The Eternal Part

Tonight, I blew off my grad school paper and went to a prayer vigil for Ben Towne. I got there a minute or two late, and walked into a hushed, packed sanctuary. There must have been around 1,000 people there-- for this little boy. For this family.

They had dimmed the lights, and lit the front with candles. We sang quiet worship songs, and a pastor read Psalms intermittently. He focused his brief talk on Psalm 88-- the darkest Psalm. This is the Psalm with no easy answer at the end-- no provisional resolution. It expresses unfathomable sorrow, and despair, and pain. I imagine the Townes are feeling something close to unfathomable sorrow, and despair, and pain. I imagine that they are finding no easy answers. Nor were any of us.

The worship was contemplative, and it was easy to pray and think throughout. At one point, I looked around the packed sanctuary-- at all these people, at all these believers-- at all these souls who were hoping for a miracle from their Lord, but ready to trust Him even if it didn't come-- and I wondered. I pictured Ben's little soul. I pictured it already stretched between this world and another. He has begun to comfort his mother, telling her not to worry, that he loves her. I wonder if he is already more Heaven than earth.

I pictured the souls in that sanctuary-- these combining, pleading souls-- I pictured them floating like wisps above us all and then pictured them gathering comfort and love, and rushing off to the Townes to deliver them. I pictured the eternal parts of us-- the parts that existed long before, that will exist long after, that exist even now, because isn't that what eternity means?-- and I pictured those reflective souls crowding into the Townes' home. There were so many of us in that sanctuary, we would be crowded up against the walls of the Townes'. We would be spilling out the windows, blooming out of the chimney, filling every corner, infusing from wall to wall the Towne home with comfort. With love. With hope for a miracle. With weeping empathy. I tried to picture Carin walking through all those comforting souls, and being warmed by them. Like a whiff of cinnamon. I pictured Jeff being wrapped up in them, like a wash of sunbeam. I pictured little Ben being cradled like a dear lullaby.

And I pictured the eternal parts of us that must already know heaven, that must already know the ends of our own stories, and I pictured Jeff's and Carin's souls at the front of the pack, watching over their grief-stricken selves below. I imagined them remembering the pain of this moment. I thought of them looking at their son below, and preparing themselves to catch him.

Jesus wept, you know. He lost a dear friend, and He wept. But what always surprises me about that story is that He didn't weep when He found out that Lazarus had died: He wept when he saw everyone else in such devastating grief. It says, "When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled... Jesus wept." I wonder if Jesus had only really experienced the "catching" part before-- this part on the Heaven side, the part that must be more welcome than goodbye. Before He was human, he must have always experienced more of the celebration when a soul passes into Heaven than the grief. But as a human: He saw it. He must have realized the incredible pain that exists on the earth side-- on the temporal side. On the side that can't see ahead, that doesn't have a glimpse of the eternal. He realized the immense pain that a family could go through during a death... And it made Him weep.

I hope, even as Jeff and Carin prepare themselves to say goodbye, that they feel some sense of comfort from all those praying souls. I hope that Ben's pain is eased; that as the scales begin to tip towards Heaven, he is less imprisoned by earthly pain. I hope the eternal parts of this family remain intertwined, and that some part of Jeff and Carin are able to hold Ben on both sides of the curtain. And I pray that, even as they weep, and even as we weep with them: there is comfort in the knowledge that He did too.

Sometimes there are no easy answers. Sometimes eternity just feels too far away-- even if it is all around us.

Ben Towne

This blog was written on Aug. 25th, 2007. This last week, Jeff and Carin found out that, after a hellish ordeal of chemotherapy, radiation, and excruciating pain that was endured in the hopes of ultimate healing, their son Ben has four new tumors: three on his brain and one on his liver. On their Caring Bridge blog, they wrote that they were in absolute despair. It makes me wonder what on earth God is doing-- something I've asked lately in reference to my own life. This blog asks that same question.


I found out this week that the two-year-old son of one of my pastors at church has neuroblastoma cancer. The Towne family took Ben to the hospital on Tuesday for tests when he was diagnosed with cancer, and apparently, the family hasn't left the hospital since then. The Sunday before the Townes were to receive this earth-shattering news, Jeff, Ben's dad, gave a sermon in front of our 4,000+ member church. I remember him saying that he wished sometimes that God would do something flashy to get our attention-- that He would perform some incredible work, or do something to scare us into understanding His power. He ended his sermon with saying that we needed to understand, simply, that Jesus is enough.

Two days later, the Townes moved to Children's Hospital, and are now keeping vigil over their two-year-old little boy, who does not yet have the vocabulary to articulate the pain he's in.

My friend Annie was expressing that she doesn't know how people without faith in God get through situations like this. But I have to wonder: is it harder to go through a situation like this without faith-- or with it? I'm trying to put myself in this heart-rending situation, imagining that I am an atheist, and that I don't believe in miracles or directed, predestined paths; that there is no one watching out for me, there is no one battling for my soul, there is no dark spiritual force wreaking havoc on my existence, there are no angels to save me from it. There is simply chance, science, and if you're superstitious, luck. If my little boy were to be diagnosed with cancer, I would have no higher power to turn to, no reassuring father to cry out to, no faith that there might be some greater plan at work, no hope in a miracle. That would be difficult, incredibly so. But there would also be no one to blame.

