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Sojourning
the Mystery
of Joy Embraced In Grief A CRC Analysis of Shining Gift of God: A Memoir of the Life of Nathanael Marcus by
Steve and Sarah Wickham.
In the 1991
blockbuster CITY SLICKERS, three men are going through an identity crises
and decide to take a supervised cattle drive across the Southwest in hopes of
finding new meaning in their lives.
Mitch (Billy Crystal), Ed (Bruno Kirby), and Phil (Daniel Stern) reflect
on two questions: What was your best day? What was your worst day?
Mitch: Alright Ed, your best day, what was it?
Twins in a trapeze, what?
Ed: No, I don't wanna play.
Mitch: C'mon, we did it.
Ed: I don't feel like it.
Mitch: Uh, okay.
[Ed pauses, then
begins to speak]
Ed: I'm fourteen and my mother and father are
fighting again. Y'know, because she caught him again. Caught him; this time the
girl drove by the house to pick him up. And I finally realized, he wasn't just
cheating on my mother, he was cheating us. So I told him; I said,
"You're bad to us. We don't love you. I'll take care of my mother and my
sister. We don't need you any more." And he made like he was gonna hit me,
but I didn't budge. And he turned around and he left. He never bothered us
again. Well, I took care of my mother and my sister from that day on. That's my
best day.
Phil: What was your worst day?
Ed: [brief pause] Same day.
Pastor, Chaplain,
and Christian Counselor Steve Wickham and his wife Sarah Wickham had their own City
Slicker moment – when they learned Sarah was pregnant in April of
2014. They viewed this as their best day
– a time to get to know their baby Nathanael, talking to him, feeling him
through the walls of Sarah’s womb. Steve (in full time ministry at their local Baptist Church in Perth West Australia) and Sarah, considered this pregnancy and the existence of Nathanael was meant to be.
The next day Steve
began writing his experiences in what would become the devotion of lament and
joy in Shining Gift of God: A Memoir of
the Life of Nathanael Marcus (http://www.shop.sjcreative.com.au/shop/books-110/book-shining-gift-of-god/):
It’s a journey through four months of days from
July 1, 2014 until he was stillborn on October 30, 2014 and then eight months
of weeks unpacking our grief. Written in
the present tense, these daily devotions of lament and learning are packaged in
this book for others’ benefit as they journey through the loss and grief.
Then eighteen days
later on July 18, 2014, while Sarah was napping in bed and Steve was out buying
her flowers the doctor called their home to give the Sarah the bad news. Nathanael
had Pallister-Killian Syndrome (https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/pallister-killian-mosaic-syndrome).
Sarah revealed the horrible news to Steve
when he returned home with her flowers at 5 p.m. We were immediately sorrowful, yet totally vulnerable in
the midst of a mystery.
And it is in this mystery that Steve and Sarah and Nathanael take this journey. Even though they are surrounded by loved ones, it is a journey that all three must take alone.
In order for one’s journey to
be fruitful one must accept God as his/her ultimate Guide, and recognize His face: that smiling Shalom of God transcends the difficulty, making the reality surreal. As we turn inconsideration of God turning His face toward us, we see the liberty He is giving us in circumstances otherwise totally de-liberating. Of course, the world cannot understand this spiritual reality; the gifting of God that we call faith.
It
is during this journey that despite our uselessness, meaninglessness or
weakness, we are blessed because God our Guide turns all of our deficiencies into
something beautiful. But He said to me,“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.” 2
Corinthians 12: 9
Along the journey Steve, Sarah, and Nathanael find reasons to laugh and this laughter is necessary for their preservation. This comic relief is never disrespectful but enables them to connect with that part of our story that is untainted by sadness, which is an emotion all too real.
There were many steps to take on this journey: realizing there are other parents and other unborn babies that have endured what Steve, Sarah, and Nathanael have endured, while recognizing each individual's pain, though similar, is different from someone else's pain.
There
is also the step of recognizing that closure is just a myth, but experiencing
peace and acceptance enables those to be healed. In order to be healed, we must
take the opportunities of grief and allow God and ourselves to transform our
fear and sorrow into curiosity and wonder.
Through this curiosity and wonder we develop a mastery, which becomes a childlike faith allowing us to go into fearful territory without being disabled or disempowered. This takes down fear and gives us the ability to problem-solve, and when we problem-solve we create strategies for courage, as well as a plan for success.
There
is the step of believing the importance of and welcoming authentic emotions as
a means to release grief, experience joy, and connect with other people. The paradox of
having been moved is that we surrender control over ourselves for the moment
just so we may experience some height or depth unusual to our experience.
