Photo by Gabriela Palai
The traumatic event that has most impacted my life is when my mother succumbed to cancer in her 50s, and I was twelve years old. I had spent over a year watching the first tissues with coughed-up blood turn into a mountain next to her bed in rural southeast Idaho from 1971-72. Nobody helped me process what I was seeing and feeling. Maybe they thought I was too young to understand.
Mom’s sister, Florence, was a bonafide Rosie the Riveter from World War II. Hardened by the fire of aircraft factory work in the Pacific Northwest, she didn’t take anything from anyone, and you always knew where you stood with her. She wasn’t religious and had been married multiple times. Her blustery personality incentivized strangers to keep a distance, but those who knew her best knew she was soft and caring. I adored her personality. She would get worked up about a topic, and her easy-going husband Bill would laugh as he said, “Go get ’em, toughie!”
My mom was very different from her sister. She went to college at Idaho State University when she was sixteen but became a stay-at-home mom when she married. She was the rock I leaned on when I was growing up. She was intelligent, soft-spoken, humble, kind, and generous to those who had less than us, which wasn’t many. Our house was one of the poorest looking in our rural community. It was initially a tiny farmhouse my father started to expand and never finished. It was nearly impossible to keep warm in the winter, forcing us to survive in the few rooms we could keep warm.
I stepped out of my aunt’s car at my mother’s funeral on a cold December day. It was a miserable day for a funeral. The high was minus six degrees Fahrenheit, not counting the wind, which added an extra chilling effect.
When I stepped out of my aunt’s car and onto the ice in the church's parking lot, my warm shoes immediately slipped on the melted ice and fell hard on my ass. I burst into tears and started sobbing. I was between parked cars, bawling my eyes out, and I looked up at her in embarrassment. She stood there with her imposing figure and greying hair, looking at me through her big round glasses with drooping gold eyeglass chains. But it only took a second for her to say, “Let it all out.”
She was the first and only family member I remember inviting me to grieve openly that day. I gratefully accepted her invitation. Until then, I had not displayed any emotion about my mother’s passing, and nobody asked me how I felt. I cried like I had never cried before for a minute, and then I shut back down again, stood up, lowered my head, and walked toward the church. The reality that her life was over was hard to accept.
I dreaded walking into that Mormon church to see my deceased mother for the first time and drowning in the pity of the community. I wouldn't say I liked the thought of being pitied. I hadn’t seen her since I was brought into her hospital room for her to see me one last time. Back then, the hospital policy was that no children were allowed. So, I spent lots of lonely time in the small waiting room at the hospital, trying to entertain myself. I assume my aunt put a strong arm on the staff to let me see her finally for just a few minutes.
She lay on the bed tethered to an oxygen feed, looking at me with a happy face with a sorrowful undertone. She reached out with her hand to draw me closer. I had just become a member of a Boy Scout troop, and she said she was proud of me. The range of emotions in the room from the people present could have been cut with a knife. I cringed as I heard sniffles and felt pity, sorrow, and dread spill out of the room. I felt so uncomfortable that I wanted to run from the room, but that was also my usual state, and she knew it. I don’t remember her last words, but our visit didn’t last long. Even though nobody told me, I could feel this was the last time I would see her because it was so unusual. If only I could go back and tell her I loved her again.
Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians admits that the death of a loved one is hard. It forces survivors to make sometimes adjustments. In my case, the lack of support via therapy or even being able to talk about it made my heart and mind fertile ground for addiction. When my father woke me the morning after she died, my immediate words were, “Can I stay home from school?” He said, “Yes, you can.” Those are the last words we ever spoke about her death and even her life until the day my father died. I left on my own to figure out how to grieve her loss while my father drank wine every night after work.
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.
Paul also reminds us that death does not have the last word. The Thessalonians expected God to return before any of them died but were proven wrong. It raised doubts about what Paul had taught them. I can empathize with them. I walked away from religion at age twelve and stayed away until addiction recovery connected me back to God thirty-six years later.
So, when I saw the documentary “A New High,” I immediately identified with it as a recovering addict. I highly encourage you to click the image and watch the trailer. I find it relevant to Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians and his teaching that we “will be caught up in the clouds together.” The metaphor in this documentary of mountain climbing as a tool for addiction recovery is powerful when we think about Jesus hiking up incredibly difficult mountains to be with God in the form of a cloud.
But here’s the thing about Paul’s words. The only difference between a cloud and fog is fifty feet. Otherwise, they are the same: water vapor and crystals. Sure, Jesus climbed the mountain and entered the cloud of God, but God also came down to Moses and his flock during their exodus from Egypt.
God’s cloud filled the tent or temple to the point that the priests became overwhelmed by God's presence and had to leave the tent. Moses would not move from the spot for days, weeks, or months until the cloud lifted and led the way through the desert.