At the end of the rope, in the most desperate of circumstances, the atheist may at last cry out-- taking the chance that there might be a God who would reward his last ditch effort at hope-- his extended olive branch in the form of a prayer. At the end, the atheist might be able to pronounce a plea: "God, if you exist... help my son." But if the cancer wins, the atheist only received what he expected: nothing. Nothing miraculous. No reward for a faith in what was- must have been- nothing. He is angry at the air, angry at the world for turning, and forcing the sun to go up and down too many times. He is angry at the doctors for not doing enough, angry at the medicine that didn't work, angry at himself perhaps, for hoping that a figment might save his son. But his world remains only devoid of one important presence; the other presence at question was never there to begin with; of that he can now be sure.

Jeff Towne is a pastor, and his wife is involved in the church as well. They have inspired and taught and loved hundreds of middle and high-school students over the years. How does a situation like this rock the faith of a family that has been so devoted to God for so many years? I'm reading Job in my Bible right now-- he's the guy that every terrible thing in the world happened to-- and I haven't gotten very far yet, but at one point, Job asks his wife, "Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" Is that the logic then, for the Towne family? Do they go along with the will of God and just accept it? Can they hope, expectantly? There are parts of the Bible that say things like, "If you have but faith as small as a mustard seed, you can throw mountains into the sea." Do they ramp up the faith even more then, and hope with all sureness that the stage-4 cancer their son is battling will relinquish its hold by the power of the Mightiest Force of All? Will their faith save him? If they pray enoughenoughenough to their father God, will He listen to their petitions and save their son?

I don't know. I've heard stories of things like that happening before. I've also heard stories where the person did die, even with great faithful prayers being made on their behalf. God knows I prayed for my grandma.

Then the terrifying logic comes into play, or at least it did with me. You start debating with God, arguing your case; petitions are given up in favor of cold reason. God MUST save this boy; it wouldn't make any sense to do otherwise. You convince yourself of all the good that could happen in God's overall plan were He to grant life. If Ben Towne were to be saved, think of how many people might come to faith through that miracle! Think of the testimony Jeff could tell to all those church members, think of the newspaper readers that would read about how the faithful family experienced a miracle with their son Ben-- how many of those readers would give a mental nod to God? Think, God, think! It makes SENSE for you to save him! Why would you take this boy from us, when you could do so much by SAVING him?


...But what if--after the petitions and the prayers and the debating-- He doesn't?

Is this where the absence of faith is an easier burden to bear? How do we reconcile with a God that allows cancer to take a two-year-old boy? We're back at the end of the rope, but there is no final hope in a prayer offered this time, because prayers have already been uttered countless times, by countless people. At the end, for a man of faith.... There is....

What?

Too many questions.

Where were you? Why? How COULD you?

Are you even there?

What happens to faith in that moment? And how do we manage faith in the mean time? Do the people praying for Ben Towne pray with expectancy, feeling assured that a miracle will occur? And if a miracle doesn't happen, does that mean God isn't there?

Do they pray for God's will, trusting in whatever that is? Even if that means trusting in what seems like senseless cruelty?

Or do they pray in the safe way, like Doubting Thomas-- hoping it works out, but with a degree of skepticism that if the chemo and treatment can't heal him... Well, then God probably won't either. ...What then? Do you just STOP trying to figure out what that says about God?

I am praying for Ben Towne. I don't know how much faith, or hope, or expectancy to invest my prayers with. It scares me. And if it scares me, how much more must it scare the Townes?

There is a famous hymn, written by a man that had lost his home and wealth in a fire, and subsequently lost his daughters in a shipwreck. He wrote the hymn as he sailed across the ocean, over the vast watery grave of his girls. The words of the Psalm go:
"When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well with my soul.

"Though Satan may buffet, though trails may come,
Let this blest assurance control:
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul."

Those last two lines: Christ has regarded my helpless estate, and hath shed His own blood for my soul-- those words have enabled me to feel comforted by God when I wasn't sure I wanted to be on speaking terms with Him at all. When I mourned my Grandma, people said all kinds of things to me that were meant to be comforting. However, I'm not sure any of them provided the peace that those simple words did: that Jesus knew exactly what was happening, and He knew my pain. He sees it, and understands it, and came to earth to die so that I could be saved from it.

God knows what it is to lose a son. I suppose, if anyone could relate to Jeff and Carin's fear right now, it would be the Heavenly Father. And this is when I return to what Jeff spoke about on Sunday, and hold on to the knowledge that, even in these darkest of times, Jesus is enough. He has to be enough, because He has walked this gauntlet already, and we are already saved.

So I am glad after all, I suppose, to believe in God at a time like this.

Please join me in praying for baby Ben and the Towne family.