Category: Blog

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” (Psalm 147:3)

 

I was worn out from teaching all day and trying to take care of all of Ron’s needs, so in January of 2019 I began the lengthy process of enrolling Ron in the County Agency for Seniors and Aging (COSA). Eventually, Ron qualified for 77 hours a week of nursing care and we moved him and a hospital bed into the dining room since he could no longer walk up the stairs. While the aides were not always reliable, their presence did allow me some breaks away from spousal caregiving. One Friday  night in July, I kissed Ron good-bye, told him I loved him, and drove to Rehoboth Beach with my daughter Bonnie to visit my 91 year old father.

We walked the boardwalk, listening to the roar of the ocean, enjoying this too-rare respite, when I made a confession to my daughter.

“I don’t know how long I can go on doing this for your father,” I told her. “I’m exhausted. This could go on for another twenty years. I don’t know if I can do it.”

Always the voice of compassion, Bonnie put her arms around me and said, “God knows how tired you are. You will do it as long as you have to do it because you have always counted on God for your strength.”

We left Rehoboth around 7PM and arrived at my house about 9:15. While she usually said good-bye to me at the car, this time Bonnie came in to say good-night to her father. 

And we found that God had called Ron home to heaven. 

Dennis, Bonnie, Allen, and I were unprepared for Ron’s sudden death, but we knew that his suffering and pain was at an end. My heart had a giant hole in it that God needed to fill.

The years of serving in the mission field of hospitals had come to an end. God opened up a brand new chapter in my life, and set me on another journey I had never expected to take. My youngest son Allen, an adult on the autism spectrum, could not grasp the finality of his father’s death. The week after Ron died, Allen informed me that the trees  in the park were whispering Ron’s name and saying that Ron was still alive. 

Allen was convinced we needed to find his father.

There is very little research about how adults with autism react to death. Lacking information and aware that Allen needed to prove to himself that his father was now in Heaven, we began a search for Ron that led us to parks, and beaches, and rivers, and railroad stations. One night we even set up a telescope in the front yard so Allen could try and find the location of Heaven. 

This journey took eight months and while Allen looked for places where his father might be, I began to remember Ron as a young man, long before he became so ill. Eventually, Allen came to understand that while his father was now in Heaven, both God, his heavenly Father, and Ron, his earthly dad, still loved him. And I was able to say a proper good-bye not just to the sick man Ron had become, but to the funny, loving, and wonderful man he had been. I chronicled our grief journey in my blog, and recently completed a book called Finding Father: A Journey of Faith on the Autism Spectrum. My hope is that any who read this book will know that there are many ways to grieve. God accepts them all. 

I am on a new journey now in my walk as a widow and as the mother of an adult on the autism spectrum. Part of that journey led Allen and I to the Church of the Atonement in Claymont, Delaware, and to share our story of grief and healing with others. Along with writing the weekly blog for Atonement and sharing our lives on my blog on Substack.com, I long to help others tell their own God stories. 

The journey I shared with Allen was unique, but God hears the echoes of our hearts.

All of them.

“Write all the words that I have spoken to you in a book” Jeremiah 30:2

I met Ron when I was 20 and continued to endure the painful cornea treatments. We married a year later, postponing my return to education yet again.  By our 19th year of marriage, I’d borne three children, had two cornea transplants, and earned my BA in education. The last feat was accomplished only because my husband went to my college classes for the first two weeks and recorded the lectures since I was recovering from my second transplant. For better or worse, right?

 I was happily teaching at a small Christian school and I thought I had found my mission field. I’d even started working on a graduate degree. But my usually cheerful husband, Ron, began to have problems with depression and was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder. That began a round of mental hospitals–very foreign places to be–and  led to a long stay in Friends Hospital in Philadelphia the summer of 1999. We’d been studying the Prayer of Jabez in Sunday School, so I counted on God to enlarge my territory (I Chronicles 4:10). I was led to a Quaker school in West Chester with the offer of a salary that would support my family.

