I’ve known about Connie for over ten years now but I’ve only really come to know her relatively recently. I seem to be in a minority as seemingly everyone knows Connie. For the longest time, she was the wife of my good friend, Rex, a founding member of our Monday morning men’s small discipleship group. Since both Rex and Connie joined our now-branded Little Band of Believers Friday morning prayer group at Susan’s house, Connie’s place in my mindset has evolved. She is the same person I’ve long heard about but with a richer and fuller presence to me.

If you want to understand Christianity, you really need go no further than to be with Rex and Connie. Because Rex by nature is reserved (albeit with one of the best quick wits and impish smiles of anyone I know!), it is easier to write about Connie, so I will. I cannot call Connie reserved.

I bring them (and her) up because to me they represent the fullness of the Gospel … that Good News describing the alternate reality I’ve frequently mentioned. Particularly, what it means to live out on the edge of faith where life can be both terribly daunting, yet full of abundance.

Without question, they have known extreme suffering. I have been around suffering … violence, disease, abuse, heartbreaking loss … and I am close to people who endure suffering. Theirs is the thing of people’s nightmares. Of course, meeting or being with them, you would almost never know it. More on that as we go.

They lost their only child, son Todd, to suicide as a young man 12 years ago. Todd, by all accounts, was a wonderful person who, unfortunately, suffered from mental illness. He was talented, friendly, and committed to improving the world around them. No one who has not lived through it can understand what Rex and Connie endured back then and what they continue to endure.

While I will be off on the specifics, I know the basics about Connie’s disease. She was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis many years ago and it has become progressively worse. Her body, at just-turned 65, is now very frail and she is wheel-chair bound and extremely dependent upon Rex and others for her basic needs. Daily living is obviously immensely challenging and beyond the scope of most everyone’s normal existence.

The two of them do not hide these outward and inward frailties from others. In fact, they founded an organization called Community Alliance for Healthy Minds as a means to raise awareness and support those who suffer mental illness and face the reality of suicide. Up until very recently, they also served as music ministers at the local church where we meet on Monday mornings.

On the flip side, it would be difficult to imagine a more radiant face than Connie’s. Her smile should be pictured next to a caption that reads, “Full of Delight.” She laughs with spontaneous ease and her eyes dance. Her gaze picks out everyone in the room and one instantly knows that we matter to her. Assuming she reads this, she will probably be embarrassed and insanely quick to point out her many flaws (imperceptible to the rest of us).

When Connie sings (her disease has somewhat diminished her vocal capacity but we should all be so fortunate to sing like she does!), it is from the deepest places in her heart and with the utmost conviction. When she prays aloud or picks a verse from scripture out of her mind, it is with that same conviction. There is nothing perfunctory about what she brings to the table.

While we all are very well aware of the challenges Rex and Connie have faced and continue to face (Rex has a whole passel of his own physical challenges, only magnifying the difficulties of being an around the clock caregiver), we were unused to hearing about Connie’s most recent battle. You see, this was and is a battle of the spirit. This angel of a woman who demonstrates such a deep knowledge and association with God has admitted the presence of dark swings. There is a crack in the edifice of faith. And, it’s in this crack where we delve more deeply into the mystery and wonder of that faith.

Biblically, the outward cry out that announces suffering is often termed a lamentation. In Judeo-Christian language, these lamentations express grief and loss and are frequently directed towards God, not infrequently in anger. These are people who believe but can’t manage that belief at the moment. The lamentations can rise from deep within and burst out with anywhere from simmering to terrible force.

Connie very recently went through such a spell after falling repeatedly, hurting herself even more, and having to continue to come to grips with the state of her disease and body. As we discussed this, she sent me a song or psalm she wrote some years ago, in the format of the psalmists who wrote thousands of years ago. With her permission, I include it here.

A Prayer For Falling (Psalm of Lament)

O Lord, my strength, my Sustaining Arm that rests beneath me at all times.

I have seen Your faithfulness as You have strengthened my weak knees and kept me standing upright in Your presence.

But I have also experienced Your silence as disease has scraped me raw and left my legs flailing in space as my balance weakens and wavers.

 

As I fall over and over again, my heart and soul cry out to You. I breathe Your name but my voice echoes back in a silent void.

Where are Your everlasting arms—the arms that once held me fast and secure, safe and unharmed?

My body is bruised and marked, wounded by Your painful absence.

I weep, confused and frightened. Have I grieved You with some arrogance?

Have I walked proudly and am getting the discipline I deserve?

Where is Your mercy when I stumble? Have You forgotten the way I take?

Do You even see me, laid out on the pavement?

 

I hear the Spirit of God, whispering tenderly through my groanings—

“I see you, stumbling one. I, too, am broken by the fall, the fall of all mankind.

I understand the swelling blows; My head was disfigured by the crown of thorns I wore.

I’ve been knocked down again and again, curses accompanying each blow.

I carried a weighty cross and stumbled up the hill to my own death.

My feet were drained lifeless by two nails.

I fell and fell; I was bruised and marked.

My Father turned a deaf ear; I knew the crucible of His silence for one eternal moment.

 

I was broken to lift you up.

I did all this so that the ground beneath your feet would be stable and secure;

So you would step on the heights with hind’s feet;

So you would walk with feet firmly planted on the Rock.

I stumbled so you could stand.”

 

O God, You know the path I take.

When You have tried me, I will rise up.

I will stand as an Oak of Righteousness,

The planting of the Lord for the display of Your splendor.

AMEN.

You see, this piece I write is not really about Connie. It is about life in what we call the Kingdom of God. I freely admit that many people, without the faith I describe, live with dignity through the most trying of circumstances. But, honestly, the radiance in the midst of suffering, displayed by people like Connie and Susan, is nearly mind-blowing. And, the honesty on full display … of the battle that rages between supernatural joy and physical and emotional pain that may define many a day … is a quality of life that I believe is extremely uncommon.

Of course, Connie and Susan (and the two or three other friends that come quickly to mind) will say that this is what walking with God is like. He is the air they breathe and they delight when it freely flows through their bodies and gasp when it appears to be less attainable. For those of us who may live lives with fewer extremes but who do at least have connection with these kinds of realities, their examples and testimonies are beautiful gifts.

One cannot help but respond with the greatest gift of all. Love.