You, my readers, have become familiar with my good friend Sarah who lost her boyfriend, soon-to-be-fiancé to suicide on January 8 this year. Read here and here and here to catch up if you aren’t aware of what’s going on. The other day Lisa and I were visiting with her, having drinks and chatting, when she told a story that I thought you’d all like to hear about. It’s about how she’s felt God guiding her through her grief. I asked if she’d mind writing a post about that for nakedpastor. She sent it to me the other day. She also gave me the accompanying photo which I embellished with words. Nato took the photograph. Those were happier times. I doctored the photograph and received Sarah’s permission to post this creative endeavor of mine. I feel it expresses so many of the things she’s going through. By the way, she appreciates so many of the kind words this online community have given to her. So bless you!
So, here’s her story in her own words:
“My Guidance Through Darkness”
If you like what nakedpastor has to say, your support is appreciated.Before Nato died, a few days before, I felt I should read psalm 57…”Be gracious to me O God, be gracious to me, for my soul takes refuge under the shadow of your wings. My soul will take refuge under the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed”. It didn’t really mean anything to me at the time. Then he died. He took his own life…’my soul will take refuge under the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed’. When we got home from Ontario, Nato’s funeral, the Lord said, “You’re going to be out for the next three weeks, lie down, but don’t worry, Nato and I are making the plans”. So I laid down. Again, later he said, “the next 4 days are going to be dark’, so I told my mom, “I feel that the next few days are going to be very dark, pray for me and take care of me’. And they were dark.
In March I sat outside one night having a smoke and was overwhelmed by starkness and terror that my love, my beloved, was gone, and that he took his own life. I felt the Lord say ‘ the third month is going to be the worst’. I came inside and told mom, and she told me that statistically the third month is the hardest because there is no shock left to buffer the pain and suffering. I’m glad I didn’t know that before. In that same moment outside with my smoke, I felt, or saw, the words ‘March 21st’, and ‘equinox’. I didn’t know what equinox meant, so I looked it up and the definition said, “When the day is longer than the night”. When the light becomes more than the dark. And March 23rd, I got dressed when I woke up, the first time I have felt like it since Nato died.
Though I may rant and cry through my grief and suffering that God is not faithful, He is.
One of the faithful contributors to this blog in the form of comments, Chris Gill, wrote me a personal email yesterday in response to 
Sarah and I took a long trip yesterday to gather up the belongings left behind by her boyfriend Nato at various places. It was a month yesterday that Nato left us. It was a long, sad and exhausting day. She’s a good friend, and God knows I love her. What can anyone say? I’ve been reminded that people can still say stupid things though. Nervous. Trying to lighten things up. Dumbfounded. Or just socially inept. On the one hand you can’t blame them. How often do you experience this kind of tragedy? On the other hand, there were a couple of times when I wanted to say, “Tell you what. Why don’t you do Sarah a favor and just be quite for a while?!” There was a lot of silence between us as we travelled. She brought a bunch of cds, and she said she was going to take over Nato’s ambition to introduce me to the newest stuff. Even though many shared the pain at first, the pain is most intensely felt by Sarah now. It’s becoming apparent that some people are starting to get over it or want it to be over. But my sorrowful friend Sarah has to courageously continue down that long, sad road. In many ways the rest of this journey is hers. We’ll be there for her, but the expedition before her will be most deeply understood and navigated by her alone.
I wrote these 10 points for myself, and thought I would share them with you today. Our friend Nato took his own life just weeks ago, and he’s left behind not only some precious memories, but some pretty serious thinking as well. So, although these are for me, listen in if you want:
As some of you may have gathered, I encourage people to ask questions or make comments right in the middle of my messages. I love the freedom, but let me tell you, it’s scary! Like today, for example! When there is a death in the congregation and we as a church need to process some grief, we open up the mic. So, following our friend’s suicide this week, we needed to work it through as a community. Today, it began with Trent leading worship and songs for an hour with communion mixed in there. Then I read from Lamentations 3:1-23. Kind of depressing, but ending with hope. Then I opened up the floor. There were lots of encouraging words, prayers, thoughts, and one even read from a sympathy card she was planning on sending the family. Then one man motioned for the mic, and I put it in front of him, and he said, basically, that if you commit suicide, you’re going to hell, plain and simple. I felt the blood drain from my face and my heart sink to my shoes. This is the problem with freedom: it must allow for freedom of speech and thought, no matter how uncomfortable. This was going to be the last comment and we were going to close in prayer, but now I guess not. In my mind I was kicking myself for allowing one more comment. A few people left because they had a family member kill herself just a couple of years ago. They were upset, understandably.
artist. cartoonist. teacher.
