But I Need You

(Originally posted on my facebook page on November 11, 2008.)

I have written a note every two weeks for the last six. I don’t know why. Two weeks later, it just always feels like it’s time. It has been six weeks since we lost Emily, and it is still hard, yet . . . I am late in posting this, because God has been so at work. I guess He always was, but I didn’t see it before. There are so many layers to this grief, and I haven’t been able to work through one stage of grief and then move on. I keep recycling back through them with every annaversary, weekly and then again on a much larger scale on the month mark. Yet, I begin to see . . . there is such a journey of discovery in this life with Him. As one of Emily’s favorite songs says, “With pleasing grief and mournful joy, my spirit now is full.”

So many things about me are different from the way I was before, and so many things of me are different every week, every day that follows. “You are not the bouncy, happy Abi that I remember,” one of my managers, Mary, said when she took me aside to talk last week. I have felt so strongly that each of us, all of us that loved Emily, died on that walking trail that afternoon, and when we all reawakened, she was the only one not in pain. I have grieved my own passing in addition to the loss of her. I have wished so many times that it could have been me. That SHE could continue on in her life and service here. In some ways, I think it is just my own selfishness and lack of courage. As one of my other managers, Nick, said that first week when we were talking about the legal system, “I always thought that capitol punishment was the easy way out, anyway,” He said. “You don’t have to live with yourself.” I heard it that first time in refference to the man that still walks free somewhere, that holds the last moments of Emily’s earthly life in his memory, just as we hold every other moment in our hearts. Now . . . that comment is about me. Death is the easy way out. Death is the absense of me having to walk every day of my life in its shadow. It was relatively easy to come to terms with my death in those first few weeks. Coming to terms with my own life . . . how much harder. How infinitely harder. Last week, as I sat wearily and in tears in a dark corner booth in the restaurant, Mary left me with another sentiment, “I didn’t know Emily,” she said. “But she sounds like someone who . . . she would want you to be strong.” Music has a wisdom nothing else seems to, as I write this, I listen to one of Emily’s favorite songs. A clear woman’s voice sings out for Christ, “I died that you might live.”

There has been so much talk of what Emily would want for us, what she would think of the changes that have come over us, what to do in our lives with her death shadowing, scaring, and reshaping our hearts. In some ways, I feel like all of Emily’s prayers in life were bottled up until the moment of her death, and with her last breath, they spilled out onto an unsuspecting world. She did not see in life what came about in her death, but what poetic beauty. Within the hour of her death, I made arrangements to go to church the following week. I would not learn the infinite, the painful, the heart-wrending, and heart-rendering significance of that moment until the following day. When the news came to me that Emily was gone, I didn’t want to go to church the next week. I didn’t want to go spend so much time with a group of people that didn’t know me and would never, now, know Emily on This Side. But in the days that followed that first horrible one, I began to realize . . . if there was one thing that Emily would want me to do, this was probably it. I mentioned it to Grace as I lay curled up in bed with the phone to my ear. “She would,” Grace said. She brought back a conversation I had forgotten. About six months before I had been spouting off about the pointlessness of church. It was one of my most cynical moments. I had forgotten about it. “She told me that she hoped you’d go back, that it would be good for you,” Grace said. I sat there in silent shock. We hung up, and I still just sat and thought about what Grace had said.

Someone had noticed me. Even in my own blindness, someone else had seen and cared.

Emily and I hadn’t been one-on-one friends who shared personal, intimate, private conversations about deep things. Not like some of the others. She was one of the kids in the group. So was I. That was how I remembered her. I can’t even remember most of our conversations clearly. Except for one that I remember very, very vividly, they were mostly just jokes and hestarical, uproarious laughter over nothingness. With her and with everyone else, I don’t often remember WHAT we laughed about . . . just that we did. There is a sweetness in that simplicity, and yet a sorrow that there was nothing more—at least that I knew of at the time. I remembered that she was always enthusiastic, friendly, cheerful . . . always the first one to say hello, always pulling me in when I felt on the outside. I hadn’t expected that she thought of me, that she had any particular thought of me except to recognize me as Micah’s sister. I hadn’t expected to hear that she had talked to another friend about what she hoped for me.

