When Life Turns Upside Down

A year ago, things were really good for me and my family. 

My wife and I have three kids, at that time ages 1, 3 and 7.  As parents with little children know, kids of these ages made for a very busy life. 

Thankfully, we had my parents living close by, retired, and willing to watch our kids at just about anytime we asked.  And we asked and asked often, and through this, my wife and I got the breaks we needed, and more importantly, my children were able to build great relationships with Grandma and Grandpa.  It was a set up that we loved and quite frankly, probably took for granted.  

Our great set up changed at the end of this past January.  For years, my mom has had an auto-immune disease called Scleroderma, but truthfully, it didn’t really cause great problems.  But at the start of this year, she started having medical issues from the disease that put her in the hospital.  On top of the Scleroderma, she was also diagnosed with Lupus. 

These diseases started taking their toll on my mom, and since early February, she has been in and out of the hospital throughout the year, spending more time in the hospital than out of it. 

One is just never prepared to see their mom, at the age of 61, laying in the ICU of the hospital, but unfortunately, it is something that we have become accustomed to this year.  

Through all of this, a nasty side effect that my mom has had is seizures.  In mid-August, the seizures got more serious, and my mom lay in a “sleep” state for eight weeks at Northwestern.  Again, how does one prepare themselves to see their mom hooked up to a respirator and non-responsive?  

Eventually, she began to wake up, but not without lasting damage from the seizures.  Currently, my mom deals with a good amount of confusion, as best as we can tell she has virtually lost her ability to see, and she is weak to the point of not really being able to walk.  She is a shell of her normal vibrant self.  How does one process this?  My dad’s life has now become visiting hospitals and rehab centers to spend the day with her, loving her in sickness and in health.  

As a pastor, people often come to me in times of trial and struggle and pain and look for wisdom on how to make sense of it.  To have it now happening to my family has been crazy and caused me to think of all those questions on a much more personal level.  

Can I give you a few reflections as I look back over a hard year?  The first is this, don’t take life for granted.  I never could have pictured that life would change this much in the matter of months; we just always assumed things would be like they were at least until our parents got really old.  But that doesn’t always happen, so we need to live our lives with a recognition and thankfulness for what we have at this moment. 

Tell your loved ones that you love them today.  Put down your phone or your laptop, or turn off the TV, and play with your children today.  Hold your spouse’s hand and laugh with them today. 

And secondly, recognizing that things are not always guaranteed to us and that bad things do happen, make it cause within you an urgency to consider bigger questions of mortality and purpose. 

When we think we are going to live for many, many more years, it can be easy to push aside the questions of God, mortality, and eternity.  But when faced with it, those questions move to the front of the line.  What do you think happens to you when you die?  What if you were to die tomorrow, what would happen?  You don’t know, then what will you do to start to figure out what you think about those questions? 

As a pastor, I don’t want to lead a church so that we can play religious games or talk about things that don’t matter.  Instead, our conversations about who Jesus is and what role he plays in our lives matters and is something that we each need to wrestle with. 

And lastly, I am thankful that we have a God who is not distant but in our pain, promises to be present.  I have found that to not just be true in theory this year, but to be true in reality and for that I am so thankful.  That is the point of Christmas, that God stepped into the brokenness of humanity and sent his Son, Jesus, to be Immanuel, which means “God with us.”  I have known God’s presence deeply this year through all the struggles and you can know God’s presence in your life as well. 

As a pastor, sometimes people think that I have to say these things about God because it is what I do.  But that’s not true: I say them because I believe them with all my heart and through this year, I have experienced the love and presence of God in deep ways. 

I’d love to talk to you more if you have questions about God or want to process some of your own pain and struggles.  Feel free to email me at brian.from@fourcornerscommunity.org or stop by the church sometimes (www.fourcornerscommunity.org).  Most importantly, please live your lives with an urgency for what matters and live fully each day that you have.