An Extra Mile Read online

  “For sure. Mom can make anything grow. As for me, I look at plants, and they die.”

  “Well, don’t you start killing things off before they even have a chance,” Charissa said. “We’ll have the prettiest garden on the block, just you wait.”

  “Says the woman who for our whole married life has insisted she couldn’t bear the responsibility of a house plant.”

  “Go,” she said, bopping him on the shoulder as he flashed his boyish grin. “You can go now. And keep an eye on him, Jeremy. Don’t let him convince you that I’ve given him permission to buy anything other than what you recommend for the bathroom. Budget, John. Keep to the budget.” This she said for the benefit of both of them.

  John gave a mock salute, Jeremy a slight nod, and they were out the door.

  Charissa kicked off her shoes, sank into an overstuffed armchair facing the fireplace, and put her feet up on an ottoman. She had hoped to vacuum the rugs again before Hannah and Mara arrived, but she didn’t have the energy. The bathroom, at least, was clean. Good enough for today.

  Though she had never been one to count down the days to the end of the semester, she was ticking them off her calendar with zeal: seven more weeks. Managing her own doctoral course load on top of teaching a section of freshman writing would have been challenging enough without sharing the inside of her body. But Charissa wasn’t complaining. Or trying not to, anyway. Recently she had been pondering the idea of her body as “sacred space,” a place where new life grew and took shape. She didn’t yet fathom what that life would become, but she was trusting the process. Or rather, she was trusting God with the process. Or trying to.

  Maybe that’s why she felt compelled to garden. Given all of the deaths she had observed the past few months, spiritual and emotional ones as well as the death of a new friend, the miracle of green shoots emerging from the earth after the harshness of winter spoke to her.

  At twenty-six she’d had very little exposure to death: her paternal grandmother when she was in first grade, a friend’s father when she was in middle school, and a college classmate—a girl she knew only by name and sight—when they were juniors. As someone whose life had not been shaped by trauma or tragedy, Charissa hadn’t given much thought to resurrection. Resurrection was merely a doctrine of faith she had always affirmed without hesitating, ever since she memorized the Apostle’s Creed as a third-grader: The third day he rose again from the dead. Period. Or rather, exclamation point.

  Words from Meg’s funeral still pursued her. Hymns, Scripture, the pastor’s homily—all of it quickened her to a promise she’d never had to cling to before. We are Easter people, Meg’s pastor had declared, practicing our hope. In the midst of death. In the midst of change. In the midst of sorrow. In the midst of uncertainty.

  The third day he rose again from the dead.

  In a few weeks they would sing their alleluias again on Easter morning. Easter, which had never meant much more to Charissa than trumpet fanfares, lilies, and ribboned baskets filled with chocolate, had taken on new significance, not as a historical event to be commemorated once a year but as an ongoing reality to be lived daily.

  The third day he rose again from the dead.

  Meg’s death had awakened in her a profound sense of vulnerability. Meg had been younger than Charissa when she buried her husband, younger than Charissa when she gave birth to their only child, the child who should have had two parents bring her home to the front room they had lovingly prepared for her.

  Charissa glanced toward the room that now awaited Bethany.

  She wasn’t superstitious. But no matter how hard she tried to shake it, the cloud of morbidity that had descended on the house after Meg’s cancer diagnosis would not dissipate. Even with all of Jeremy’s remodeling of the space, Charissa couldn’t stop thinking about the dreams that had been birthed, cherished, and shattered here.

  She had suggested that the group gather and pray for one another instead of using one of the prayer exercises from their notebook. But maybe what each of them needed was a focal point for faith. For hope.

  I am the resurrection and the life. That was one of the verses from Meg’s funeral that pursued her, and it seemed a good text to ponder. Charissa checked her watch: forty-five minutes before Hannah and Mara arrived. Time enough to compose a short lesson plan. Or rather, an invitation for prayer and conversation.

  MEDITATION ON JOHN 11:17-44

  Resurrection and Life

  When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

  When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

  Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

  For prayer and conversation:

  1. Which sister do you identify with? Why?

  2. Try to pretend you don’t know the end of the story as you imagine yourself as that sister. How do you feel when you hear the news that Jesus has finally arrived?

