An Extra Mile

by Sharon Garlough Brown

  Thanking her, Hannah moved toward the first prayer station, where, on a cloth-draped table, a painting of Pilate washing his hands was positioned beside a towel and a basin of water similar to the one they had used for foot washing at Meg’s. Hanging on the wall behind the painting of Pilate were robes, each one pinned to a painted fist and billowing above the heating vents. “Crucify him!” screamed the words scrawled in angry font above each fist. The whole scene pulsated with fervor and rage. Crucify him!

  Hannah sat down in front of the table and read from Matthew 27 the story of Pilate questioning Jesus, offering to release Barabbas in his place, and then washing his hands of the whole ordeal when the crowd made their demands that Jesus be crucified. “Do you not hear how many accusations they make against you?” Pilate asked him. But Jesus gave no answer. “Not even to a single charge,” Matthew wrote, “so that the governor was greatly amazed.”

  Hannah shifted in her seat. Maybe she should have ignored the persistent prompt to come to New Hope. The melancholy mood of the prayer journey would only amplify her grief, not alleviate it. And she had already pondered Jesus’ silence before his accusers, back when she first became aware of rumors circulating at Westminster about her integrity. She had already prayed for the grace to die to her reputation, to keep Jesus company in his silence and his refusal to defend himself. It still hadn’t done her much good. No matter how hard she tried, she still couldn’t let it go, still couldn’t move beyond the sting of Nancy avoiding her in worship, of refusing to offer forgiveness and be reconciled.

  Unable to sit before the billowing, accusing robes any longer, she rose and walked toward the next station, where she chose not to linger or kneel before the mirrored cross. She didn’t want to dwell on words like “envy” or “vainglory,” didn’t want to rehearse the ways she continued to feel wounded and slighted by Westminster’s speedy replacing of her. She didn’t want to think about how her resentment over Nathan being in touch with Laura had festered the past couple of days, causing her to lash out with retributive, taciturn reserve whenever he tried to communicate with her about other issues. Please don’t punish me with silence, he’d entreated her multiple times. But she couldn’t help herself. She was more afraid of the damage she might inflict on their marriage if she spoke her uncensored thoughts and feelings than if she kept those thoughts and feelings to herself.

  After pausing only briefly in front of the reflection about Simon of Cyrene, Hannah approached the fourth prayer station. Near the place where she and Nathan had lit their unity candle and offered their promises to one another stood three dead trees secured in five-gallon buckets with duct tape and rocks. Draped through the bare branches of the trees was a long black cloth, at the top of which was painted the silhouette of a weeping woman. Blue beads and crystals representing tears hung from the branches, and at the base of one of the trees was a puddle fashioned from turquoise tulle.

  Jesus Speaks to the Weeping Women, the sign read. Beside it was the Scripture text:

  And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. But turning to them, Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?” (Luke 23:27-31)

  Hannah’s visceral reaction to both the visual representation and the text was so overpowering, she sat down. Blessed are the barren . . . The phrase arrested her and would not let go. Blessed are the barren. She reached into her bag. Much as she had avoided the intimacy of journaling the past several weeks, she knew she couldn’t fully process her response if she didn’t write it down.

  Tuesday, April 7

  8:30 p.m.

  I’ve studied this text before. I’ve preached this text. I know why Jesus is calling the barren women “blessed.” When the devastation comes upon Jerusalem and the temple is destroyed, people will be distraught with grief. In that day of destruction and terror, it will be easier for the ones who don’t have to watch their children suffer. Mothers will long for death to come quickly rather than watch their children starve or be tortured. “Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed.” I can exegete the text and marvel at Jesus’ compassion for suffering mothers and weeping women even as he’s heading toward his own grueling death. His care and concern for the grieving in the midst of his own agony astonish me. His suffering never made him nearsighted. That’s extraordinary.

  But as has been true so many times these past few months, a single phrase grabs me, stirs me, confronts me, and demands that I pay attention to why I’m so agitated and upset by it. “Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore.” I want to argue with Jesus and say, No. It’s not a blessing to be barren. It’s never a blessing to be barren. The women who long to be mothers, who would give anything to give birth to a child, you can’t say they’re blessed just because they won’t have to endure their children’s suffering. Being barren is its own particular heartache. Don’t tell me, Jesus, that it’s better this way. I don’t want to hear it.

  Over and over again I rehearse the same wounds, don’t I? I’m like Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted. How long do I go on grieving the loss of my womb? Now that I have a husband, my barrenness devastates me in an even deeper sort of way, in a way I’ve tried not to think about and haven’t wanted to talk about. And I don’t know when I’ll be free of it, Lord. I see Charissa’s protruding belly, and I pray your blessing on her. Again. I imagine Laura’s protruding belly, and I say, It’s not fair, Lord. Again.