Then there is the step of finding time to
reflect and surrendering these reflections to God, which results in God
caressing all five senses.
Experiences
of life can easily be swept over, but
as we reflect we enhance the felt experience and God can be heard to speak through
insight.
There
are many other steps: get involved with
your community, even a community on social media – particularly a community
that shares in your experiences; don’t be afraid to ask questions; take a quick
holiday – even a day trip to a lake; believe in the mantra that we – the unborn and the born – are human beings made
in the image of God; and believe in the power of prayer and pray incessantly. Pray in a way
that if someone were listening/ They would know something of the God of
creation.
On
Sunday, August 10, 2014 Steve Wickham writes about the most excruciating step
of this journey by first quoting Teresa of Avila (Left) : “Trust
God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.”
Steve Wickham goes even further when he writes: It might seem unfair, but a soon as we understand we are in the right place, right now, then life has joyous acceptance about it in the present. . .
Whatever our state of
being, God has allowed us to be where we are presently at. That
is the purpose. That is the innate purpose of life; to live the very day; to
accept the bases of the situations we find ourselves in; to accept this day.
The blessing involved in
trusting God to the degree of accepting just the very circumstance we
experience just now is we are at peace, always. . .
And when we can
balance this state of acceptance up with the hope and desire to grow, and to be
slightly dissatisfied with where we are at, yet accept the slow rate of
progress we do make, we might be exactly where God wills us to be.
Life requires of us an
acceptance of our reality. We are
blessed to accept what we cannot change.
We are right where we ought to be.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t improve our lot.
How
do we come to the point where we believe we are at the place God wants us to be
right now – no matter how horrible the circumstances are? How is this possible? According to Steve it is to pray earnestly to
God requesting that God will give us the perspective God wants us to have about
everything, especially the horrible situation we are in. We pray only
for the discernment and the doing of Your will.
This baby of ours is more appropriately Yours. Help us to know how to honour You in the
context of our baby’s life – however fleeting it is likely to be.
To believe we are right
where God wants us to be does not mean we or He desires for us to go through
these atrocious things that are affected by freewill, poor choices of others,
unlawful activity of others against innocent people, the forces of nature, the
forces of medical science, or the sin of mankind. We believe in the power and in the
promise of the divine movement of your hand; but we will not assume that this
is Your will in our circumstance. We
surrender ourselves to You, afresh.
How
is it possible to truly believe that the place God wants me to be is where I am
right now while at the same time believe the events of the place where I am
right now is not necessarily God’s will?
In a Facebook interview date March 2019
Steve recognizes there are dichotomies in Shining Gift of God: A Memoir of the Life of
Nathanael Marcus: “Given the book
is a raw devotional, where the day’s thoughts are printed on those actual days,
it doesn’t surprise me that there are these kinds of dichotomies. I think grief has us reflecting in different
minds on different days. The Bible
itself often seems contradictory – if we juxtapose certain verses. The Memoir of Nathanael is not scripture, but we
really had to say to ourselves, ‘God’s got us. . .He has us. . . we are where
we belong.’”
Steve further journals that God’s will is
not a one-time thing, but a journey and a constant surrendering to the Person
of Jesus Christ. We will not reach the
final goal of all of God’s will until we reach Heaven; however, we can attain
the mindset God wants us to attain when we commune with the Lord Jesus Christ: Because it was Jesus who was scourged and
insulted and disdained so unjustly, we are encouraged to maintain our obedient
resolve. We know that God will vindicate
us at the right time if we do not give up submitting to His will. AMEN
Steve expounds on God’s will for every
individual who loves Him. That will is for it to be well with his or her
soul - regardless of the atrocious
places and the worst days of our lives. In the end it is not our life that saves
and rescues, but to Whom we live for that saves and rescues. We must lose our
lives to God in order to gain the most bountiful life we can possibly live: It is no longer our own lives we live. We live, quite fundamentally, for God
Pastor, Chaplain,
and Christian Counselor Steve Wickham and his wife Sarah Wickham had their own City
Slicker moment – when they learned Sarah was pregnant in April of
2014. They viewed this as their best day
– a time to get to know their baby Nathanael, talking to him, feeling him
through the walls of Sarah’s womb. Steve (in full time ministry at their local Baptist Church in Perth West Australia) and Sarah, considered this pregnancy and the existence of Nathanael was meant to be.
There
is also the step of recognizing that closure is just a myth, but experiencing
peace and acceptance enables those to be healed. In order to be healed, we must
take the opportunities of grief and allow God and ourselves to transform our
fear and sorrow into curiosity and wonder.
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