It had been a long road, but Ron was recovering from his battle with depression when on his way home from work on March 1, 2000, his car was broadsided by a truck driver running a red light. The damage to Ron was immense: his chest was crushed, his lung was punctured, his liver was damaged, his spleen was ruptured, and his left arm was almost severed. He also suffered a traumatic brain injury.

 Ron was in the hospital at Crozer-Chester Medical Center  for 10 months and there were many times during those ten months that I wondered if I would have the strength to go on. There is a long corridor at Crozer between the parking pavilion and the hospital. Every afternoon after school, I would lean against the wall and feel as if I could just melt into a puddle. I would pray for the strength to just make it to my husband’s room. I would recite Isaiah 41:10 and ask God to uphold me. I’d  feel a surge of energy that kept me moving ahead. The hospital became my new mission field. Ron’s room was always decorated with cards from my students and as much cheer as the kids and I would provide, even a small Christmas tree. Again and again, plans for Ron to come home were thwarted by another emergency surgery or a mysterious infection.

I feared he might never come home.

But he did. We were even able to celebrate our 25th anniversary by renewing our vows in a beautiful service. Ron tried to return to work, but his energy was depleted and physical problems still existed. He developed chronic regional pain syndrome, which spiraled him back into depression. Over the next 20 years, Ron was hospitalized 46 times for both physical and mental problems and had 36 major surgeries as we tried to repair the damage done by a careless driver. 

No matter what hospital Ron was  in, we found a way to witness to others. My daughter and I would bring our knitting projects to wait out the many surgeries, and always someone would come over to talk to us and we could share our belief in Jesus. During one long stay at Eagleville, a doctor asked me this question: How have you continued to stay with your husband through all of this? And I told him, “I made a vow to both Ron and God. I do not take it lightly.” The doctor told me, “You must serve a big God.” 

Yes. I do. And He is good. All the time.

Even when the worst happens.

 “But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.” (2 Corinthians 4:7, NIV)

 

I was raised in a Christian family, although we did not always attend the same church. My mother was Catholic and my brother and I went to mass with her on Sundays and attended catechism classes on Wednesdays. My paternal grandmother was Methodist, so when we visited her on weekends,  she took us to Sunday School. My father hardly ever attended church unless there was a wedding or when my brother and I made our First Communion.  I always felt there should be something more than the prayers I learned and recited from my little white missile.  Through most of my early school years, I wanted more than the same rote prayers. I needed something to believe in.

In high school, I found some friends who were Baptist  and I started attending Sunday evening services with them. The Baptist church was much different than the Catholic Church! I could just talk to God without an intercessor or a specific prayer.  At an after-school Bible study, I accepted Jesus as my personal savior and desired to follow Him. My favorite verse at the time was I Corinthians 12:22, “ For as in Adam all died, so will all in Christ be made alive.” Christ had made me alive!

Like many of my high school friends, I thought God might call me to the mission field. I went on my first mission trip when I was fourteen, ministering to children on the beaches of New England with the Children’s Sand and Surf Mission. I liked teaching and I was good at it. I could become a missionary teacher! The mission field God ultimately called me to was not in another country, but was just as foreign.

After high school, I went to Millersville State Teachers College, preparing for where God would send me.  I found myself walking into walls, tripping over sidewalks, and dealing with constant headaches. At Christmas break, I came home and drove my dad’s car into a telephone pole I just did not see. My concerned  parents took me to Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia where we were told I had a rare and painful genetic disorder called keratoconus that was slowly destroying the corneas–the clear coverings–of my eyes. The corneas of the eyes should be curved, but mine were forming points and flaking away.  Without proper treatment and eventual surgery, I could lose my vision. 

I was nineteen then and books had always been important to me;  the threat that I might become blind meant I would lose the ability to read and never be able to teach. I needed to leave Millersville and return home so I could be at Wills Eye Hospital every week while a series of hard contact lenses were inserted into my eyes to hold my corneas together. 

