The second memorial service for Janet Benefiel was Saturday. For the service, Dr. Benefiel, Janet's husband, asked me to read a blog I had previously written. Ron and Janet moved to California two years ago to be near Janet's family as her cancer progressed, but in the time that I got to know them, their example and their willingness to share their life with so many people meant a lot to me.
This blog was originally posted on the Nazarene Theological Seminary student blog page.
Last
spring, I found out that I was pregnant with my first child. This discovery evoked a lot of emotions, but
one of the strongest was fear. Most
miscarriages happen in the first trimester, so I thought if I could make it
through those first three months, I would stop being afraid. Then I heard about a woman who miscarried at
six months. So six months was the
goal. Then a lady in my birthing class
told me about the loss of her baby immediately after birth. Then I learned about sudden infant death syndrome. I realized pretty quickly that I had started
down a path with potential peril at every turn.
But
my story does not begin there.
I
met Janet Benefiel early in my seminary career.
She taught the only Sunday School class at my church. I loved her enthusiasm for the book of Mark,
so I began attending regularly. It
quickly became apparent that Janet’s enthusiasm went beyond biblical
studies. She was enthusiastic about
organizing group games, thrift store and estate sale shopping, hosting events,
and matchmaking the many single people in our church. But what she was most enthusiastic about was
the coming of God’s kingdom. I had never
met anyone who so thoroughly loved life and was yet so excited for the end of
the world.
Growing
up in the church, I heard lots about heaven and hell. I knew that the world could end at any
moment, so I needed to “get right” with God every chance I had. Whenever I found myself unexpectedly alone, I
considered the possibility that I had missed the rapture. My ideas of heaven were vague, but the
vividness of the sheep and the goats who said, “But when did we see you
hungry?” never left my consciousness.
How could this woman who was so joyful possibly pray with such fervor for
the terrifying “Day of the Lord” when we would all be separated and most of us
likely condemned? How could she pray
that joyous occasions like marriage and children and graduating from seminary would
be preempted by some reincarnation of the city of Jerusalem with fancier
architecture?
As
I listened to Dr. Benefiel and others at NTS talk about the idea of the
already/not yet kingdom of God over and over, I began to see what Janet
saw. The joys of this life so often go
hand in hand with deep grief. We
experience the kingdom of God in the joys.
Love, joy, and peace are all fruits of that kingdom. That is the “already” part. But God’s kingdom has not been fully
established on earth. Sickness, pain,
and death are part of the “not yet” where sin still reigns and creation still
groans awaiting redemption.
In
the midst of the sometimes overwhelming fear I felt during my pregnancy, I
forgot this. One of my classmates
counseled me to just trust God with my baby’s life. But what about all those stories I had heard
of miscarriage and stillbirth? What
about those women? Did they not trust
God, I wondered.
I
was mulling over my lack of faith one day in chapel. Dr. Busic was in the midst of a series on the
Lord’s Prayer, and that day’s message was on the phrase, “Thy will be done on
earth as it is in heaven.” As I
contemplated those words, my eyes were opened.
The healthy birth of my child was
God’s will! God and I are on the same
side. It is sin and death that I was
pushing against.
As
I watched Janet face the cancer spreading in her body, I began to pray with
her--not just for the healing of her body, but for the healing of all
things. I don’t know all the details of
the future coming of our Lord, but I do know that the redemption of creation
does not include stillborn children or the invasion of cancer. I will miss Janet Benefiel and her enthusiasm
for things like Sunday School and Costco, but I rejoice in the knowledge that
she clung to—that there is coming a day when death will be no more, when all
things will be made right, when we shall know fully even as we are fully known.
Dr.
Noble said in one of his classes that the single most important doctrine
pastors can teach their congregations is the already/not yet kingdom. As I witnessed Janet’s longing and hope for
the coming of God’s kingdom in the midst of her cancer and her complete
confidence in ultimate victory over the grave, I cannot agree more. At the birth of my healthy child, I rejoiced
in the already, in the way God’s kingdom is present on earth and leaks through
the cracks from time to time. But I can
also face my son's future with the certainty that no matter what perils lie
ahead, God's kingdom will ultimately be victorious.
Ron and Janet at our wedding in 2011.
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