An Emptiness Full of Promise

Yesterday I found myself in the living room of a 95 year-old hospice patient, sitting comfortably and alert on her sofa.  Forgetful but clear thinking.  Eleanor treasures memories of years of Sunday School teaching and singing in her Presbyterian church choir.    

Daughter Sheryl was home from cooking at a school cafeteria.  Tired at times between work and shoveling snow (recently) and caring for her mom.  With a son she is concerned for, who cannot tell where he is because he works for the Department of War.  But Sheryl remains upbeat and sustained by her faith.

As I was about to leave, Sheryl said, “I have to tell you one more thing.  Last week, my sister who died some years ago, came to me in a dream.  And told me that everything was going to be alright.”

Over the years I have been the beneficiary of many wondrous stories from family members of our patients.  Extra vivid and sensory dreams of departed loved ones.  Or other specific connections like a radio turning on spontaneously and playing a special song.  An unsolicited message or photo on a computer screen.  A lingering bird or butterfly of a type that had personal significance.

Yes, it’s possible that these are coincidences – as extremely unlikely as many would seem.  Or the product of an extra-active imagination.  As a strict secularist would claim.  Or even a more conservative believer, suspicious of any kind of occurrence not defined in Scripture.             

We cannot prove that such experiences are messages from the other side of life.  We don’t base our faith on them.  Though about half of Christians surveyed say they have been visited by a departed loved one.  Researchers say that most who report “after-death communications” find the interactions to be comforting.  As I have found.  Told by many that their stunning sign was of reassurance, like Sheryl’s, at a needed time.  

The Lord has many ways to touch us.  And not exactly in the same way as for someone else.  Correlating with promises of Jesus and the resurrection.  Especially in our emptiness.  

Singer Carolyn Arends notes: The world offers promises full of emptiness.  But Easter offers emptiness full of promise.  Empty cross, empty tomb, empty grave-clothes – all full of promise.  Like the meek inheriting the earth.  Losing in order to gain.  Dying in order to find life.  And sometimes a dream reminding us of a deeper reality.