Within that first week, there was almost always a student presence in the chatroom. One morning, there wasn’t. I came in and it was just me sitting in the “Emily Joy. . . . Memorial Lounge.” I just sat there. It was a step away from “before,” and I didn’t know how to handle that. Those first few days of the round-the-clock vigil were over. No one was there. So I just began to type, talking to her about everything that had happened that week, about how much we missed her, about how much I envied where she was now. After several days of tears, I started to laugh as I gave her the names of people I wanted her to find up there. “Hey, go give my Grandma Margaret some gummy bears,” I said, laughing mischeviously in the empty chatroom. “Watch her stick out her tongue . . . yeah, that’s where I got the length in mine.” I laughed, thinking of an old memory of a woman who had died in her sleep, and left me with her spunky quirkiness. “Oh, and then go find my Uncle Roy and ask him about how he lost his finger ‘digging for buried treasure.’” I started laughing again, that sort of exhausted, nervous, caffeine-like laughter . . . the relief of realizing I still knew how.

I went to church that following Sunday. It was a holy experience in so many different ways. I felt as though she were watching over me. In the weeks that followed, if someone invited me to do something with them on Sunday morning, I declined, simply saying that I had to go to church, that I had “promised a friend.” I walked into church, and my friend was waiting for me. He said hello and then dissapeared with the worship band. I sat down in the pew and began idly looking through the bulletin. I know I wrote some of this before, but it wasn’t until later that I put together the events of the entire week. I read 3 John 13-14: “I have much to write you, but I do not want to do so with pen and ink. I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face. Peace to you. The friends here send their greetings. Greet the friends there by name.” I sat there and sobbed. I knew it was from Emily. Later I realized . . . I had talked to her in chat several days before, though she hadn’t been there to hear it, asking her to talk to the friends THERE . . . the ones that “send their greeting.” I tend to be very cynical and suspicious about such experiences, but I wasn’t even LOOKING for this. It was as if God were granting me an assurance and a comfort . . . that Emily was happy, that SHE could not wait to see us again any more than WE could wait to see her.

I have been to church every Sunday since. It has been the only place that I feel so fully connected to all of these friends that my heart is with every day even though we are spread out all over the globe. When I am there, I know that almost ALL of us are doing the same thing at the same time. When I am there, I know that we are all doing, at the same time, what EMILY is doing—standing in awe and worship of Him, being completely at the mercy of the One that Saves. Two weeks ago I went to church and then rushed out and went to mass with a Catholic friend. It was All Soul’s Day. I hadn’t remembered. They talked about the hope and certainty of heaven. Somehow I had trouble picturing Emily doing what I was doing, standing, sitting and kneeling two seconds behind everyone else, since she was a Calvinist and a Baptist, but sitting there in the pew, listening to the prayers and joining in a few lines that I knew, I knew that Lauren, the resident Catholic member of the school, was doing the same thing at the same time. We were both thinking of each other during the same time, knowing we knew where the other was.

It is at these moments of clarity, I feel even stronger that Emily’s prayers were gathered together and released at once for maximum impact. She had hoped I would go back to church; in the same hour that she died, I made the arrangements to go. She had prayed for her group of friends, my friends, praying that we would be drawn closer to Him and to each other. In the last week we have had such opportunities to press into Him together. Monday morning I sat at the computer, talking with John in Korea. We turned on Blessed Be the Name of the Lord, and together, on opposite sides of the world, we sat in worship of Him, crying out to him, “You give and take away! My heart will CHOOSE to say, Blessed be Your Name!” Later that day, several of the girls joined in prayer from every corner of the country, our fingers flying as we typed our prayer into chat. Wednesday the opportunity came again, and the prayer went on for an hour and a half.