When I accepted Jesus and God into my life again, I went on an exodus journey. I didn’t understand what it was at first, but over time, I learned that I was clinging to some beliefs, like Moses’ tribes, that needed to be purged. It’s the first stage of spiritual development called “the purgative stage.” I need to learn to distance myself from everything holding back my development.
Mighty Breath of God by Jesus Culture became one of my favorite songs during this purgative stage. Click the image and give it a listen. I would stand outside and sing it to myself; a breeze would always present itself. As I write this in my living room, I'm playing it now, and I can feel a slight breeze around me. Tears are rolling down my cheeks. It’s a connection that God and I lovingly share. A tender mercy to let me know God is here.
Blow Mighty Breath of God
Move upon this place
Blow mighty breath of God
Come in power and grace
Spirit fire fan the flame
Passion for the Holy name
Burning everything
One August summer day at the Thomas-Riverside cemetery in rural Idaho, I stood at the headstone of my parent’s graves. The cemetery sits on a hill flanked on the North by a busy rural highway and farm fields on the other three sides. Besides a few trees scattered in the cemetery, there is little to stop the wind when it blows.
I took a trip there, acting on the advice of my therapist as part of my recovery after the wound of her death had been reopened from the depths of my heart. The goal was to retrace the journey of my mother’s funeral to try and find healing. I had spent most of my life resisting the call of the Spirit. But now, I stood before their graves sober with a heart that was one with the Holy Spirit and a reborn faith.
The grave site is surrounded by rural farmland on three sides and a highway on the north side. I stood at the headstone of my deceased mother and father, together with my wife, Jenny. We stood together mostly in silence within the stillness of that sunny, warm day. Eventually, Jenny wandered the cemetery to give me space for my thoughts and feelings. The sound of occasional cars passing on the nearby highway broke the silence of my reflection, oblivious to the purpose of my visit.
That August day was far more tolerable than her funeral's bitterly cold December day. I still remember the imagery of everyone gathered around her grave in the cold and me sitting in the car. My aunt asked if I would stay in the car to stay warm. I decided I would. Looking back at it, I think it was more of me wanting to avoid her burial. A part of me wishes I had been there with everyone else, freezing in the brutally cold wind. I guess I still feel guilty for abandoning her in those last moments.
The warmness of the day comforted me as I stood and stared at their names with their lifespans etched in stone. I didn’t know what to expect, nor did I know what I was looking for. I tried to open myself up to the moment and be present. I could still see my younger self in the distance, sitting in the car instead of being at the graveside like I was now. I still know where it was parked—so many memories, questions, and feelings I had held for so long. I brought with me all the regrets of my life spent in addiction and the destructive ways I had medicated my childhood wounds alone.
An ever-so-slight air movement around me suddenly broke the stillness of the cemetery air. I immediately noticed the direction was coming from my mother’s side of the grave on the right. It was soft and caressing in motion like the angel’s wings stirred it at the pool of Bethesda. The correlation wasn’t lost on me at that moment as my heart and soul soaked in that grace for the few seconds it lasted. I had longed for one more hug from her most of my life, and here it was.
Then, that gentle breeze shifted and came from my father’s side of the grave on the left. The same soft and caressing air movement enveloped me as I continued to soak in the moment's grace for the few seconds it lasted. That fatherly hug was the hug I never received when I was alive, and it felt so good. His comforting reassurance eased the guilt and pain of my decision to tell the ER doctors not to take extraordinary measures to keep him alive.
Then the breeze shifted again to envelop me from all directions like I was receiving their loving caresses simultaneously. I wept in the following moments, knowing they were both there loving me in that cemetery. After a few seconds, the stirring of the air around me ceased just as quickly as it had started, and I was returned to the stillness of that summer day with tears streaming down my cheeks.
It was only a few seconds of grace, but it was the seconds I had waited for my whole life without really knowing that I needed it so badly. In the movie Euphoria, Rue Bennet expresses it best, “This is the feeling I have been searching for my entire life, for as long as I could remember. Because suddenly, the world went quiet. And I felt safe in my head.”
Jesus told us that we have to be ready for the Kingdom to arrive at any moment. I don’t keep any lamps stocked with oil by my bedside, so I was unprepared for that merciful healing experience in the cemetery. We never know when we will be invited to gain a glimpse through those intersections of heaven on earth when the cloud comes to us. We never know when we will be invited to receive hugs from those who have gone on before us.
Matthew 25:1-13
Jesus said, “Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”
When we think we have plenty of time, we can become complacent about our spiritual journey. But all of that can change in an instant. Believers have been waiting for the bridegroom’s return for thousands of years. Some speculate Jesus’ second coming has already happened. I personally believe that Jesus is already here amongst us through the Holy Spirit. To borrow Crowder’s lyrics from his song “Ghost”:
His ghost is inside me
A holy fire burning wildly
Burning through the things
That need to be erased
To liberate my soul
Yes, God wants you to experience a new high from developing a close and personal relationship that liberates your soul. Are you ready to answer the call and take the journey?