.” Charles Spurgeon
I don’t know what tension you endure in this space between the cross and the throne.
I don’t know the amount of suffering God will see fit to allow in your life. But I do know that you will find safety and peace in His hand.
A dear friend and I often have conversations about suffering. Our lives have looked different in a lot of ways. I am convinced that God is using the lives of all His saints for different purposes. I think some He preserves in unique ways so that they have more capacity to support those around them with much empathy. And I think He permits great suffering in some lives so that they can minister to others from a place of understanding. This is not to say that some people experience no suffering, only that He measures it in different portions and seasons to work all things together according to His masterful and loving plan.
The believer’s journey home is filled with twists and turns. There is no situation you can find yourself that He has not already stationed Himself ready to meet you. And whether you endure traumatic suffering unto death or you walk forward towards a peaceful crossing of the Jordan, you will surely hear the song of the Saints who have gone before you echoing in the valleys.
Sing with them.