The hard contacts were over-sized and painful to wear. They severely limited my vision, but they did seem to be helping my corneas to conform to a cylindrical shape. After a year, I was able to go back to college part-time at West Chester Unversity. My vision remained distorted, but I told myself that spiritual sight was more important than physical vision. I took heart from the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who said, “Seeing is not always believing.” 

I still desperately wanted God to use me as a teacher , even if I needed to use a magnifying glass to read my books, even if I needed to learn Braille, even if it took longer for me to attain my degree.

I had no idea just how long that would be.

 

By Linda Waltersdorf Cobourn, EdD

 

“To them I will give a new name within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters, I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever.”  Isiah 56:5

 

I am wrung out with emotion. Today, eighteen months after my husband’s death, I have moved our queen-size bed back into the spot beneath the double windows where it had been until the day he died. On that awful night, I’d shoved his side of the bed against the wall, piling pillows around it to fill the empty space. I slept on my side, facing away from the void. 

I am stronger now, I think. Ready to move the bed back. I have found a new life for myself and my autistic son; I have written sixteen chapters of a book I hope will impact the way people view autism and grief; I have dared to envision a life without Ron.

But after I move the bed back and rearrange the pillows, I collapse onto the bed and cry. I have moved into a life without my husband. The knowledge holds both joy and sorrow. When my tears are spent, I get up and look at the room we have shared for 44 years. It is my room now.

Maybe I’ll paint it.

Evening comes. Allen and I eat and play a board game, a new routine in our life of two. We watch an Avengers movie while I knit. We talk easily of Ron, how he cheated at Monopoly and loved Iron Man, how his smile was slightly crooked and he yelled at the television set.  Allen’s acceptance of Ron’s death took time and patience. Ron is not forgotten. I think of the Egyptian proverb: You are not dead as long as someone remembers your name.

We remember.

I have said goodnight to my son; he gives me the rare hug he saves for bedtime and follows me into my room where he plops down on Ron’s side of the bed.

“You moved it back.”

“It was time,” I say and he nods. He grabs a pillow from Ron’s side and holds it to his face.

“It still smells a little like Dad.”

“A little,” I agree. I have washed the pillow and enveloped it in a new case, but sometimes I think I still detect Ron’s lingering scent.

“Can I sleep with it tonight?”

I shrug. “I guess. Something wrong with your pillow?”

“No,” he says. “I just sort of want to be close to Poppa tonight. I thought it would be nice to sleep with his pillow.”

“Alright.”

Happily, he gathers the pillow in his arm and squeezes it, then rises from the bed and walks towards the door.

“Allen,” I say, “you’ve never called Dad ‘Poppa’ before. Why now?

He turns back to me, this man child who only knew an ill father. “Well, Mom,” he says, “Dad has a new life now. He’s not old and sick anymore because God gave him a new body and took him to Heaven.” He grins. “And I thought Dad’s new life deserved a new name.”

An everlasting name.

 

“When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, “Blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.” (Luke 14:15 NIV)

 

I nudge my son and whisper, “What do you think?” He looks around at the wooden pews, the stained glass windows, and the wooden cross up at the altar. 

“I like it,” he says. “It’s calm here. I can think.”

I give a sigh of relief. God had led me to a church where my needs as a recent widow and my son’s needs as an adult on the autism spectrum could be met. Here there are no flashing screens with neon letters, no loud bands on the stage, none of the sensory explosions that trigger Allen’s meltdowns.

Here we can worship.

It is a sorrow to me to realize that in the Jewish customs of the Bible days, Allen would have been excluded from the Temple. The poor, the sick, the maimed, the disabled–including those with neurodiversity–would not be welcome. In “Disabilities in the Bible ”, (Bible Odyssey, 2022), Henning explains the standard of “bodily normativity” and its relationship to religion. The blind and the lame could not enter the Temple (Samuel 5:8) and a woman without children was considered “barren” and likewise excluded (Deuteronomy 23:1). Even King David’s desire to honor the family of King Saul could not under the law give a royal title to Mephibosheth, who was crippled in his feet (2 Samuel 9:3).