My close friend, Mary Margaret, called me shortly after the prayers subsided, and I was so full of excitement and enthusiasm. “I feel so different,” I said, almost breathless. “I don’t even know where to begin, what to do with myself. He is SO close!” She must have been smiling on the other end of the phone. She has seen me at my very worst, my lowest points, and my deepest cynicsm. “I know,” she said, a bit of amazement in her voice. “I can hear it in your voice.”

In these last six weeks, He has come to me as He did to Thomas when he was too weak and hurting to have faith in more than what he saw. But then last Thursday began another trial, another stage of the journey in which He was there, but I did not feel Him. Wednesday was the day that we prayed together with such fervor and felt Him so tangibly present. Thursday, I wanted it again. I SO wanted it! That connection with Him and with the others. I have come to recognize that Still Small Voice so personally, like the voice on the other end of the phone that your ear knows even before an introduction is made. I wanted to suggest another prayer session, to go in, to pray, to do so together . . . but I knew it was not the time. “Not now,” I could hear in my spirit. “Not now.”

“How can this be You?” I asked. “It’s PRAYER.” Yet I continued to receive the same response. I couldn’t do it. I understand now why we stray from Him. Why do we not trust His leadership? Because we take things at face value and do not look beyond. We, very foolishly, say, “But this is something YOU would want,” instead of waiting for Him to say, “Now it’s time.” We look up at Him with the indignance of a four year old, hands on hips, and say, “But You said . . . “ as if He needs reminding.

I went on without Him. I started the prayer, and it was . . . dead. There was nothing in it. For the first time since Emily died, I could not feel Him tangibly beside me. I sent a private message to friend in the group, “Do you ever feel like your timing is off?” She had felt it too. I had gone on ahead of Him and asked Him to bless what I was doing rather than follow His lead and accept His invitation to join in what HE was doing. I felt like I had failed, and even more so . . . I felt like I had lost Him. It was not like in that moment He was gone, and then as soon as I closed the prayer He returned. I walked away from the computer and could not feel Him beside me. I took a shower and cried out to him. “DON”T LEAVE ME!!!” I sobbed. “I can’t do this alone! Don’t leave me!” I knew that He has promised to never leave nor forsake me, yet I have gone most of my life not feeling His presence as I have these past several weeks. I had a taste of it now. I was still broken and bleeding, and I KNEW what was out there for me. I continued to cry out, to pray, to seek that Voice again, but it was in confusion. I’d hear a simple sentiment, but I did not recognize the voice behind it, but what if it was wrong? I somehow knew that stepping out from under Him had muddied the waters. I had heard his Voice, known it was Him, and walked in the opposite direction. I knew that was the reason I could not recognize Him now. It was not a punishment. It was as Eve, the woman fashioned so literally by God’s hands, who had not trusted that He knew what was best. She had stepped out from under Him, and suddenly realized she was naked—a distance was there that was not there before. I continued to pray, to sing, to cry out to Him. “I NEED YOU!” But He was still distant. I slowly began to realize that I could not pursue Him hard enough. I could not push hard enough and guarrentee that closeness. I could not MAKE Him come. He would come if He came. It was a gift, not a birthright. “He’s not a tame Lion,” as was said of Aslan in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Several days before, I had fallen to my knees and cried out to Him. “DON”T LEAVE ME!” I had felt Him through those prayers. I had prayed them, feeling Him near, because I needed to say it, not because I felt Him distant. Thursday was different. I cried out desparately, not because of a broken heart, but because I could not feel Him with me. What if that was it? What if the closeness didn’t come back? I kept praying, kept pleeding. I knew I had nothing to offer the others without Him with me. I knew I could not stand up under it all without Him near. I would be wooden and without wisdom. “I can’t do this alone!” I continued to pray. I thought of what Emily’s father had prayed when Emily’s death was confirmed, “Lord, help! Help!” Finally, I got out of the shower. I felt exhausted and still panicked. “Pray for the others now,” I heard the Voice. It sounded familiar, but I was still concerned I was not hearing Him, was not able to tell His Voice from my own. I had gone against Him once when I heard His Voice, and I thought I recognized this voice, so I was reluctant to do anything other than what it said . . . but I needed to say something else. Tentatively, slowly, I ventured out into a conversation. “But . . . *I* need you.”

