Crammed with Heaven: Even if the worst happens

A monthly column in which Jenni Pretorius Hill shares stories of hope which bring Heaven’s perspective to Earth

I have never come close to losing a child, but we have had our share of scares, and nights spent in a push-back easy chair alongside a hospital bed. My heart has forgotten how many times its jumped gears into fifth as I’ve raced to the site of a scream, a raging fever, a prostrate little body on the ground after a tumble; but it does not bear personal testimony to the pain of having a child die. I cannot conceive of what that must be like; and rightly so, because to try and imagine, outside of grace, would be an exercise in futility. 

One of the highest honours of vocational ministry, is to journey with others through places of deep grief. I can’t think of a harder road than the one we’ve seen others travel with a death of a child. Soon after our appointment as senior leaders of our church, friends of ours, and members of our congregation, lost their first child hours after she was born. It was a defining moment for me because through it I came to understand that as much as I see God at work in the highs of life, there are facets to His extraordinary nature that are only experienced in the places of deep shadow. The privilege of access into spaces of raw and intimate grief means that we also witness the triumphant overcoming power of Christ at work in the midst of pain. And it’s this grace at work in such extreme situations that leaves me repeatedly stunned by the sheer magnificence of God’s ability to invade places of tragedy with inconceivable and joyous hope. 

Earlier this year, a friend of mine lost her nineteen-year-old daughter to suicide. She was her parents’ only child. When my friend messaged me with the terrible news, my first reaction was to cry out to God on her behalf: “Who but you Lord, can help her survive this?” In my own stunned, disbelieving heart, I questioned how hope could come from such tragedy, and how these heartbroken parents would ever heal. But over time, I have witnessed grace like a substance that undergirds, upholds, and heals.  

Not long ago I popped into their home to visit them. In the living room, on an easel, is a big framed picture of their beautiful girl. I don’t take up their offer for tea or coffee, “just water please”. I don’t want to put them to any effort, for it’s my expectation that the fragility of their inner world has affected their ability to function on a physical level. But they seem okay, and quite robust actually, and my friend genuinely wants to know how I’m doing, how my family is, and I wonder for a moment if she’s in denial. I don’t wonder for long, because she is quite willing to talk about her loss, as is her husband, and it’s evident that they are processing their grief vulnerably and honestly. “But,” she says “we don’t grieve as the world grieves, without hope.” This is not some trite Christian denialism; I can genuinely feel it. She shakes her head when I ask if she can help me understand the experience of peace in such imaginable heartache. I want to know because it’s a gift I would like to dispense to others, should I ever find myself in a home of similar bereavement. “I can’t explain it, and you won’t understand it. It’s available to us only because of what we’ve been through. It’s grace for this. I sometimes wonder how I am not feeling sadder than I am.” She’s clinging to Jesus, every day, all day, she tells me. I glance around the airy room; it’s as if Comfort, a person, has taken up residence with them. I ask whether either of them have had a supernatural encounter where they have seen their daughter with Jesus, and my friend answers enthusiastically. “Oh yes! I saw her clearly in a vision I had during worship. She was with Him, and she looked so happy and carefree. In my darkest moments, I recall that picture.” What they are both certain of is that they will see her again and in the light of eternity, this separation is but for a moment. Before I go, she tells me of the indefinable sense of expectation she has that good is coming, “but I don’t know what it will look like, and I don’t know how He will do it…”  She simply believes. 

I drive home in absolute wonderment of what I have just witnessed. I doubt God could ever be more real than this. He alone can administer hope that sustains us during the worst possible scenarios. The truth is that it is quite impossible to outrun or fall beyond the stretch and reach of His goodness to heal, restore, redeem and resolve.

I do not allow my mind to consider how I would survive a similar catastrophe because I know there is no grace for imaginings, but I do allow for the witness of the story to inspire me to hope, and trust, for the impossible in my own world.  

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