  Loss after loss after loss. I think of my mother grieving all of those miscarriages years ago, and I understand in a new way her impulse to want the mountains to fall on her. Sometimes the pain is so great that you just want it to end. You don’t think you can endure one more loss, one more trauma, one more devastation. I was about to write, I know my losses are nothing compared to some people’s losses, but I’ll stop right there with the measuring and comparing and say simply that I’m grieving. Still. So I string my tears to the branches of those desolate trees and watch them drip into the pool of gathered sorrow. I add my tears to the tears of the barren and the bereaved, to the ones who weep day and night wondering when relief will come.

  “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

  When, Jesus?

  I’m not ungrateful, Lord. I’m not. I know I need to keep rehearsing my thanks for all the blessings of abundance you have poured out to me these past seven months. Lavish blessings. I’m grateful, Lord. I am. But if I don’t also offer you my lament, I know my sorrow will become toxic. I don’t want to become toxic with bitterness and resentment.

  And I feel bitter and resentful about so many things right now. I’m sorry, Lord. Forgive me. Cleanse me. Deliver me. Heal me. Please.

  I know people could look at my life and say, Why are you so downcast? You’ve got a wonderful husband—and he is—and a lovely stepson—true—and a place to live with people who love you. All true. I think of women who would give anything for my life, give anything to be loved by a Christian husband the way Nathan loves me and is patient with me. I think of Mara, even, and everything she’s going through and think, why I am so downcast? What’s wrong with me?

  But I can’t fake joy, Lord. What I have right now to offer you is sorrow. Gratitude, too, but also sorrow. I miss my Meg. I miss my work. I miss my space. I grieve what was. I grieve what will never be. I grieve.

  But I’m not the only one who grieves. I sit and stare at these dead trees watered by tears and find myself strangely comforted at the thought of being part of a community of the brokenhearted and the disappointed who keep watch for redemption. For resurr
ection. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

  Let that be true, Lord. Not just for me. For all of us.

  Charissa

  When Charissa finished revising a paper shortly after eleven o’clock that night, she turned on the television to check the Michigan State score. The clock on the national championship game in Detroit was ticking down, and it didn’t look good for the Spartans. John would be crushed.

  She hit the power button on the remote and flicked off the light. No way he would be home much before three o’clock in the morning. Good thing he hadn’t lost his knack for pulling all-nighters. That would serve them well with a baby.

  Her abdomen tightened in a contraction, and she winced, waiting for it to release. She needed to call and schedule their childbirth classes. Learning some breathing techniques might help her with the discomfort of these Braxton—

  Oooof!

  Charissa doubled over with a searing cramp. That was new. She tried to take a deep breath but couldn’t get her diaphragm to fill. Maybe a warm bath would help relax her muscles. As soon as she could stand upright again, she filled the tub with warm water and lowered herself in, trying to extend herself comfortably. No use. The tub had not been designed for tall pregnant women. For once in her married life she wished she were at her in-laws’ house. Their guest bathroom had a large whirlpool tub. Maybe she would let John have his new deck and hot tub too.

  Oh!

  Another cramp. She tried to swivel onto her side but couldn’t manage the maneuver. She started to count off seconds. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. Sixty. Ninety. One hundred. She needed to get out of the bathtub and check online to make sure this type of thing was normal at twenty-six weeks. But the pain made her dizzy, and she wasn’t sure she could lift herself out of the tub. Drain the water. She should drain the water in case she passed out. She pulled the plug and listened to the gulp and gurgle of the water circling down the drain.

  Deep breath, she commanded herself, and don’t pass out. Get to a phone. Get to a phone. Please, God. Get me to a phone.

  Hannah

  Though Nathan had teased her about it on more than one occasion, years of 2 a.m. phone calls had conditioned Hannah to keep her cell phone on her nightstand in case someone needed her in an emergency. Like Becca. Or Mara.

  Or Charissa, who sounded frantic and frightened when she apologized for calling after midnight. She hadn’t been able to reach Mara, she said, and John was still two hours away, and the online medical sites said she should go to the hospital to be checked out, just to be safe. “Because I think they might be real contractions,” she spluttered, “and John says I have to go. He wants me to go. But I don’t know if I can drive myself, the pain gets so bad.”

  As she had done on so many other occasions over the years, Hannah dressed in a hurry. This time, however, there was someone at the house to pray for her when she left. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do,” Nathan said before kissing her goodbye.

  There wasn’t much else to do, except watch and wait and try to soothe Charissa with a non-anxious presence. Or at least the pretense of one. When a disheveled John skidded into the room at 3 a.m., Charissa was hooked up to an IV drip for fluids and a monitor to measure contractions. “You’re okay, baby,” John said. “You’re okay.” Hannah wasn’t sure if “baby” referred to Charissa or to Bethany. To both, perhaps. “What’s the latest, Riss?”

  She shrugged, her eyes clenched tight, whether in an attempt to fight back tears or to endure another contraction, Hannah didn’t know. John, who had evidently researched such things, began asking questions about dilation and effacement. When Charissa did not reply, Hannah repeated what the attending physician had said. “They’re still trying to get labor to stop. So far the contractions are spread out at about fifteen minutes, and she’s not dilated at all.”

  “That’s good,” John said. “Not being dilated is good.”