  3. What surprises you about Jesus?

  4. What does it mean for you to know Jesus as the resurrection and the life right now?

  two

  Hannah

  The candid wedding photos captured and chronicled a far more intimate and tender tale than the posed ones. Hannah peered over Mara’s shoulder at a photo of Nathan and her talking with Katherine Rhodes, who had officiated their ceremony at New Hope. “Oh! I like this one,” Mara said. “Look how Nathan’s looking at you. Total adoration.” Yes. His expression was soft and wistful. Hopeful. Proud, even.

  Charissa agreed. “That one too,” she said, pointing to the last one in the stack.

  Yes. That was one of Hannah’s favorites, the moment when her father placed her hand in Nathan
’s, all of their faces glistening with tears.

  “Such a beautiful wedding.” Mara gathered the photos together and returned them to Hannah, who tucked them into a manila envelope. Eventually, she would organize them into an album. It was the sort of project Meg would have been delighted to help with.

  Charissa moved off the sofa where the three of them had huddled together and pulled her long dark hair into a tight ponytail. “I know I’m the one who suggested just catching up with each other tonight,” she said, “but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I need something to help me fix my eyes in the right direction in the midst of everything that’s changed. That’s changing. So I hope you don’t mind, but I put together a mini-reflection exercise—not as extensive as the ones Katherine wrote, but something to get us thinking about Easter. About resurrection. Then we can pray for one another. Does that sound okay?”

  Mara nodded. “Works for me.”

  “Me too,” Hannah said. She hadn’t relished the thought of spending their entire time together talking about Meg and her absence. Much as she valued Mara and Charissa’s companionship, she still preferred to process her grief privately.

  Charissa passed them each a sheet of paper. John 11 was a text Hannah had already spent quite a bit of time meditating on, but she wasn’t going to disregard Charissa’s offering. As Charissa settled herself into her chair, Hannah stared at the lively flames crackling in the fireplace. Three Fridays ago they had gathered in Meg’s parlor in front of a dancing fire to ponder the depths of Jesus’ love and to wash one another’s feet. When Meg had knelt before Hannah and reverently washed and dried her feet, both of them were overcome with quiet tears. And then, to Hannah’s surprise, Meg placed a kiss on the top of each foot, her face illumined by the firelight and by something else. By Someone else. It was as if Jesus himself had stooped to wash her feet.

  She had forgotten to tell Meg that.

  She clenched her eyes shut, trying to fend off the sudden onslaught of grief.

  “Oh, honey,” Mara murmured as Hannah’s chest began to heave. It was no use. Hannah leaned her head against her friend’s broad shoulder and cried.

  Friday, March 13

  7:30 p.m.

  Mara and Charissa both said we could skip journaling about the text and just talk and pray together. I think they were both caught off guard by my flood of tears. But I need some time for quiet reflection. I need space to listen and breathe before I talk about it.

  I’ve pictured myself as Martha before, charging out to confront Jesus and accuse him of doing nothing to intervene. So tonight I’m picturing myself as Mary, refusing to leave the house to meet Jesus because she’s so utterly disappointed that he didn’t come when they desperately called for him. I’m imagining myself sitting there when they get the news that he’s finally arrived—four days too late. He couldn’t even be bothered to come to the funeral, and now he shows up?

  No. Not okay.

  “You coming?” Martha asks as she grabs her cloak. No. I’m not coming. What kind of Love does nothing when it’s in Love’s power to intervene?

  I feel the gravitational pull toward giving the right answer. The theological answer. The answer I have come to know and trust. But I think I need to stay longer with Mary and feel the weight of her sorrow and disappointment. Because maybe, if I’m really honest and take the time to listen to my own grieving soul, maybe I’ll discover that I’m still harboring resentment that he didn’t answer my prayers—our prayers—the way I wanted him to.

  I’ve spent all day running through the “if onlys” again. If only I had noticed something was really wrong with Meg sooner. If only I had seen that it wasn’t bronchitis. If only I had pushed her to get to a doctor faster. If we had caught it even a month earlier, would the prognosis have been different?

  And what if I’d encouraged her to explore chemo, even though the doctor said the cancer was too far progressed for it to be effective? What if I’d urged her to do everything she could to fight it? To live?

  I write the words “to live,” and I see the irony. What’s my definition of “to live”?

  Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

  Yes, I believe, Lord. Help my unbelief.

  Do I think for a moment that Meg would return here after glimpsing your glory? Do I forget that she lives? That she lives more fully now than she ever lived here? Do I forget?

  I’m sorry, Lord. But it hurts.

