When death snatched my friend away

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. 1 Thessalonians 4:13

Elaine was part of the Tuesday/Thursday Bible study I attended in college. I didn’t know her very well; she only attended the university for a semester, but after she entered the work world, she and another young woman from the group shared a home near their places of work for a short time.

Word started filtering back to me that Elaine and her friend were experiencing a “Euodia and Syntyche” situation.  These were the women to whom the apostle Paul referred in his letter to the Philippians: “I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to live in harmony in the Lord” (Philippians 4:2). Evidently, Eu and Syn were not getting along, and it appears that their issues were affecting the church. The same thing was happening with Elaine and the other gal.

Although I didn’t know Elaine very well, and the other lady was like Moses to me (she was the one who shared with me in-depth about water baptism and got the ball rolling for my “dunking”), I felt led to do what Paul admonished the Philippians to do for the sparring women: “Indeed, true companion, I ask you also to help these women who have shared my struggle in the cause of the gospel, together with Clement also and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life” (Philippians 4:3). Elaine and her roommate lived between my parents’ home in St. Louis and the little town in which I taught my first year after college. On the way back to my small town home following a visit with my parents, I decided to “help these women”.

“Euodia” wasn’t home, but “Syntyche” (Elaine) was. We sat and talked together for an hour or so and prayed that God would bring peace and harmony back into the household. And then I hit the road, clueless to the fact that God had just laid the foundation for one of the most solid friendships of my life.

I moved back to St. Louis after my first year of teaching while Elaine taught middle school math in rural Missouri. But the friendship thrived as we visited one another’s homes at least once a year, and as we grew older, we visited three, four, or five times each year. She was one of those rare people who “got” me; my penchant for analyzing and “solving” world problems and issues in Christianity—aligning the two with an eye to what God was saying and where we might be in relation to the end times—tended to wear on others; they wanted to chat about lighter, more relational things—who was getting married, who was doing this or that, who went to what church. Not Elaine; she and I discussed events and issues in light of the Word hour after hour, solving and re-solving—and praying about—everything that came to mind.

After nearly twenty years of friendship, Elaine was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer. Again, we prayed together—often—and dug into the Word of God together to retrieve her complete healing from the Author of its pages. Before she went into her first surgery, she wrote the word “Satan” on the soles of her shoes, just to remind him of his position—under her feet.

She battled valiantly for four years—even though initially she was given less than a year to live. Those four years were full for her; she continued teaching for the first three, wore a floppy hat over her bald head wherever she went (wigs were itchy), and lived in joy and expectation of a good outcome.

We discussed her walk of faith and how strong she had grown as a result of her determined stance in the Lord. The thing that amazed me about Elaine was that her faith was not a denial of reality, nor was it a knee-jerk reaction to a fear of dying. She was walking through both the cancer and her faith hand in hand with Jesus, drawing near to Him.

One day she shared this profound perspective with me. Unafraid of death, but desiring to live (she was in her forties), she said, “Dorothy, death is not failure or defeat. I see death as the safety net under this tightrope I am walking by faith. If for some reason I don’t make it to the end, I’ll fall into the loving arms of Jesus.”

She refused to fear, whether cancer, chemo, life, death, or failure. She walked by faith, and in October, 1999, she stepped out of her body into eternity—by faith.

I lost a key person in my life when she went to Heaven—a rare friend who “got” me and loved me even when I was unlovable. And I mourned. I needed to. A place in my heart was instantly vacant; my friend who enjoyed and accepted me was no longer available.

But I knew where she was; I knew that she now lived in the presence of the Lord whom she so intensely loved, respected, and enjoyed.

Paul wrote, “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Some have interpreted this verse to mean that we should not mourn the passing of our loved ones. I respectfully and vigorously disagree with that teaching. We grieve; but we do not grieve as the rest who have no hope.

When your friend is snatched away from you, it’s agonizing. It’s painful and you need to mourn the one who meant so much to you. Death is a part of life; so is mourning. Ecclesiastes 3:1 and 4 declares, “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven—a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance.” Psalm 116:15 assures us, “Precious in the sight of the LORD Is the death of His godly ones.” God certainly understands our need to grieve; He Himself is touched by the preciousness of the saint who passes from earth to Heaven, and He does not take their death lightly. Neither should we.

We have freedom in Christ to grieve the departure of our loved one from our lives. But our grief is not the grief of those who are without Christ and devoid of hope, for we know that our friend is having the time of her life as she joyfully embraces the King of kings and rejoices in her new, eternal home.

After Elaine passed, I had uneasy questions. This is normal when a faithful believer dies, especially when they are way too young and are standing in faith. In it all, however, God comforted me and gave me peace about all of the whys and what ifs. I would like to share with you how He did it.

He gave me Psalm 131. Its simple message quieted and comforted my mind.

“O LORD, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty;
            Nor do I involve myself in great matters,
            Or in things too difficult for me.

      Surely I have composed and quieted my soul;
            Like a weaned child rests against his mother,
            My soul is like a weaned child within me.

      O Israel, hope in the LORD
            From this time forth and forever.”

The death of a loved one is a difficult thing to grasp, even for the most fervent Christian. On the other hand, I am convinced that every one of our believing loved ones now in Heaven are 100% clear as to the “whys and what ifs” of their death, and I firmly believe that each one of them is A-OK with it. They likely don’t give it a second thought as they live out the adventure in that world—an adventure far greater than anything we could ever experience here.

Because of the heavy and ponderous questions and my inability to comprehend what is private between God and someone else, I have learned to be like that weaned child resting against his mother. Some things are just too difficult for me, and I have given myself permission to be OK with that. My friend is in Heaven, embracing the Lord; I am on earth resting against His heart. Anyway you look at it, that’s a good place to be.

May the God of all comfort surround you with His peace at the time of your loss.

Dorothy