Can I get a real candy heart that says 'u r dust?'
On the collision of love and loss this Ash-Valentine's Day
Can I tell you how much I craved solitude in my grief? How much I wanted to just be alone? I would walk through the morning routine like a zombie, my head filled with a cloud of static feedback, trying not to snap at the children for being too loud… too childlike.
I told someone that my biggest lament with God in that season was that he asked me to do both at the same time. To grieve and to parent. To crave stillness and to keep moving. To be sorrowful yet always (needing to) rejoice.
The life we had — one filled with joyful noise and mess and movement — suddenly felt painful to me. After spending time in the dark, I found it impossible to adjust to the bright chaos of kids and their raucous joy.
And yet somehow I did. Somehow, I grew thankful that my circumstances didn’t let me stay in bed and sulk. I felt both burdened by my responsibilities and buoyed by them. I had to do the things I did not want to do, and eventually my heart followed. (To be sure, I did have some sleep-ins and a few days of solitude for book writing, but life had to become life again too.)
I was in the midst of this balancing act, this learning to hold joy and sorrow in two hands, when I attended my first Ash Wednesday service a few years ago. I went to a church near-mine-but-not-mine where I could be beautifully anonymous. The liturgy, the psalms, the service put words to the both-and reality I was living.
Memento Mori, it all said, Remember you will die. And here I was, on the other side of my mother’s death, grateful I wasn’t the only one being confronted by this reality, if only for a short service.
I went home that evening to my still-happy, still-loud family feeling more… balanced. I had found the space to sit in the stillness, to acknowledge the ways death and loss, aging and caregiving were reshaping my life, reshaping me. Somehow sitting in that reality made me more able to reenter what had felt like the otherworldly whir of life. Somehow, sitting still with what was helped me find my footing again, and live.
“Teach us to number our days, that we may find a heart of wisdom,” Moses tells us in Psalm 90.
I thought about this balance we’re all asked to strike — this ability to acknowledge the hard without missing the good — when I found out that Valentine’s Day would fall this year on Ash Wednesday.
But the more I think about it, the more fitting it feels. Every choice to love has always contained the possibility of death. When we love something or someone, we die to many other good things worthy of our time and attention. We have on this Wednesday in February, an opportunity to consider the great cost of love, and to find the strength to keep doing it anyway.
New (free!) Bible Reading Plans
If you’re not quite sure to do with this mashup of holidays, or how to begin processing what they stir up in you, I have a couple of free resources that might help. I have two new Bible reading plans that are now available on YouVersion, the Bible reading app!
One is a 6-day introduction of sorts to the themes of Ash Wednesday and of “learning to live within our limits during Lent.” If you’re new to either of these traditions, this is a way to dip a toe into what Scripture teaches about these topics. This devotional is also a short-course in growing a better theology of death, learning to walk through the metanarrative themes of creation, fall, redemption and consummation that we find in Scripture. You can start the plan today!
The second one is a 3-day reading plan offering “Hope for Caregivers.” This devotional is a meditation on John 11, when Jesus surprises us with the way he cares for two grieving sisters and their brother Lazarus. This plan would be great for someone in the thick of exhausting seasons of grieving or caregiving and wondering how to connect with Christ in the midst. Start this plan today or recommend it to a friend in need.
We Shall All Be Changed: How Facing Death with Loved Ones Transforms Us came out one week ago, and the reception has blown me away. Thank you for ordering, for sharing and supporting this book. People like to compare writing books to birthing children, and I’ve had my doubts about the metaphor. But what struck me this week was how quickly the book baby grows up and starts having a life of its own, spreading from hand to hand to people I would never otherwise know.
If you’ve read the book and want to have more copies on hand for others, Amazon still has a buy-one-get-one-half-off deal, or you can find a discount on one copy from Moody or 10ofthose.com ($1 shipping). You can also leave a review on Amazon or with other sellers to help others find the book. I’m grateful for reviews like this one.
On The Air 🎧
I had the pleasure of being on a few radio shows and podcasts last week talking about the book topic. Here are a couple favorites if you have some earbud time in your schedule.
I was surprised by the first question, “What was your mom like?” on the Chris Fabry Live show. What a kindhearted interviewer.
And I so enjoyed this conversation with the Grow in Grace podcast, where I got a little weepy talking about walking my kids through grief.
That’s all for now. May you find grace to carry both today.
— Whitney
My pleasure. I'm so glad to hear it.
Thank you, Whitney, for this full-hearted meditation. It hit the spot.