As an adult on the autism spectrum, Allen does not easily connect with things he cannot see or feel. While he and his siblings were raised to go to church and Sunday School, Allen attended more out of parental expectation than belief. According to a 2018 study done at Boston University, individuals on the spectrum were 20% less likely to identify with a church or religion. The reasons cited are not just a lack of intellectual understanding of the concept of God, but the social demands of church. Often, religious environments do not accommodate the sensory and learning needs of children and adults with diverse needs. Allen has, in fact, been known to walk out of a service if the sensory overload becomes too much.

In his book, Disability and the Church, Pastor Lamar Hardwick, an adult on the autism spectrum, speaks about the minority community of the disabled, a group anyone can join if they are differently-abled in any way. It is the way the church should seek to greet everyone, says Hardwick, being observant and considerate to those with diverse needs. Some people, Hardwick states, do not need fanfare to welcome them to the church; they just need quiet acceptance.

That’s exactly what my son found on his first visit to the Church of the Atonement in Claymont. Those who offered to shake his hand did not look askance when he simply said “Hello” or nodded, disliking physical touch. No one commented that his hair was uncombed or that he was wearing his favorite sweatpants. No one ever has. And in that quiet acceptance, Allen has been able to grow both socially and spiritually. He serves as a greeter at services, does clean-up on the hospitality committee, and has joined the Young Adult Group. He’s even started returning handshakes.

We’ve been at Atonement a little more than a year now. Allen and I have both found a home here. He has now included Pastor Amy as one of the few people he will hug. One day, I asked him why she had joined the select group.

He thought a moment, cocked his head to one side, and said, “Well, Pastor Amy’s sort of like you. She understands me.”

Isn’t that what we all need?

Can you imagine silent corporate worship? No music, no hymns, no sermon? For ten years, I taught at a Quaker school and attended weekly Meeting for Worship with middle school students who couldn’t stay still in their classroom seats, but managed to sit in silence for 45 minutes. The silence is what the Quakers call, “expectant waiting,” holding the possibility that the “still small voice of God” might prompt one of them to speak out loud.

The Great Commission given to the Disciples in Mark 16:15 did not require waiting, but action. Jesus told His followers in no uncertain terms that they were “ to go out into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation” (NIV). It was a tall order for uneducated fishermen! Jesus told them the miracles they would do in His name: cast out demons, speak in tongues, and heal the sick. The Book of Mark tells us the Lord was with the Disciples as they wandered and preached. Wow! What fervor they showed! The Acts of the Apostles speaks  of the many people they brought to salvation.

What happened to that passion for spreading the Gospel? Philemon 6 tells us to be active in sharing our faith, but how many of us actually DO IT?

In the 1500’s. Sister Teresa of Avila, a Spanish nun, penned these words:

Christ has no body but yours.

He has no hands, no feet on earth but yours.

Yours are the eyes through which He looks compassion on the world.

Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good.

Yours are the hands through which He blessed all the world. 

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are His body. 

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

The poem should give you pause. WE are the body of Christ in the world. WE are here to do His work. WE are ALL called to the Great Commission. Telling others about your faith can be frightening.

But also fulfilling. Luke 6:38 says, “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, wil be poured into your lap” (NIV).

Give, and you will get. Give more, and you will get more.

During my years teaching at a Quaker school, meetings for worship were conducted in mostly absolute silence. Once in a while, someone would be led by the Spirit to speak into the silence. We need not wait for a church service or a meeting. We can speak into the void, into the silence, anytime, anywhere.

Because we are not only the feet and hands of Christ, we are His voice.

I met Michael when we were in first grade. He was a shy kid; his parents were deaf and his house quiet. The percussion instruments we used in Music Class made him cry. Throughout our school years, Michael and I were friends and he introduced me to his world as the Child of Deaf Adults (CODA). Along with this introduction to a new culture came the gift of American Sign Language. While I never reached the proficiency level of Michael, I had fun learning a few signs so that he and I could “secretly communicate” across the crowded lunchroom. 

