I have a friend. Her name is Jennie and a couple years ago, this is the email that I received from her.
“First, let me apologize for the long email below. I wanted to tell you my story and share with you how Papa has worked in my life since reading The Shack.
Sixteen months ago, my life was turned upside down when I was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. The doctors informed me that I would require aggressive dosages of chemotherapy to shrink the tumor and suppress the growth of the cancer. I also underwent surgery to remove the primary tumor. After 7 months of going every two weeks for my treatment, my body had nearly giving up. I reacted very poorly to the chemo and suffered many miserable days and nights from the effects. After taking a break from treatment for 5 months to undergo two surgeries, I was once again facing four more rounds of chemo. After my second round I could hardly go on — all of the side effects I had suffered over the previous year came rushing back in just two treatments. I felt as though my body was going to shut down.
About this time my dear friends, Jim and D’ Sunda called and asked if they could come over to the house and read me a book they thought I would enjoy. That Saturday, the Sundas arrived around 9 o’clock with a small paperback book titled The Shack. I must admit that I was feeling better that day and really didn’t want to sit on the couch and have my husband John and the Sundas take turns reading this book aloud to me. As D’ began reading the first chapter, I still was wondering why she thought she needed me to hear this book. Jim read the next chapter and John the next. Dozens of books about dealing with and living through cancer had been given to me by well thinking friends — The Shack I thought is just another book that I can throw on the bookshelf in the upstairs guest room. I was angry that I was going through this and I didn’t want to sit and listen to chapters being read aloud.
When Mack opened his mailbox and found the letter, everything changed. I began to listen intently. They read on to the point where Mack approaches the shack and meets Papa. Jim and D’ then closed the book, handed it to me, prayed for me and quickly left as they were late for lunch.
The rest of the afternoon, John and I spent reading The Shack, pausing often to laugh or cry or discuss a revelation that Papa brought to our hearts.
Nearly forty-three years ago, I was born in New York City to Puerto Rican parents who pastored a small independent church in the Bronx. Legalism ruled my life as I attempted to abide by all the rules that I was taught in the church. I quickly rebelled, as I knew I could never do enough to please the god of these rules, so at 13 I turned my back on the church and my parents stopped making me attend. Ten years later, I recommitted my life to God and began attending my parents’ church. About this time my friend John and I began dating and were married in 1987.
John did not know what he was getting himself into. I never talked about the physical and sexual abuse I had suffered as a child by family members and by people in the church. All four of my siblings had suffered like abuse. My parents before us were both abused as children. My family lived one life for others to see and another that no one ever saw. I always hated people telling me that they wished they could be part of our family — if they only knew. John had grown up as a missionary kid in Africa to parents that served the Lord for nearly 50 years with our denomination. I used to joke and call his family “the Walton’s.” We began attending churches in the many cities we lived in over the first several years. I began to see a different God than the one that I had been introduced to all of my life. But I still only believed in spurts. When times were going well, everything was well. When trouble came or times got tough, I quickly reverted back to thinking that I was being punished because of disbelief or disobedience.
You can imagine how I felt when I was diagnosed with advanced stage cancer. Thoughts from my childhood filled my mind — what had I done to deserve this? I remembered thinking as a child about how God and Satan were not much different. At least with Satan, I knew where I stood. I believed that God was watching at all times to strike me down when I messed up. For years I thought that God told my mother when I was sinning. It wasn’t until I was married that my one sister told me that my mother would ask me questions in my sleep and I would answer her. Now that I had cancer and didn’t know how much time I had left to live, I began to revert back to these early thoughts. I knew that I had disappointed God by not being obedient over the years. I didn’t pray enough, I didn’t spend enough time reading the Bible, I didn’t use my voice to sing on the worship team at church. These were just some of the thoughts that raced through my mind. I wasn’t afraid of dying, I was terrified of the disgusted look on God’s face when I would meet him face to face.
