Seventh Year Sabbath

The moment we hear the incomprehensible words that our child has died we instantly recognize the devastation as catastrophic. But in the weeks, months, and years that follow we are involuntarily tasked with discovering the many detailed and varied points of impact. Each sharp pain or deep sorrow is another point in our mapping out the borders of the cavernous crater of our child’s absence. In the process, we are not simply marking out the edges of destruction, we are also painfully reconciling the devastation with what remains. And for followers of Christ, we are reconciling both the devastation and what remains with our faith. 

I did not knowingly recognize and accept this task as described but I almost immediately began performing the task because my family’s and my meaningful survival necessitated it. Countless daunting questions, struggles, challenges, and experiences, each a treacherous jagged point along the edge of her absence. “What if?” and “If only” staggered my first steps, followed by a relentless onslaught of menacing questions about grief, joy, despair, peace, hope, relationships, forgiveness, loneliness, and healing, just to name a few.

There was a necessary and near-constant striving in my grief. I needed to prayerfully understand where and who I was personally, and where and who we were as a family in the aftermath—no simple task in such cataclysmic circumstances. And even more importantly, because my faith is central to who I am, I needed to reconcile everything that had happened and was happening with my faith. I needed to vigilantly test every question, feeling, thought, circumstance, and belief against Scripture to ensure I was clinging to truth.

Days of striving turned to weeks, weeks to months, and eventually, months turned to years of painstakingly navigating life around the perimeter of her absence. Year after year unavoidably circling the crater identifying, understanding, and reconciling each formidable point of impact. Each year painfully traversing points previously explored while discovering jagged new points interspersed along the way. But, thankfully, each successive year was marked by fewer and fewer discoveries of excruciating new points.

This past Christmas, our seventh without Sarah, I began pondering the biblical significance of “seven.” Seven in Scripture is most often associated with completion or fullness, and in that vein often with a period of rest after completion: six days of work and sabbath rest, six years of working land followed by a sabbath year of rest for the land, and so on (Ex. 34:21; Lev. 25:4).

I began pondering this idea because as I was painfully missing Sarah in the midst of the holiday traditions it suddenly washed over me that there was a cessation of striving in my grief. Each previous year had been marked by an urgent striving to reconcile one or more painful new experiences or understandings with the truths of scripture, but this year there was an undeniable rest from reconciling. I recognized all the surrounding points of her absence, I intimately knew each of them from the previous six years. I was deeply and sorrowfully missing her as I always will, but there was a stillness in the missing this year, peace and a fullness of rest.

As many difficult days and dates of the seventh year have come and gone, they have further confirmed the striving of the past six years has gradually given way to a sabbath rest of sorts for me in this, the seventh year. Not a rest from missing her, longing for her presence, or feeling the many pains of her absence, but a rest from striving to reconcile the devastation with that which remains, and both with my faith.

As I cast my eyes across the countless points along the crater’s edge, each painful point is a reminder of God’s faithfulness to comfort, carry, teach, sustain, strengthen, guide, and redeem. I see the point where He taught me sorrow and joy coexist and I once again feel the refreshing flood of peace that lesson brought. I tearfully give thanks as I see the point where He taught me the sorrow of missing Sarah will last for the remainder of my earthly days, but that He will redemptively and powerfully use it to fix my eyes on the eternal, enabling me to live more urgently and fruitfully for Him. I gaze across the many other points and my heart is overwhelmed within me as I consider His faithfulness and long-suffering love.

I shift my focus back to that very first point of impact, the point where Scott told me Sarah was gone; that sacred point where God immediately whispered to my heart that Satan had asked to sift us, and most importantly, where He simultaneously reassured me if we would cling to Him He would carry us through. In His infinite faithfulness, compassion, mercy, and grace He has lovingly done just that. Upholding us by His righteous right hand, He has guided every step, caught every tear, and stilled every fear. And His Word promises He will continue to do so for the remainder of our journey home. Home, where “in just a little while” I will see Him face to face, and my sweet Sarah with Him (Heb. 10:37 NIV). 

Resting by the edge of her absence this Good Friday morning, my soul is quieted by His love as sorrow and joy mingle once again. As I ponder and celebrate the reality of resurrection Sunday, gratitude and praise well within me. And as I consider that glorious resurrection dawning yet to come, I rejoice in Him and His Hope set before me—greatly rejoice with joy rendered by sorrow so pure and precious that it is “inexpressible and full of glory” (1 Pet. 1:8).

Come, Lord Jesus.

So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Heb. 4:9-16 ESV)