It’s April 3, 2020, and both Curtis and I are working from home as educators during the COVID19 Pandemic. We haven’t seen much of my momma and stepdad, my brothers, our kids and grandson, or my friends in the past couple of weeks.  Doctors believe Elise and her three roommates probably had the virus.  Thankfully, they have all recovered.   I’m kind of a hermit anyway, but not being able to hold or be near my loved ones causes pangs of longing.

I’ve been seeing a grief counselor for the past couple of months. She asked me if I was more anxious right now. I replied, “Compared to the difficulty of the previous nine months, a pandemic seems small.”  She smiled and nodded.

Yet I am not anxious.  I have felt the Lord near to me during heartache and difficulties and doubt, and He remains my comforter. 

On the positive side, I never would have guessed that it would take a pandemic to slow us down, to focus our prayer and study time, to finally catch up on things like music and writing.  Though things look grim in the world and the nation, we try to keep those blessings in the forefront of our minds as we wait inside like the rest of the world.

To be honest, my spiritual life has been on pause now for several months as I wade through grief.  My prayer life has been, just as author Anne Lamott says, “Help! Thanks! Wow!” I don’t question salvation made possible through Christ, I just have more questions regarding all the other details regarding free will, heaven and hell, predetermination…  

Add to that this nagging guilt.  Many of you have sweetly claimed the blood of Jesus against the guilt I feel.  I know I shouldn’t feel it, but I do.

I learned that telling someone what they feel is irrational or not true doesn’t help them not to feel it. And in the spirit of acknowledging my guilt and moving on, I just want to ask for forgiveness if, while traveling through the muck, I’ve wronged or neglected friends and loved ones I hold dear: my sister, all of my family and husband, a dear friend who was also my boss for a time, our small group “kids”, the friends who needed me while I struggled to get through the days then and now.  Just know this: I am so sorry.  And I am so thankful for you.

Here’s a post I’ve been putting off sharing for a while. I think it’s relevant for now because I explore some hard questions that might be applicable to your life right now.

The year 2019 has been both so beautiful and so tragic. I guess that’s how life is, I just never knew the intensity of that dichotomy until recently. 

Last February, our family grew by one precious miraculous life named Lincoln. He is our joy. We are so grateful for God’s blessing in bringing him to our lives. I’m a doting grandma—I simply cannot get enough of him. He’s all the hours and days of raising my own kids, worrying and restless, recuperated.

Retrospect makes all time sweeter now. 

Then this past December, the hardest darkness I’ve ever been through came sneaking up on our family and left us waylaid. My beautiful brilliant sister—someone I secretly admired for living so independently and for pursuing a difficult career in medicine—succumbed to illness.  I’m not going to get into the details of her death in this post, though I’m certain you’ll be able to read between the lines.  But I wanted to be bold enough to share the hard questions and hard lessons I’ve learned so that you could learn from my heartache.

Here are some questions I ask myself now and asked myself during the period before and after Anali’s death:

Was my quiet faith enough? This has been the question I ask myself most. Did I do my best to point her toward the Savior in whom I trust?

Depending on the day, I’m not satisfied with the answer. Anali and I had divergent beliefs. When she was better, even before she came to live with us, we sometimes clashed because of our beliefs. I felt I had to be careful how and when I chose to share about the Way, Truth and Life of whom I am so certain.  I was afraid to cause Anali to feel too broken and too far from redemption. Quiet Celi, with all her own doubts and questions, was afraid to get the details wrong and cause brilliant, eloquent stubborn Anali to dig her heals in, or to drive Anali away. 

I am thankful that I did have multiple opportunities to pray with her, to show her and to tell her about God’s goodness when the opportunity presented itself. One of the conversations we had toward the end of her life still haunts me as I replay it over and over in my mind.

Anali asked, “Sister, how can you have such a strong faith?”

“I have been aware of God’s presence in my life since I was very young,” I replied. “He came to my aid and spoke to my heart at three years old. I know that seems far-fetched, but I know without a shadow of a doubt that we need saving, that this life and this world with all of its trials are not all that God wants for us, that our creator made a way for something better, something eternal, through Jesus, and that He listens when we cry out to him.”

