Born Again

I have been walking deeply in the valley of the shadow of death since the sudden loss of my husband, Bruce Chandler Paul. There are many ways in which I already knew the limitations of some “assurances” people bring to those in grief. And certainly, I have received those kinds of failed attempts at condolences. I also have a deeper sense of grace for each person who is struggling to find language that might bring some comfort. There is often an anxious response to the space grief holds that feels so vulnerable and empty for both the person bereft and the one stumbling to reach out. Sometimes you can see fear in the eyes of others that death could come so suddenly. We all carry a deep desire to do something helpful, to say something that assuages the pain, to somehow fix the hurt.

I am thankful for the help that has come from the community—phone calls I couldn’t answer but knew were filled with love and prayers. People who carried details for two services, meal deliveries, friends showing up to care for yardwork, gifts received to help pay expenses, those who attended the memorial gatherings assuring our family we weren’t alone, the sharing of stories, and neighbors who have been so ready to jump in where needed.

There are certainly assurances of faith that have brought comfort in this first leg of the journey. Hearing Psalms read (Bruce loved the Psalms) is language I can breathe in and out. Communion liturgies carry the hope of the resurrection which washes over my broken spirit. Receiving communion has been an embodied expression of my prayer for God’s grace which does not demand I speak words often choked with tears. Reading Bruce’s sermons have been sweet moments in which he ministers to me anew (I am thankful he was a manuscript preacher).

Getting back to church has been hard for many tender reasons. One early attempt to visit a church where I would be anonymous was an unpredictable failure. Unknowingly, the pastor’s whole sermon was based on the metaphor of heart failure, which was Bruce’s cause of death. I tried to breath through each illustration thinking surely, he will move on, but he just kept weaving the theme throughout in deeper ways. However, while it wrecked me at the time, I also saw the dark humor of this occurrence and knew Bruce would laugh at the irony.

I think some of the challenge in finding ways to connect to someone in sorrow is that what reaches one grieving heart would not bring comfort to every grieving heart. So, I offer the following metaphor that is stirring in my spirit as a testimony but not with assurance or insistence that others walking in the valley of the shadow of death would find it comforting.

On one of the prayer apps I use, the guide read from John 3:1-10. What specifically caught my imagination was the invitation to be born again. I received these words from Jesus in a different way than I have before. This was not a call to conversion in the typical sense. What reached my soul was realizing that finding the kingdom of God, finding my life in God, finding a way into a future without my husband, was not my work. All the dreams I previously held are no longer compelling in the same way. What I breathed in as a grace was that I don’t have to create meaning or a reimagined life. Birth is the work of the mother. Right now, my only call is to rest in God’s grace in this moment and this day.

The invitation is to let the Holy Spirit winds blow across my being in all the moments— when I cannot function and when I can. Just like an embryo simply staying within its mother’s womb and receiving what it needs for daily sustenance until it is ready to be born, so, too, can I.

Dr. Mary Rearick Paul, D.Min, is a minister and Vice President of Student Life and Formation at Point Loma Nazarene University.