Encountering God in the Bathroom. A Note From Jan.

Some of Sunday spilled over onto this Monday.  That’s good since it usually means I’m still thinking about something Patrick preached. He spoke from II Corinthians 4: 13-5:1.  Paul, a man who suffered much, reminds us to not lose heart.  What we struggle with is temporary. ”Momentary affliction.” Doesn’t always feel that way but good to get encouragement from someone who has been through a whole lot more than I and who never gave up.

The words of Patrick and Paul form sticky thoughts, as Zoe (grand goddaughter) calls them.  Words that repeat in my brain. Recurring thoughts like these words of Paul’s: “I believed, and so I spoke.” What do I believe?  What do I speak?

On Sunday, Patrick said, “We can’t make God’s glory fill the earth—our job is to recognize it and point to it.” Will I know it when I see it? hear it?

Don’t ask me to explain myself but, as long as I was thinking about suffering, belief and looking for signs of God’s Glory, I decided today was the day to clean out the medicine cabinet and other drawers in the bathroom that still held too many reminders of Jud.

I’d put it off.  Couldn’t bear to handle those  bottles, ointments, bandages, and other symbols of suffering.  Worse still were Jud’s razor, shaving cream, and after-shave lotion.  Sights and smells of one I spent the better part of my life with, and I do mean the BETTER part.

So many reminders of Jud’s suffering dumped today into a Stonewall Kitchen shopping bag: anti-itch creams, strips to hold together open wounds from surgery, rinses for mouth sores, baking soda, alcohol wipes, Benadryl, and anti-diarrhea pills. The cupboards held no uppers or downers, only over-the-counter stuff.  He was a Tylenol man…until  we urged him to take morphine at MGH when he was way beyond what most of us could tolerate.  Then, when visions of sugar plums or worse danced in his head, we listened to him and reverted to Tylenol.  Nothing wrong with taking pain meds.  They can be a good gift from God as they were in the last hours of Jud’s life at Kaplan House. Still, I couldn’t help but marvel at Jud’s fortitude over the long haul. He valued clear-headedness, long before cancer attacked his body.

What of God’s Glory? …This weighty, not feathery something or other called GLORY.  If I were to point today to God’s Glory, it would show up in some memories and encouragement through God’s words written by Paul.  ”So we do not lose heart.  Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.” 

Our family and some friends saw that in Jud…that weaker body buoyed by the inner man of faith.  There was so much suffering for this one so dear to God, alone in a bathroom at MGH or here at our perch.  What kept him from losing heart?   At more than one time in Jud’s life, like mine, God showed up.  As in Handel’s Messiah, “The glory of the Lord shall be [and was] revealed.”  God showing up, not just as words from the prophet Isaiah but In Jesus, in grandchildren, family, friends, nature, music, art, books… however God chose to come.  Jud believed that Jesus was who He said He was and did what He said He did, as we affirmed Sunday after Sunday, “Christ has died.  Christ is risen.  Christ will come again.”

Strange to encounter God in the bathroom.  Toss out the stuff into an old shopping bag. Stuff gone. Spread Jud’s ashes on the ocean he loved.  “The outer body wasted away.”  But it’s not over at death for Jud or me or you.  We were created for God’s glory.  God weeps in the bathroom with us. And one day Jud will rise again, this one who followed Jesus to the end…this one who lived what Paul wrote, ”I believed, and so I spoke.”

I googled “the glory of the Lord” and Handel’s Messiah popped up.  An all Asian choir and orchestra sang of “the Glory of the Lord” and I thought “ALL flesh shall see it together.”  Every tribe and nation gathered together one day.  Pictures of that grandest of celebrations helps me toss some of the stuff of this life, small symbols of suffering, and so I do not lose heart on this Monday.

Years ago Jud and I visited the house  where Handel wrote the Messiah.  We went to Westminster Abbey where he is buried.  Handel’s tomb reads simply, ‘I Know that My Redeemer Liveth.”

It was Job who said it first.  A man whose name’s synonymous with suffering.  He “believed and so spoke,”  “I know that my Redeemer liveth….and in my flesh shall I see God.” Makes me want to sing and exclaim, “What kind of a God shows up in a bathroom and spreads Glory around like some Supernatural air purifier!” A clean air act that leaves me exhaling the horror of the task at hand and inhaling strength to “not lose heart.”

So I pray— Take this small stuff, Jesus, these symbols in plastic bottles, tubes and boxes…these reminders of one who suffered but never lost heart. They are an offering of gratitude to You, Suffering Christ, for never leaving or forsaking Jud or me. And an offering of Praise to the God who shares His Glory, turning a small space of sorrow and duty into a Holy Bathroom one Monday in June.

Soli Deo gloria!