Emergency to Emergence
What creates resilience? What allows us to grow through grief, rather than shrink into bitterness?
Happy June, friends. Before you dive into this essay and think, What a big shock—Jess is writing about her dead kid again. Let me say that, actually, yes, this is somewhat about grief (my own, for sure, because, when I write, it’s more natural for me to be specific and personal rather than abstract)—but I do think this is universal in that we all experience grief in some form and, though the details remain varied, the great big question for us all is: what happens next? What creates resilience? What allows us to grow through grief, rather than shrink into bitterness? I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I do think this conversation is worth exploring. So allow me to add to it with some new thoughts, some more old texts, and yes, maybe a little bit more about my own personal story of grief, grace, and growth.
When TJ and I were in the hospital, waiting on my body to deliver Luca—our son who died just shy of nine months in my belly—it was a heightened time. It was as terrible as you might think, yes. You’re in a room in which every single thing is designed to receive a living baby. There is supposed to be joy, an arrival, all the hard work of labor having been worth it for the baby in your arms—but instead there is grief. An awful silence as your baby arrives. Nurses who quietly wrap him up and hand him to you with a reverence that makes you believe even more so in the sanctity of life, because what else does death teach us but that life is sacred.
I think most of us would agree that, once you understand the scene, the terrible parts are expected. After all, loss is horrific—especially when it’s as unnatural as your own baby. But what’s really strange is that it wasn’t all terrible. While waiting for the pitocin to kick in and hasten contractions, I felt compelled to tell my nurse about God’s grace. I told her about my first marriage—how it ended in such a painful way that I was convinced it would also end me. But slowly, falteringly, I discovered I was wrong. I had more living to do. More messy, whole hearted, painful, joyous and something-in-between living to do.
I told all this to my dear, kind nurse. She held my hand and cried with me and I will always love her for this. And yet, looking back, I don’t think I was simply telling this to her. I am convinced that while laboring over Luca and getting ready to hold his still body, the person to whom I was chiefly telling this story of redemption and slow growing miracles was myself.
I remember TJ saying he wanted to play a sermon for me by Dr. Tony Evans. At that point, if he felt strongly about playing clips of clowns on unicycles because he thought it could help, I would have agreed. I didn’t know what to do other than what I had to: birth my baby and say good-bye and profoundly miss him every day forever. Other than that, I was open to suggestions. So, sure, let’s listen to a sermon.
I don’t fully remember it, but what stayed with me is the line, “When you don’t understand what’s happening in your life, God is about to blow your mind.” I thought, Okay, well, I don’t know for sure that He isn’t. And, judging from experience, I know I probably have more living to do. So maybe God will blow my mind. Sure, why not. Honestly, I wasn’t in a mood to argue; I was simply sad enough to wilt the bones within me. To soften and bend them until I wondered how to move, how to do anything other than lay here crushed by the weight of loss. But that line—it didn’t make everything better—but it did make me question the decision to lose all hope. Maybe for a few moments was understandable, considering the circumstances—but forever? Probably not. The line about God being about to blow my mind made me wonder if maybe grief and hope weren’t mutually exclusive after all (which would totally blow my mind).
The initial text in the book of Genesis is worth thinking about. The setting, the action—it’s compelling and encouraging, too. How characters are introduced in stories is important. Take the movie, Jurassic Park, for instance. You have the protagonist, Alan Grant—one of the first outsiders, a paleontologist, coming to view this park full of living, breathing dinosaurs. While on the flight to the remote island that houses the park, Grant tries to buckle his seatbelt and can’t get it to work. Frustrated, he finally ends up tying it in a knot. In case you haven’t seen the movie, it’s perfect foreshadowing for the rest of the plot. Indicative of both Grant’s personality and the developing story, it gives the viewer an idea of what to expect. (See, I told you this would include some new thoughts about grief. Like, Jurassic Park themed thoughts—something I am sure none of us saw coming.) Like I said, how a character is introduced in a narrative matters. So let’s look at how God is introduced in the book of Genesis:
“Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.” (Genesis 1:2-4)
I recently read this passage differently. The words formless, empty, and darkness sound a lot like how I would describe grief at the onset of tragedy. I’ve felt this way before. Like all I could see was darkness. Like I felt empty within, formless, devoid of purpose, directionless. And how does this text describe God in relation to this emptiness, this darkness? Hovering over it. Close. Ready to create. To work the miracle of not only something from seemingly nothing, but a beautiful something, at that. An incredible something. And then God speaks: Let there be light. This is the first thing He says. Think about how it was darkness upon darkness for as far as anyone could see. Sight wasn’t even a thing, maybe, because how can anyone see in all that darkness? And it would be one thing if God had these cool intentions and really tried his best but, oh well, things were dark, end of story, thanks for trying, God. But the text goes on to say, And there was light. Bam. The darkness upon darkness was not the end of the story. Not when you have the Spirit of God hovering over that darkness.
I think about my time laboring over Luca. It was dark and surreal. I had no control over this thing that had devastated me—like I, who had been filled with a child I greatly desired and loved and had made room for in every way one can make room for another, was now simply empty, formless, void. And then I think about the Spirit of God hovering over that emptiness, formlessness, the void. I think about the Spirit of God getting ready to speak words, creative words, versions of Let there be…! that call forth a me that would become more resilient, more compassionate, able to see better—if even just a little bit—able to love better (if even just a little bit). It didn’t happen in an instant. But there are different kinds of miracles. Some that bloom after tears and days and nights and suffering, but no less a miracle.
The root word of emergency is emerge. The most simple definition of the word emerge is: to become known. Imagine a life in which our emergencies—crushing though they may be—do not simply allow chaos and darkness to be made known and that’s it. Imagine a life in which our emergencies reveal the truth about the emptiness, the darkness—that the Spirit of God is hovering near. That His Spirit is ready to emerge, to become known. I saw this happen in the kindness of so many people who handled myself and my family with such tenderness in the wake of losing Luca. Meals were cooked and bought and sent with notes that spelled out love. I couldn’t eat them without knowing I was loved. So there you go: love emerging from my emergency.
I went on walk after walk after walk with TJ along the Charles River. I said exactly what came to mind. What a gift it is to stand next to another human and tell the truth. What a gift to witness that person listening to you and loving you still, loving you even more as you navigate loss and grief and hope despite how the uncertainty of life has suddenly become horribly certain—doing all this together. Once again, I watched the Spirit of God emerge from this emergency. And as I saw life with a little more clarity, as I sat next to my toddler daughter and held her hand and breathed a prayer of gratitude for letting me raise her, I saw light emerge in the wake of my emergency.
For what can the Spirit of God who hovers over the darkness, the emptiness, the great void do other than speak words that change everything. Sometimes little by little—but how else does the ant move the mountain?—and sometimes in moments that allow you to reach a place where you can see for miles, that makes you realize valleys are connected to mountain tops after all. And not for nothing, you hear a faint echo in the distance, bouncing off the peaks and filling the spaces between the valleys, making you wonder if Genesis didn’t just happen once; for perhaps it happens in small and large ways, over and over again, over the darkness in our own lives, until one day we blink, one day we hear, “Let there be light!” And that’s not even half of it, because then, just as surely as the darkness felt like forever, there it is: a great light emerging from what was once an emergency.
Thank you for reading. If you enjoy this newsletter, an easy way to support it is to subscribe to my paid subscription tier by clicking the button below. Paid subscribers receive an additional written essay from me (monthly) and my audio narrations of these newsletters.
Hear me on The TJ Show: Podcast on Apple, Spotify, and most other podcasting platforms.