When Death Walks Down The Hall
“Hold your children tight this evening. Tell them they are loved.”
That’s the advice we tell each other when death walks down the hall and visits someone else’s door. I understand the sentiment, I do. Someone else’s unimaginable loss heightens the realisation of what I often take for granted, that my sons or daughters will still be here in the evening, still throw their arms around my neck as I rearrange the blankets just the right way, as we both close our eyes and speak to the Ancient of Days. I get it, I truly do. But just down the hall, in a room with an empty bed, in a room where a couple weep together bound by the crushing bonds of grief, the advice echoes off into silence. There is no son to hold tightly here.
I would love to offer deep truths that make all the wrongs seem right, or to serve up theological insights that just by uttering will dry every tear. But right now, my own face is wet, and my own heart feels leaden within. Death walked past my door, but it entered my neighbours house, and the sorrow seeps through the cracks and brings with it the unmistakable taste of the curse. This is not the way it was meant to be.
Why, among the thousands of the sorrowful, this one death has struck a little deeper, I’m not sure. But when I first read Tim Challies announcement, My Son, My Dear Son, Has Gone To Be With The Lord, I was overcome with grief. I count Tim as a friend of mine, though we’ve only ever met in person once. Yet from afar, Tim has not only been an example to me of faithful Christian witness within the blogging world, but has often reached out to encourage me in my own floundering attempts as a writer. Over the last few years, Tim has used his own platform and wide reader base to champion the work of countless other little guys, of whom I am one. When I looked to find a community of writers to join, Tim helped shaped my efforts in starting one. But beyond being a fellow writer, Tim is a disciple of Jesus and therefore a brother; he is a husband, and a father, and right now, he and Aileen are heartbroken.
Death walked down the hall, it passed by my door, but it entered Tim’s. It is right to grieve. Death is a prowling intruder in this world, a constant and jarring reminder of a garden we once lived in where he wasn’t welcome. It is right to cry out in anguish, and when we don’t have the words within us, it is good to borrow the words of another.
“LORD—how long? Turn and have compassion on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with your faithful love so that we may shout with joy and be glad all our days. Make us rejoice for as many days as you have humbled us, for as many years as we have seen adversity. Let your work be seen by your servants, and your splendor by their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be on us; establish for us the work of our hands— establish the work of our hands!” (Psalm 90:13–17, CSB)
Like Moses, who cried these words, Tim and Aileen are crying before the Lord—we now join our voices with theirs. Tim’s closing words as he announced his grief to the world were:
We know there will be gruelling days and sleepless nights ahead. But for now, even though our minds are bewildered and our hearts are broken, our hope is fixed and our faith is holding. Our son is home.
For now, death walks our hallways, entering through doorways and visiting grief upon grief. We taste sorrow in these hard days, but it will not always be so. Tim and Aileen know it. Death may strike a blow, but its true sting has been removed. We have a greater joy, a greater hope, and his name is Jesus.
“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:4, CSB)
Tim and Aileen, we love you, we grieve with you. Like you, our minds are bewildered and our hearts are broken, but our hope is fixed and our faith is holding.
