Too Blunt Perhaps

I am coming to realize that I am a bit too blunt right now. You see, I deal day in and day out, every hour of every day, with a certain reality. I am up close and personal in living with someone going through his last days on earth.

As a pastor for over 30 years, I have walked this path with many others, but now it is a different journey. Perhaps my familiarity with the journey as a pastor has made a difference as to how I walk it in my own life, but it is not the same.

Part of the bluntness comes perhaps from ever-present awareness. There’s a sense that since it’s the number one thing on my mind, “isn’t it number one on yours as well”? or, “how can you NOT be aware of it?” And thus, I say it without using any sugar-coating or euphemisms: my husband is going to die. That is the blunt truth. In reality, it is the truth of all our lives, for not one of us is immortal. We WILL have “an illness unto death,” whether that be a momentary illness caused by an accident or one that lasts for years. It’s just that now we cannot avoid the knowledge. It stares at us; it stares at me all the time. It dares me to avoid it. It creeps around corners to surprise me just when I take a moment to dream of something else. It wags its finger in front of my eyes, just to say “here I am, this truth you cannot ignore.”

And so, I tend to be too blunt. If I have made you uncomfortable, I apologize. I inadvertently brought tears to a dear friend on Sunday forgetting that she is not living with the reality every day.

Even in my bluntness, there is one thing I would like to convey: there is hope, not despair. There is sadness and grief, but not despair, for I am not alone. I walk through a shadowed valley, but not alone for my God is with me.

Psalm 23:4

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff—they comfort me.