But Michael’s gift of ASL came to good use when my high school English teacher assigned each of us to present a poem, any poem, and “act it out” any way we wanted. Michael and I chose “The Lord’s Prayer” as our poem base and altered it to include the signs that were visual reminders of God’s grace and glory.

 

Our Father

We reach across our hearts, shoulder to shoulder, hands crossed as the fingers stretch out

In Heaven

Our palms on the earth God created, crossing and spreading upward

Hallowed be Thy Name

Joined fingers touching the palm, turning towards the sky, then coming humbly down to the blessed name 

 

Your Kingdom Come

The sash of royalty, shoulder to waist, we spread our hands over the earth, a crooked finger calling to God

Your Will be Done

A hand raised up, ready to receive, scurrying across the realm of God

On Earth

The first Creation, made for us, rotating on its form

As it is in Heaven

Two fingers out, circling up to God

Give us This Day

Crossing over the heart and rising up towards Heaven as the sun rises and sets

Our Daily Bread

We circle the cheek, a gift of manna to slice each day

And Forgive Us Our Sins

Erase our errors and mistakes with rounded motions

As We Forgive Those Who Have Sinned Against Us

We complete the circle of forgiveness, closing it

Save Us From a Time of Trial

The cross is broken, the time has ended, we struggle in sin no longer

Deliver Us From Evil

We reach up and pass it down to share, shoulder to shoulder,  avoiding the sharpness of sin

For the Kingdom

A reverent touch to the forehead, a bow to the sash of the King who rules over the firmament of all the earth

And the Power

Held within Your hands

And the Glory

The spendor above, floating away

Forever

We honor our God, and push towards Eternity

Amen

And close our hands in peace.

 

When the Roman soldier who stood facing Him saw how He died, he exclaimed, “This man truly was the Son of God!” (Mark 15:19, NLT)

 

It was not the Centurion’s first crucifixion. He’d seen many criminals put to death in the cruelest manner imaginable and he’d hardened his heart to it all: the screams, the blood, the curious onlookers. He was there to keep order, that was all. It was easy enough to do. Generally, only a handful of soldiers were needed to maintain peace and follow out the orders of the Emperor. A soldier’s life made one tough, not given to flights of the imagination. But as he watched the events of the day, he couldn’t help but realize that while he may have been at many crucifixions, this one was different.

Very different. 

He’d heard stories of this Galilean, some too incredible to believe, stories of healing and raising of the dead.  There was one the Centurion couldn’t get out of his mind, however, and it had to do with a fellow soldier, one who deeply respected the Jewish people and had even financed the construction of a synagogue (Luke 7:5). This soldier was not as hardened as some in the barracks; he had compassion on his fellow man, even a slave of his who was worth very little in the marketplace. The Centurion at the foot of the cross had heard the story from many sources, how the compassionate slave owner had himself approached the Galilean and asked Him to heal his slave. What’s more, he had demonstrated perfect confidence that Jesus could do so (Matthew 8:5-13). 

The Centurion looked up at the Man on the cross who was close to death. He was not like the murderers and rapists that were usually hung on the hill of Golgotha. He was just the son of a carpenter, a traveling preacher with a gentle voice. Unlike others who had suffered the torments of execution in the Roman style, this Man did not refile His captors, nor curse them. Instead, He spoke kindly to the thieves hanging on either side of Him, and even arranged for one of  His followers, John, to take His mother into his home and care for her (John 19: 25-26). He even forgave His tormentors for the pain they caused Him.

There were other things, too, the Centurion mused. He watched as the Galilean strained against the wooden cross, struggling to breathe. Death by crucifixion was a  long and drawn-out affair. The elderly and sick died within six hours, but a healthy young man might take as long as four days to succumb. Yes this Gailiean, in only three hours, was close to death. There would be no need to break his legs to hasten it.

