ONE EARLY COLD SUNDAY MORNING, my husband and I heard our doorbell ring. Ken went out on our deck to see who was there, and to his surprise, a young man he had just been getting to know was standing in the driveway.
In haste, the distraught young man explained, “Come quickly and bring your wife. We’ve lost our baby.” Then he backed out of our driveway and sped away.
We immediately dropped what we were doing, got into our car, and drove through town, wondering what had happened. Thinking back, I remember being surprised that the couple had asked for us to come. Being called into someone else’s crisis is never easy.
We pulled into the parking spot of a very tiny house. We entered hesitantly by the kitchen door and walked toward the group gathered in the living room. There we found the dad holding his one-year-old son. The mom was rocking and wailing in sorrow while holding her cherished infant in her arms. Her baby was swaddled in a blanket that covered his tiny face.
The police officer and a coroner were busily trying to make sense of this unbelievably heartbreaking scene. The shock and trauma weighed heavily on us as we pleaded with God to show us how to help.
Since we had been invited, I felt free to slide onto the space on the L-shaped sofa beside the mom and her baby so that I could put my arm around her. She was understandably inconsolable. We cried together
…………………..
This trauma would affect them for the rest of their lives. This trauma would affect all of us for a very long time. For now, we called out from our hearts to God for help.
Shock, sorrow, confusion, anger, and feelings of maternal protection were swirling around in the pit of my stomach. Ken and I took turns praying on behalf of the devastated family.
I have to be honest here. I did not want to hold or look at the baby, but the anxious mother really wanted me to. She wanted me to hold and look at her beautiful son, and I was not going to refuse her. She placed her baby in my arms. Then the mom lifted the blanket off of her son’s perfect face, and I stared at the bluish colour of the little one’s features. She wanted me to feel the coolness of his skin. At that moment, I felt the sting of death rip through my heart. My reflex reaction was to close my eyes and continue to pray. Only God’s unwavering strength could get us through this senseless loss of life.
Once all the interviewing was done, the mom reluctantly let the coroner take her little son’s body to be transported for autopsy. She was fighting with the reality that her treasured baby would never be cradled in her arms again.
Eventually, Ken was asked to speak at the wake and funeral by the family. This would be his first funeral. It would be hosted in our little church building and lasted 24 hours. Eventually, the cause of death was listed as crib death.
THE MISERABLE OLD MISSIONARY TREADMILL
This extremely traumatic event of grief illustrates the damage that trauma, death, pain, and loss can have on the heart—on the hearts of those who go through it, and on the hearts of those who come alongside to give comfort. Who but the God of all Comfort can heal these kinds of wounds?
As we entered our final season of life, we found ourselves stuck on a treadmill of physical, emotional, and in some ways even spiritual fatigue. For both of us, a negative, critical and judgmental attitude kept raising its ugly head.
When Ken and I attended our first missionary training program back in 1987, we met a couple who had been field missionaries for several years. We were shocked to find that as much as they wanted to encourage us towards our new life as full-time missionaries, an underlying negative, critical and judgmental attitude kept surfacing as they spoke to us.
Later that evening, when Ken and I talked over our conversation with them, we vowed that we never wanted to become miserable old missionaries like them. How idealistic and naiive we were. Thirty-three years later, we found ourselves stuck showing the signs of the same behaviour.
We were asking ourselves a lot of questions. How did we get like this? When did we drive into this quagmire, and more importantly, how do we get out?
These questions, combined with some observations we have made of other missionaries who seem to be having similar struggles, compelled us to study this topic of grief.
TODAY IN GOD’S WORD
While reading 1 Thessalonians chapter three, my husband and I came across an expression of the Apostle Paul’s heart for the new believers he had just left behind in the city of Thessalonica:
“Therefore brothers, in all our distress and persecution we were encouraged about you because of your faith. For now we really live, since you are standing firm in the LORD.”
1 THESSALONIANS 3:7-8
As we let Paul’s words sink in, we realized that in our ministry lives over these thirty-some years, we have experienced the same kind of concerns that Paul had for the new believers. So, what sort of concerns am I talking about?
While on his missionary journeys, God had led Paul to various places and given him a heart of love for the people wherever he went. He would share the Gospel of grace with them, and in each setting, a new body of believers was born. As the LORD led Paul on, he would long for the news that those he had come to love were standing firm in their faith.
We have spent our missionary lives longing to hear the news that those we have come to know and love had put their faith in Jesus and were standing firm in their faith.
If you read between the lines of the previous verses, you will realize that Paul was not really living, kind of like holding his breath until he was assured the new believers were okay. Okay, meant standing and growing in their professed faith in Christ. Paul said that he was encouraged when he heard this good news.
We can almost feel him sighing relief because we know what it’s like to hold our breath, hoping for the best in people’s lives.
Over these many years of building relationships in the communities where God has led us, we have done lots of holding our breath with very little really living where the lives of our many friends are concerned. There have been so few that we know of who have walked on with Jesus. Only recently have we heard about a small number of our friends growing in their relationship with the LORD.
In identifying with Paul, the LORD helped us recognize one of the chronic griefs of our ministry lives. So much loss, so little fruit in the lives of those we have loved. Not really living well describes the undercurrent of our wellbeing.
And it’s not just us. I heard a missionary respond to one of these typical to our line of ministry losses with a survival coping statement. When asked if she was feeling disappointed at the news of the current loss, she admitted that she was kind of disappointed.
Chronic disappointment is like an anvil around the neck. Compassion or ministry fatigue then becomes a lifestyle, and we protect ourselves with coping strategies. One of these strategies is to deny the disappointments (because there are just so many) by doing the shoulder shrug and using the whatever statements. This might look like we don’t care, but the truth is, we really do care! In fact, we are emotionally exhausted from caring. It is from this place of emotional exhaustion that we run the risk of sliding down the steep slope mentioned in Ephesians 4:31:
“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.”
TRANSITION
Finishing up the leadership portion of our ministry and entering into a fruitful last season of life requires a transition. A transition off this Miserable Old Missionary Treadmill that we seemed to be stuck on. If we want to get onto a path of freedom and growth in grace so that our lives are free to produce the fruit of the Spirit, we are going to have to get intentional. Intentional about facing our condition and looking to the only One who can help us unpack and resolve our compacted unresolved grief.
We need to seek to resolve the issues that have contributed to our reactionary behaviours. Then we can go on to experience the hope, joy, contentment, gratitude and generosity that only our God can produce. He is our Wonderful Counsellor, after all! He is the one who can comfort us in our times of grief. He wants to continue transforming and maturing us into becoming the best version of ourselves that He intends for us to be in our “Fourth Quarter.”
This article is composed of selections from NCEM missionary Debbie Matthews’ book “Understanding Grief.” Ken and Debbie Matthews became missionaries with NCEM in 1988. In 2010 they moved to Nipawin, SK, to help with a church plant. Both Ken and Debbie retired from NCEM December 31, 2023. Despite retiring, you will still see them active in ministry, both in love and service to their community and church family.