  Charissa, eyes still closed, murmured, “This can’t be happening.” She had murmured the same words all the way to the hospital in the darkness of Hannah’s car. “This can’t be happening.”

  John kissed her forehead and stroked her hand. “Don’t worry, Riss. You’ll be okay. Everything will be okay.”

  But whether this was a declaration of faith or a denial of terror, Hannah didn’t know. “I’d be happy to pray with both of you.”

  John nodded. “Thanks, Hannah,” he said, and bowed his head against Charissa’s shoulder.

  It hadn’t been that long ago, Hannah thought as she pulled out of the hospital parking garage an hour later, that she and Meg had rushed Charissa to this same hospital after John was injured playing football. They kept her company in the Emergency Room, and only after Charissa was summoned to see John did Meg disclose that she had once staggered through those same doors to meet a chaplain who gave her the news that her beloved husband, Jim, was dead.

  It hadn’t been that long ago—though it felt like a lifetime—that Hannah had raced through those same doors with Becca after Meg collapsed at the airport. “She’ll be okay, right?” Becca repeated again and again on the terrifying ride from the airport to the hospital. “She’ll pull through, right?” Hannah couldn’t remember what she had replied.

  “I’ll be praying for you,” Hannah had promised John and Charissa when she said goodbye. But when John said again, “Everything will be okay,” Hannah did not echo that reassurance. John hadn’t seemed to notice.

  Wednesday, April 8

  9:30 a.m.

  Maybe journaling two days in a row means I’ll get back into a rhythm of processing my life with God in these pages. I’ve felt so desolate. So dry. Writing feels like taking a long drink from a neglected well. Why do I forget? Why do I avoid the practices that are good for my soul? Especially when I’m feeling so much disequilibrium in every area of life. I’m sorry, Lord. Restore my soul. Please. I’ve been so out of sync with you, with others. I’ve been so consumed with my own grieving and losses that I haven’t had energy to pour into anyone else. The midnight call jolted me awake, not just physically but spiritually. I am reminded—again—that our sorrow, our suffering is communal. Even when we feel so alone in it.

  I keep thinking about John’s insistence that “everything will be okay.” I think what he meant every time he said it was, “Nothing bad will happen because we’re trusting God.” I remember being there years ago, believing that God would prevent every kind of suffering if I trusted him. “Daddy fix!” That was my image for God because that was my image of my dad. That was the image that had to die.

  Maybe Meg’s death is still too raw for me to approach any situation like Charissa’s with hope and confidence in God’s power. Maybe I expect things to go wrong because I’m still smarting from God not healing Meg, or at the very least, giving her more time. Giving us more time. Maybe I’ve seen too much over the years, presided at too many funerals for infants, sat at too many bedsides of dashed hopes.

  I know you invite me to trust you as Redeemer, Lord. Not to expect you to be the God who fixes broken things or prevents the brokenness from happening but to trust you to be the One who redeems broken things, makes your presence known in the midst of all that is broken, and keeps us company as we grieve. You do make all things well. Like Julian of Norwich’s prayer. All shall be well. And all shall be well. And all manner of thing shall be well. Someday. No matter what.

  “All shall be well” means that even if I make my bed in Sheol, God is with me. It means that even if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there God’s right hand upholds me. It means that even when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we don’t have to be afraid—not because nothing bad will happen to us in this life but because God is with us in anything and everything that happens to us in this life. Somehow, everything that happens to us in this life can form and shape and prepare us for life beyond this world as well.

  In the meantime, Lord, please show your kindness to Charissa and John. Please show your lov
e and care and power. Watch over little Bethany. Continue to knit her together in health and wholeness. Reveal your glory, Lord, in all these things. I don’t presume to know what your glory will look like. But help us trust you. No matter what.

  Being at New Hope last night helped reorient me to the cross. That’s what I needed. I need to keep working with the Spirit to move against my desolation into consolation and hope. So I’ve decided to go with Nathan to the silence and solitude retreat on Holy Saturday. I know a day of retreat and meditation will be good for my soul, even as part of me continues to resist. Meet me in my resistance, Lord, and move me forward, deeper in my life with you.

  Mara

  When Mara discovered Charissa’s frantic voicemail seven hours after she left the message, she kicked herself for having turned off her phone overnight. Leaving the boys to figure out breakfast and pack their lunches, Mara returned to her room, wrapped herself in her favorite afghan, and called for an update. John answered Charissa’s phone. “They’re saying ‘high risk,’” he said, his voice quivering with emotion. “She’s dilated to two centimeters, and the contractions are hitting every few minutes. They’re trying to stop her labor, slow down the contractions, but . . .”

  “Oh, John.” All of Mara’s babies had gone full term, even late. She knew nothing about preterm labor or premature babies. She had only seen pictures of little ones lying in incubators or cradled in the palm of a hand, hooked up to wires and tubes. She’d heard horror stories about complications and defects, with weeks and months spent in neonatal intensive care units and tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills. If the babies even made it that far. Oh, God.