Life Interrupted
By Tierce Green
One of my favorite John Lennon songs is Beautiful Boy, written for his son, Sean. He includes a quote from Allen Saunders that says, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." That's a good description of 2021 for me. In December of 2020, I posted a Mission Update video—#STILLHERE—that included an exciting game plan for 2021. And then I went dark. Life happened …
My brother-in-law, Benny Edwards, lost his final battle with cancer on January 22, 2021. We had prayed through other battles and witnessed miraculous comebacks, but this time his one remaining kidney was functioning below twenty percent, and his body couldn't take anymore.
We went to the deep end with our conversations last Fall and even in his last days over the phone and FaceTime while he was in the hospital. He asked me if I would do his funeral, and we had the rare opportunity almost to write it out together. Two days before he died, he had a surge of energy and was sitting up in a recliner in his ICU room. He was hopeful that he had turned a corner. But he was gone in about 48 hours.
Benny was twelve years my senior. He was like a brother and a father to me. When I was just a little boy, he filled the void left by my Dad, who was emotionally absent when he was alive, and then he died when I was just ten years old. Speaking at Benny’s funeral was one of the hardest things I've ever done, and at the same, it was one of the greatest honors of my life. Benny modeled real manhood for me by the way he loved God and loved people, especially how he loved my sister, Barbara.
Barbara suffered a stroke about ten years ago that left her with diminished motor functions and without her short-term memory. She would ask the same question multiple times in thirty minutes, and I would watch Benny answer each question every time as if it was the first time she asked it. He sacrificially cared for her. He was beautifully patient with her. He loved her the way Christ loved the church and gave himself up for it.
One of the things that energized my sister and helped her mind to function slightly closer to normal was social interactions with friends and even strangers she encountered at restaurants or while shopping. It was amazing to watch her come alive when we would get her around other people. Then the pandemic hit and getting out and being around others was nearly non-existent, especially with Barbara and Benny’s underlying health issues. She rapidly declined in 2020 both mentally and physically. Trying to process what was going on with Benny and his battle with cancer was hard for her. She thought he just had something like the flu. When she began to understand that it was cancer, fear and anxiety began to take their toll.
Benny tested positive for COVID and was rushed to the hospital when his lung capacity reached a critical level. My sister also tested positive for COVID and was admitted to the hospital as my brother-in-law was in his final hours. Something happened to her mental state while she was there that set her last days in motion.
After being released from the hospital, her daughter, Amanda, and Amanda’s loving family cared for Barbara in their home, but it seemed that she had lost the will to live. We prayed that God would help her to let go. She died on March 26, 2021, two months and a few days after the death of the love of her life. They were married for 58 years.
Between their deaths, and while much of Texas was in a deep freeze causing power outages across the state, there was a horrible house fire in Sugarland, Texas, on February 16, 2021. A good friend lost his mother along with two nieces and a nephew. The children were five, eight, and eleven years old. Only my friend's sister, the mother of the three children, survived. It ripped our hearts out. It was unthinkable and unbearable.
In the midst of all that, my longest and closest friend had a heart attack. He's processing a new normal with meds and lifestyle adjustments and the ever-present thought of just how fragile life is now at the forefront of his thoughts. I’m a better man because of his influence and our friendship. I can only imagine what he and his wife are feeling, and that causes me to hurt deeply for them.
Life happens in the form of potholes and speed bumps that are manageable. Then, there are these huge sinkholes that completely wash out the road ahead. Sometimes instead of clenching the wheel and pushing through, we need to pull over. Pit stops are necessary to refuel and make repairs—to allow time for your heart to heal.
We like to say that God won't give us more than we can handle. The Bible doesn't say that. It says that God won't allow us to be tempted beyond what we can bear but with every temptation, He will provide a way out so that we can endure it (1 Corinthians 10:13). That's not the same as going through impossible circumstances where you not only can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, but it’s so dark you can’t even see the tunnel. God has given His people more than they can bear throughout history … the Israelites with the Red Sea in front of them and the Egyptian army behind them … Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace … David and Goliath … Jonah in the belly of the fish … And the long list of Christians who were persecuted because of their faith.
God will allow us to face more than we can handle because it gives us an opportunity to call out to Him, draw close to Him, and go deeper in our devotion to Him. He will give us more than we can handle, but He will never give us more than He can handle. It’s okay to ask questions. God can handle those, too. I’ve learned that the transactional exercise of having all my questions answered doesn’t deliver the comfort and peace I need. I need to go much deeper than that.