Memento Mori Part 14: What to do When God is Sleeping

Near the end of her book,  Emily DeArdo pulls the curtain back a little and lets the reader in on what she went through as she waited for an organ transplant. She writes:

“My life consisted of work (answering the phone), IV meds, forcing some food into me, and sleeping, sometimes fourteen hours a day. To receive a transplant, you have to be sick enough to need one, but strong enough to survive the surgery and recovery period.”

For Emily, there would be an unknown waiting period for the organ she needed. To hear the life-giving words, “We have an organ for you,” meant someone else would hear words that would crush them. Someone else would need to die in order for her to have a chance of living.  

She further writes, “The prayer, ‘God, please take someone else away so I can stay, couldn’t cross my lips.’”

Instead, she prayed, “Thy will be done.” And she waited. It was grueling.

The fourteenth station of the cross is  “Jesus is buried.” In spite of Jesus’ telling those closest to him that he would die but rise from the dead three days later, the angst and heartbreak they were all experiencing was not eased. They were  conflicted, in sorrow, pain, and confusion, not believing what had just happened.

Living Memento Mori in light of the fourteenth station means we accept the fact that inexplainable, often unpredictable and unthinkable events will eventually enter our lives. It also means that our acceptance and the way we deal with what happens is  both passive and active. The most important way we can actively cope with the harsh realities of life  is through prayer.

Prayer may take the form of communicating to God without words.   Bert Ghezzi explores how this works in a short book he wrote titled, The Sign of the Cross: Recovering the Power of the Ancient Prayer

Prayer more often takes the form of spoken words that can become loud, confrontational, and full of lament. That’s what you see in Mathew 8:24-25:

A windstorm arose on the sea, so great that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him up, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!”

This kind of praying is the focus of a recent blog post  written by Barry Coker titled, Embracing God Amidst Chaos. His post centers  on the book of Habakkuk.

Praying this way is also the theme of Bernd Janowski’s book, Arguing with God.

Historically, the  go-to book for prayer for the church is the book of Psalms. In Janowski’s book, he writes:

God can bear reality, So can the Psalms. With the Psalms, it is as with bread and wine: only those who eat bread experience that bread is nourishing, and  only those who drink wine experience that wine is invigorating. Those who speak the Psalms inwardly to themselves , who recite the Psalms together with others, or who sing them with great musical talent- in short those who make the Psalms their own words will learn a language that offers strength and joy- like bread and wine.

Live Memento Mori. Pray!

Thanks for reading!

Curt Bumcrot, MRE

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