As I read about Papa, Jesus and Sarayu, a sense of relief flooded my heart. I understood that Papa really loved me; mess and all. When he looked at me it was not with disgust, but delight. I was not being punished; He was taking this terrible situation and bringing hope to me. God wasn’t out to punish me; he redeemed me and wanted to have a relationship with me. When Papa tells Mack that he did not disappoint them because they don’t have any expectation of him, a light came on. I realized that I was not a disappointment to Papa, he didn’t have a list of rules that prevented me from pleasing him. The fresh love of Papa flooded over me as I sat on my patio reading.
I could go on endlessly about specific parts of the story and what they meant to me, but let me simply say that since reading The Shack (twice now — I broke out the highlighter on the second read), my relationship with Papa, Jesus and Sarayu has become real. I feel a sense of ease in their presence.”
It was my great honor to have visited with Jennie and John three times, the last just a couple weeks before Jennie walked through the thin veil into a fully experienced embrace of Three. I have a number of precious friends who are walking through the valley of the shadow of death and I thought that what I wrote for Jennie’s memorial service might be an encouragement. It follows next:
Only a few weeks ago, now seeming like distant years already, I sat next to Jenny’s bed, holding her hand and softly talking and laughing about things that didn’t really matter but mattered even more than usual. All I could think was that this beautiful woman’s spirit is outgrowing her body; the weight of her presence tangible and holy straining at the edges of her fragile and weakening tent. It was one of the first days of autumn crisp and beautiful, a stab of fall colors visible through the bedroom window, premonitions of activity slowing down, leaves of life slowly falling into a sleep that must one day wrap each of us in its embrace. But that day the sun still pierced the veil that separated this world from that other. The gathering was not complete, not ready. This would be a receiving unlike any other and preparations had been long in the making. Occasionally as we smiled our way through conversations about pain and timing and grace, she would hesitate, her head turned slightly as if straining to hear something that was slipping through the thin place, a whispered name…hers. And a promise, that soon all would be ready. She hated that she might be another’s burden, not perceiving the blessing she was. I watch her watch John as he talks to friends in the other room, her eyes caressing him across the space between. A smile toys at the corner of her mouth. “He is such a good man. This all has changed him. I like the changes.” I know she is right. There is no edge to John’s compassion as he moves gently in and out of the room, taking care of details that make the difference. If there is any struggle inside, he has resolved it enough that it will not show. Our conversation ends and we kiss goodbye. I know that I will probably not see her on this side of the veil. Bittersweet. I want to imprint on my memory the squeeze of her hand as she lets go but I know that too will slip away as silently as she will.
“Papa? Why?” I know I don’t have to voice anything more. Loss often makes many words unnecessary and a waste of breath.
“Paul, I don’t see death the way that you do.”
“How so?”
“Well, you tend to see it as the greatest loss, the final enemy, separation from something that you believe precious.”
“Isn’t it?” I query back.
“Again, from your point of view you perceive all those things as being true.”
“Well, aren’t they?”
“No.” He says it gently and then lets the word hang in the air for some seconds before continuing. “The truth is that Jenny, like all human beings, already knew the reality of separation. She had lived it her entire experience upon the earth. Falling asleep was the door she walked through leaving separation behind her. In that moment she was finally and completely whole.”
“I feel the separation. I miss her.”
“Of course you will. In your world, separation has a tangible sense, almost able to convince you of its reality and dominion. But it is not the final word. You get glimpses of this often. The reality hidden inside experience.”
“For example?”
“Every time you have found a sense of home, or finding yourself inside a hug that is safe, or you feel it in the hand that touches you past the surface, or in the baby that falls asleep in your arms, or the laughter that makes you so thankful for friends and then in the wonder and joy that catches you by surprise.”
I let this sit with me a bit, allowing it to gently untie some of the knots in my aching heart. “So, is it okay to grieve then?” I ask.
“Of course it is! Though the separation is not the final word it is still part of the sentence. Grieving is partly a celebration of the significance of the one who has fallen asleep. Jenny is finally and fully home but you are not. So you celebrate and you grieve, but not as those who have no hope.”
“Papa?”
He slipped close and put an arm around my shoulder and gave me a squeeze. “I know son. When Jenny fell asleep, she was no longer terrified that she would see a look of disappointment on my face. How sweet is that?!”
“The sweetest,” I snuggle into the embrace and for a moment feel no separation…a taste of what I know is to come.