Suddenly, the Centurion was aware that the Galilean was calling out: “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” He recognized the Hebrew words: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” A learned man, he knew that this Galilean was quoting from Hebrew scriptures. He began to tremble and the sky around him grew dark as night. It stayed dark for three hours, throwing all those on the hill into panic. Astronomers knew that eclipses sometimes happened, but only lasted a few minutes!

And then the condemned man cried out one more time: “It is finished.” (Mark 15:37). The centurion began to tremble and the earth trembled with him.

“Truly,” shouted the soldier, “this man was the Son of God!”

The Power of the Cross had begun. 

Luke 10:27. He answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.”

The other day, my BFF Chris and I were bemoaning the fact that neighborhoods aren’t what they used to be. Used to be, we said,  that neighbors helped each other out. You know, the guy with the snowblower did everyone’s driveway without expecting more than a “Thanks” and you could borrow a long ladder from the fellow down the block to clean out your gutters without having to go on Takl and place a bid.  You knew your neighbors would watch your house while you were  on vacation and send a kid over to collect your mail. And if someone in your family was sick or in the hospital, your neighbors would provide you with casseroles and homemade brownies. 

As an older widow woman with an autistic son, I could sure use some neighbors like that.

But my conversation with Chris got me thinking. What happened to the day of the friendly and helpful neighbor? Linda Poon (2015) writing for the website CityLab, reports that a full third of Americans do not know the names of their neighbors. Yet only five decades ago–you know, those prehistoric days when the Flintstones and the Rubbles were spending every waking moment together–people interacted with their neighbors at least twice a week. It’s true our hectic schedules–what Mac Dunkelman (The Vanishing Neighbor, 2014) calls “limited social capital”– allow us less time for this sort of camaraderie, but is there more to it than that? And, more importantly, can we change it?

The Story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37 is often told in Sunday Schools; we want our children to applaud the acts of the stranger in stopping to provide succor to the man beaten and left for dead. We tell the kiddos that the Samaritans were pretty much despised by the Jewish people without going into detail. To get an idea of how far the loathing went, think Severus Snape in the Harry Potter books. How ironic, then, that the Samaritan–like Snape who was trying to protect Harry all along–turns out to be the hero.

But if that’s all we see–the grumpy old Mr. Wilson coming to rescue Dennis Mitchell–we’re missing the point. According to Marilyn Salmon, a Professor of New Testament Studies at the United Theological Seminary, we need to look at the story from the perspective of the robbed and beaten man, lying broken on the side of the road. He didn’t care who offered him help. Priest, Levite, Samaritan. Heck, even Severus Snape would do.

And rather than casting ourselves in the role of the hero, let’s realize that we ARE broken people, in desperate need of a hero to save us. And that hero is–ta da!–Jesus the Christ, who serves as an example of the most neighborly of neighbors. 

Remember the Samaritan left the injured man at the Inn and gave the Innkeeper two silver coins as a down payment on the man’s care? While experts are a bit hazy on the exact amount, the two silver coins would have bought at least two weeks room and board! Getting involved is costly. Just look at the price that Jesus paid. So if we can put ourselves in the place of the wounded and beaten stranger, we realize that we need to look not at the “otherness” like race, religion, and culture of those around us but the humanness. We’re all broken. Every single one. 

It is a young lawyer who asks Jesus, “What must I do to receive eternal life?” The irony here is that the fellow already knows the answer. But Jesus recites Deuteronomy 6:5, the “great commandment”, not to embarrass the man but to make a point or two: the way in which we walk with God and connect with others in our lives cannot be separated.

So instead of complaining about the good old days and wishing someone with a ladder would just show up and offer to clean out my gutters, I have decided to take a cue from Jesus and be as neighborly as possible, and that means being open to what their needs might be. When the lady next door told me it was hot in her house because she couldn’t carry her room air conditioner up from the basement, I grabbed my tall son and we headed over with a screwdriver. It wasn’t two pieces of silver but it was what broken people could do.

It’s what I would want someone to do for me.