I felt a Smile, and I recognized it. It was His. It was the Smile I had felt the night nearly a week before when I had clung to my sheets, on my knees beside my bed crying out, “I NEED YOU.” It was the contented, happy smile--the sheer THRILL in His heart for being pursued, for being desparately wanted. THIS was the answer His heart had hoped to hear. I felt it swell in His heart, and in that moment He was THERE. I curled up into a ball on the floor right there, and I felt another promise of His overwhelm me so strongly: “He will shelter you in the shaddow of His wings.” I lay there for a good, long while, feeling His Presence so closely, so intimately MINE. I lay there in comfort and relief, then I heard the Voice again, “Okay, now stand up.” Like a little child snuggling with a parent in the warmth of an old quilt on a lazy afternoon, my heart resisted, “Oh, do I have to?” I felt the Smile again: “just a few more minutes.” And then again . . . “Okay, now it’s time.”

I stood to my feet. I put one foot in front of the other. And He was there. There at my side every step I took from that place, at that moment. Guiding me, giving me little instructions. I knew His Voice. I could hear it. I trusted it, and I reveled in it, delighting in His company. I continued throughout the day, listening for His Voice as He guided me through the simple things. I listened to worship music. I chatted with friends. I felt myself reaching out in my spirit just as I had physically as a small child . . . reaching out to make sure my father was still there. As I realized what it was I was doing, it was MY heart’s turn to smile. In the absense of the physical representative of such a love, the love of a father—HE was there.

I began putting paint to a drawing I had sketched a few nights before, my heart singing praise. A song that Bis had shared with me the day before that Emily had loved came to mind. Suddenly, and I don’t know why at that moment, I felt threatened. “What if there is more to the gospel than I ever figured?” I have always had the loosest concept of what it takes to be saved of anyone I have ever known, but in that moment I wondered if I was wrong. If maybe ALL of us had missed it. I was panicked again. What if I was kidding myself? I recognized the threat. I knew the voice was not His. I dropped my paint brushes on the table, unwashed and ignored, and ran to my room, throwing myself down on the floor. “God, I know this is not true! I know that You have PROMISED us! I know that You are holding her right now! GOD, I claim the promise that all who trust in You are saved.” And again, Emily’s father’s words came to my mind: “If this gospel that I have preached is not true now, it never was.” And then Emily’s song came to mind again, “Forever etched upon my mind is the look of Him who died, the lamb I crucified, and now my life will sing the praise of pure atoning grace that looked on me and gladly took my place.” I lay listening in my mind to the memory of the song. I knew it was true NOW. I knew it always had been. I knew the difference between HIS voice and another.

This has been such a rollercoaster of emotions. About the time I think I have made some progress, I loose it again, and at a moment I don’t expect, God appears infront of me with such force I cannot see anything else. There is a hope and a certainty in my heart, just as my manager Mary said near the end of our talk last week, “I know it takes a long time . . . years even. But I know, I KNOW that someday . . . I will see the old Abi again.” We all died that day. And yet there is the same hope of new life for each of us. We will see her again, and I have that Glimpse of heaven before my eyes every day. I begin to realize, that as I grieve the old Abi, and I learn to acknowledge the new Abi, neither of them are the Abi that will walk out of this Valley of the Shadow of Death. They will merge and become one. Avril Lavine’s When Your Gone sings into the void in my heart where feelings and words do not meet: “Everything that I do, reminds me of you.” I realize that from this day forth, I carry Emily with me, and as her life and death continues to teach me of the power of the Gospel, I carry HIM with me too . . . in a way I never fathomed before. As Bis sang that night, before she had learned of Emily’s death: It is Well, it is well, with my soul.” I need Him, and that desparation feels so good.