He Is… The Hope That Holds Me

I’m walking through a particular fear related to death in this post, Readers. From fear to faith in 800 words. It may not even qualify as a testimony in progress, but it is a kind of update on my life in this season. It’s a bit dark, but doesn’t hope always show up in the dark, bringing the dawn?

Post soundtrack: “Tell Your Heart to Beat Again” 

My physical heart seems less enthusiastic about beating since deciding to walk away from an unpleasant situation here off blog, so… I’m listening to the song for medicinal rather than aesthetic purposes.

I have a confession for you that will sound so stupid that I hope you’ll think it’s funny: I am afraid of one thing related to dying. Well, two if you count being found wearing inadequate pajamas by my own previous students, but I have been managing my nighttime wardrobe to mitigate that risk.

My real fear related to dying is “sleeping with the fathers,” which seems to mean a kind of waiting in Sheol with family, which should be a comforting thought, right? Roy Baumeister & Leary in “The Need to Belong: Desire for Interpersonal Attachments as a Fundamental Human Motivation” implies that maybe people make up the afterlife so that they can fulfill their need to belong in death if/when those attachments break during life.

But, um, what family do I go to? My father’s family? I don’t know them. And does that mean I don’t get to be with my mother’s family? That’s a curiosity, not a fear.

The fear is this: what if, whatever family I’m with, they don’t like me, and I can’t get away… because I’m dead, so I can’t go anywhere and neither can they. What if I’m trapped for the whole waiting period in the presence of someone’s unrelenting hostility?

*Shivers* That’s my fear.

I’d read an article once where the writer suggested a thought experiment to access the emotional truth a reader might have about an intimate relationship’s ultimate viability. His question: Imagine you’re buried next to this person. What does that bring up?

Terror. The image of my Nightmare-before-Christmas skeletal self clawing its way out of the grave.

Bleak, no?

And here’s the weird part: I can’t picture myself buried next to anyone. Next to my dad and his wife? Third wheel. Same with my brother and his wife, other family members, and friends. I could dig in next to my grandfather, but I don’t know them well either; would they think it an imposition? “Hey, who let her in here!”

Told you this is a stupid thing to worry about. I’d be dead. Who cares?

Belonging. Having a home. Permanent residence. I suppose it’s the same idea, isn’t it? Now that I’m not worried about where I live in life, I’ve pushed it off to where I live in death, or discovered I still have it concerning where I live in death. What, like he’s suddenly no longer trustworthy when I’m out of the body? Like that would change his character or nature or love? Unlikely. Love never fails. Death has no power over love.

Sometimes I see myself being pulled out of the water by my hair on my way to being resurrected, the Lord pulling me up and into his arms to have me face to face with him. That may sound creepy, but it comforts me. It tells me he loves me too much to ever let me go, won’t leave me behind, would retrieve my lifeless body from the deepest waters if he had to and breathe his own life into me again.

Water burials are a thing, and that might solve my problem. I always liked the water. 

I’m his. In life and death and life again.

“Neither life nor death nor things present nor things to come… can ever separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus.” 

Romans 8

Playing with my notes in my journal the other day, I’d drawn boxes around “generations” on the right and “forever” on the left, thinking of the dual nature of the Sabbath commandment: the people upholding the covenant through time by their generations; God upholding his side–forever, outside time.

Well, I’m a time-based person, but I don’t have any generations, no children that made it out of the womb, no representation of the blessing of eternal life reflected down here. But he says in Isaiah that I shouldn’t worry about that, feel cut off because of that.

Yes, he’s better than ten sons. Yes, he’s enough, more than enough. Yes, I trust him to love me through and beyond every sorrow, yes–all that.

But where does that leave me in my drawing of two boxes? Not in the “generations” box.

You know how people carve their initials into tree trunks or picnic tables? I put a little heart and “me” in the box with Hashem–forever, ha.

He’s my home, the hope that holds me. I trust him here now. I don’t have to be afraid if I remember I can trust him to be my home then.

And wear decent pajamas.

Be strong, be strong, and may we each be strengthened, Beloved. All our hearts held in his hands–forever.

PS Are you writing yourself into faith? Link it up and tell me about it.