She nodded, took my hand, and said, “I don’t know what to believe anymore. I don’t trust my own judgement. Can you have faith enough for both of us?”

“Yes, I can,” I replied, more bold than usual.  “I know He can heal you. I know He still sees you, as I do, as gifted, beautiful and worthy of love. I know He still sees a hope and a future for you.”

I believe in that moment my sister was ceding her free will. If I have any faith at all, I must believe that her coming to live with us during her last days was not serendipitous, but divine intervention.

What I have learned from wondering if my faith is too quiet or too small to share with those I love is that God does give us the opportunity and the words to say what needs to be said, and, maybe more importantly, to show His love in more than words.

Could I have been bolder? Yes, most certainly. And that’s the hardest lesson learned in the hardest way, and the reason for composing this post:  to give voice to my quiet faith and instill a boldness in all of you. 

We must be prepared to give an answer for the hope we have when the need arises. 

And we must be prepared to make sure our actions match our words of love…

Did I do everything possible in my physical being to help her?  This is a question to which I may never have a clear answer. 

I welcomed her into my beautiful home.  I made sure she was fed and clothed.  I took her to appointments and helped her figure out how to pay for her basic needs and medical care. I encouraged her to find a job or volunteer, to find something worthwhile to do, for even toward the end, Anali was more capable and more talented than most of us are even without any limitations. I took her on walks and to the gym when she felt able.  I enticed her out of bed to go thrift store shopping, buy groceries for a special meal, or spend time with family.

When I didn’t know what to say (which was often) I just sat and listened or cried with her.  

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t easy to be fully there for her; I don’t think I always behaved perfectly or said the right things. That knowledge also haunts me.

And I will forever wish I had known more about her condition. I thought I knew her well, but I didn’t know enough.

I’ve never known a me without my sister. As immigrant Mexican girls, I thought we were alway going to figure out how to live where we don’t belong together.

I tried to understand her perspective, though I don’t think anyone can fully comprehend someone else’s thoughts and actions, no matter how close you are.

What I have learned while I ponder if I did everything in my power to help my sister is that, as humans, we are incapable of helping someone fully in our own power.  First of all, we need help from Jehovah Jireh, the Lord our provider.  And we need help from gifted qualified professionals whom God has endowed and provided.

I was wrong to think that any of us–not me, not my momma or my family– could do it on our own.

The hard lesson is that maybe I did do everything that I could do, but I needed to have asked for help sooner.  I needed to have educated myself further regarding the pervasiveness of her illness, and then fought tooth and nail to get her the best help available. Having more professional help may not have saved her, but at least those of us who loved her would not have any doubt that we sought every avenue.

I’m telling you all so you can do better:  You shouldn’t try to help anyone on your own or in isolation.  Now I know, and now I can do better.

Again, without going into a lot of detail right now, we will never know with certainty if there was a physical etymology like Lyme disease—something that invaded from the outside in— that exacerbated Anali’s decline.

For now, after several months of grieving, it does help to know that we had the gift of helping her through the hardest days of her life. And even though she lost perspective, we did our best to see clearly for her.  

It doesn’t always feel like a privilege to sit with a loved one in darkness, but I know deep down that it is.

We wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

And, despite our grief right now, that realization, too, will be made sweeter with time and in retrospect.

There are so many aspects of Anali’s death that I cannot see clearly for now.  As I mentioned, some days I have more questions than answers.

But I do believe that we serve a merciful loving God.  I do believe He held her then and He holds her now.  And I’m okay with someone else believing that I’m wrong.

I hope she knows how much she was and is loved from her perspective now.

For now, we’re left with the solace that we did our best to guide her to the Light. It doesn’t feel like enough right now, but I know someday it will.

To you all, my friends & family still helping others or still struggling through your own darkness or uncertainty (made even more relevant by the current pandemic crisis) I say:

There is always something better that we cannot see except in retrospect. Ask for help from those who can guide you for right now—from those whose lanterns are still full of oil. Trust someone else who can see more fully to guide you for a time, until you regain the vision clouded by your present darkness.

It will be worth it to you in retrospect.