I lost a friend, a big sister, and a fellow soldier in Christ over the weekend.  Much of what I want and need to say in this moment wasn’t appropriate for our General Conference blog, but it needed to come out, and Facebook wasn’t right either.  So here it is…

Steph was my friend for more than 20 years, since I first met her as a bratty high school kid at Camp Wakonda.  She was one of our college-aged SCSC workers that year, and we became friends very quickly.  Steph was the kind of friend you’d build if you could design one yourself: deeply caring, sacrificial, hilarious, talented, and ruthlessly witty.  If you needed an arm, she’d have given you hers, and then, just to be sure you were alright, she’d have given you both her mittens, just to make sure that your new arm stayed warm, and that your old arm didn’t get preferential treatment over the new one, while making a joke about the challenge she would now face tying her shoes.

When Steph moved to Milton, she was looking for a place to land for a few months while she got settled and figured out if Wisconsin was a place she wanted to live.  She ended up staying with my family for a period of months.  During that time, she became a part of my family—the big sister I didn’t know I didn’t have but desperately needed.  We spent many long nights trying to unpack difficult questions.  Sometimes the questions were about our personal pains, and other times they were about some difficult theological conundrum.  The conversations were engaging, amusing, occasionally irreverent, and always helpful. I like to believe they were as helpful and meaningful for her as they were for me. The conversations continued even as Steph moved—first out of our house, then out of the Janesville-Milton area a number of years later.

Steph was a fantastic listener and counselor, even before she devoted her life to following that path as her vocation.  Her own pain became a vehicle for her to feel deep compassion for hurting people, and her own journey through her pain gave her hope that she could share that same hope with those who were struggling.  Steph understood instinctively the right time to speak the true thing that could save a life.  I know this from firsthand experience.  I struggled for a period of years with deep depression.  Steph remained close throughout that process, but at a critical point in the process, Steph pulled me aside and told me I needed to decide if I wanted to get out of it or not—that the stage I was at was one of decision.  It was perfect timing, and she was the perfect person to deliver the message.  It’s hard to be sure, and in times like this it is easy to exaggerate, but she very well may have saved my life as I now know it.  In this experience, I have every confidence I wasn’t alone.

It is my studied opinion that some people didn’t fully appreciate Steph because she was so unassuming about everything.  If you went to Steph with a deep personal issue, she guarded your information with a fierce tenacity, even as she poured herself out for you.  I don’t think we understand (and I certainly don’t fully understand) truly how many people she was providing this level of care and support for, and all without so much as a word.  A few years ago, Steph called me after seeing me post some things on FB that concerned her—because she knew me.  The timing was providential.  I was in the process of burning out on a new job and approaching the threshold where self-destruction becomes a real possibility.  I was trying to help too many people and do too many things at once, and I’d reached the end of my rope.  Steph called under the pretense of asking me a hypothetical question about a counseling class she had just attended.  As we talked she, in a very big-sisterly way, inserted into the conversation that “she thought about me during the class,” and proceeded to name my issue (which I had been up to that point unable to do) and help me figure out how much it was truly affecting me.  By the end of the call, it was clear that the real reason she had called was because she was deeply concerned, but she knew enough to know that the direct approach wouldn’t have worked, so she engaged my brain first.  How do you replace the person who silently, and without fanfare, supported you and nearly everyone else you know?  What happens when the support is cut out from under you?  I’m afraid many of us are about to find out.

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep,that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. -1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 (ESV)

As we all got older and leadership roles opened up in our General Conference, many of us found ourselves in those roles, Steph and I were confederates, driven by the same assumptions, ideals and values. We were concerned about the same sorts of obstacles and frustrations.  We regularly plotted edifying Kingdom mischief, and supported one another as we led out in various ways.  Among Seventh Day Baptists, there are often so many opinions that finding someone who shares your opinion is like finding the proverbial “needle in the haystack.”  But Steph was, for me, one of those blessed needles.  As a leader in our Conference, having a confidant to whom you can speak your full mind without reservation, saying even the things you’re not sure you believe but need to hear out loud, is irreplaceable.  I am a verbal processor, and Steph’s skill as a discerning listener was one upon which I regularly relied.  All of the pieces of camaraderie among confederates we shared: some of the happiest experiences of my life, the darkest moments, the deepest uncertainty.  We soldiered through many things together.  And now she’s gone.

Steph was the person I called when I needed to process my grief.  Who do I call now?

 

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling,  if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. -2 Corinthians 5:1-5 (ESV)

I know at this point, that as a good pastor, I’m supposed to turn towards what we know from Scripture: that God has gathered Steph.  That she isn’t gone.  That she’s in a better place.  And what comfort I feel in this moment has deep root in that truth: she is with Jesus.  But grief isn’t about what we know: it’s about trying to get over the pain and confusion of having someone important ripped out of the tapestry of our lives, trying to make sense of the hole, trying to figure out what the “new normal” will be.  Grief is something we do for us—not for those we have lost.  So I grieve for my friend, my sister, my confidant, my fellow soldier, not because I fear she has lost, but because I know that she’s won her final battle through Christ, and we’re still stuck fighting down here.  She’s gone a distance I can’t bridge, and there is pain in the numbing futility of it.

So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight.  Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.  So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. -2 Corinthians 5:6-10 (ESV)

And there is fighting left to do.  God’s plan on earth for me and for you is not yet complete.  We know that because we’re still here.  There is no sense in which God was surprised by this event, though I am personally persuaded in this moment that other forces are responsible for the timing of Steph’s passing.  What Satan means for evil, God works for good.  But at least some of that good will be related to how we respond in faith.  We have work to do, and it’s the work we’ve all been called to.  We have to lean into each other now, get through this together, and work together in service of the King who called us and who has gathered Steph to himself.  It’s what our King wants, and it is definitely what Steph would’ve wanted.  Be brave, grieve deeply and well, and we will get through this together as a family.  Let’s be kind to one another and learn from Steph’s example of sacrificial, self-giving love and support.  We need to remember and learn from that example, because she isn’t here to help us figure it out anymore.  Blessings to you on your journey through this grief or the other griefs you face.