  I know she died with sorrow over Becca. I know she was worried over all that was left unsaid and undone. By putting me in charge of her estate, Meg was also entrusting me with her daughter. She hoped I’d watch over her in prayer, not just oversee the disbursement of assets. She hoped Becca would reach out to me if she needed anything, that Becca would be open to forming a connection with me. I don’t know if that will happen. How do I honor Meg’s desires while giving Becca freedom to choose her own way?

  I pray. I offer help and encouragement. A listening ear if she needs it. So far, she hasn’t replied to any of my recent emails. I don’t know how hard to push.

  If you can just be available, Meg said, if she ever needs anything. She didn’t ask me to try to become a mother figure for Becca. She didn’t ask me to try to lead her to Jesus or try to persuade her to get out of her relationship with Simon. Just be available.

  I can see her face and hear her voice say, “I’m so thankful for you, Hannah.” Not for my help. Not for my prayers. Not even for my time. But for me. I wanted to do so much more for her. When we prayed in this house in February and anointed her with oil, I wanted to anoint her for healing, not for death.

  And I hear your voice remind me—again—that I did anoint her for life.

  Why do I still get confused about who is alive and who is dead? Bring Becca from death to life, Lord. And thank you for bringing Meg from life to life. Thank you for giving me the privilege of being there when she crossed into your near presence. Please let the memory of that moment become a source of comfort rather than distress for Becca. Bring her to life. Please.

  I look at the text again, and I’m reminded of how differently the two sisters grieved. Martha, the confronter. Mary, the avoider. I’ve been both sisters. I’ve had my moments of angrily accusing you of not caring, and I’ve had my moments of keeping my pain to myself and privately nursing my disappointment.

  I watch Mary sitting there in the house, surrounded by people who are probably wondering aloud about Jesus’ power—couldn’t the One who healed the blind man, they ask later, have kept this from happening?—and none of their words comfort or soothe. They just compound the pain. Then Martha reappears in the doorway, and her countenance is softened, and she speaks gently and says, “The Teacher is here, and he’s calling for you.”

  That’s what breaks the stewing. The ruminating. The rehearsing of the confusion and the wound. “Jesus is here, and he wants to see you. He’s calling for you.” Those summoning words shift everything and gently move Mary forward in her grieving. Those are the words I need to keep hearing, Lord, as I move forward with all of the losses and all of the gains. So many joyful gains to celebrate even as there are so many deaths to mourn. You summon me. I summon you. Come and see the things I have buried. Come and see the places where I’m disappointed and the places where I hope. Meet me here with resurrection life. Not just me. All of us. Please.

  Mara

  As the others recorded their insights, Mara stared at the handout and tried to focus. It would have been easier just to talk about the questions out loud and then pray. She really wasn’t good at writing down her reflections. She had tried a few times over the past several months, but it didn’t stick. She would never be a journaler like Hannah. She needed to be okay with that.

  She read the text again. Which sister did she identify with? The loud-mouthed one. The one who had no problem telling
Jesus how she felt. They’d sent a message to him to ask for his help, and he hadn’t even bothered to come. She would have gunned for him, just like Martha. And she might not have been as polite.

  She also wasn’t sure she could have been as full of faith. Martha trusted that Jesus could do anything, even when he hadn’t done what she wanted him to do. That was big faith.

  But Martha also doubted. There she was, saying she believed that Jesus could do anything, that he was the resurrection and the life, that he was the Messiah, the Son of God. And then when Jesus told them to roll away the stone, she argued with him because it would stink too bad to open the tomb.

  Mara liked Martha. She liked her a lot. Because she’d had the same kind of arguments with Jesus about opening the tombs of old dead things she had buried long ago: traumas and hurts and sorrows, regrets and guilt and shame. She’d also been afraid of being overwhelmed by the stench of it. And if the stuff was dead and buried, why visit it again? Why open the seal?

  Because sometimes, she had learned over the past few months, Jesus asked questions like, “Where have you laid him?” and you could either say, “Never mind. I don’t want to go there again,” or you could say, “Come and see.”

  That’s one of the things Mara had come to love about Jesus: he never forced his way anywhere. He just asked the probing questions and promised not to leave her when she drummed up the courage to go to the tomb. Tombs, plural. Many of them.

  Mara had spent enough years in counseling to know that it was by opening up those stinking tombs of rotting sorrows that you could experience healing. Resurrection life, even. Just like Jesus promised. She had experienced a fair bit of that over the past few months—rolling away the stones and letting Jesus speak new life and power to old hurts. She had also experienced the gift of doing it in community. She wasn’t alone at the tombs.