Lisa was seated on the edge of her bed, back hunched with Parkinson’s, blue eyes teary and looking at me questioningly. Her voice was weak and she was struggling to communicate, but her eyes were sharp.
“I’m Kara, the chaplain with hospice,” I introduced myself, trying to understand what she needed. When I couldn’t, she reached for her phone, fingers hitting all the wrong keys. She gave up. I could tell something was wrong, but I was at a loss to understand what. Eventually, the house manager for the small assisted living walked in. Lisa had called for help that morning; she couldn’t change her clothes on her own. It was another frustrating step on a journey of losing muscle control.
Once Lisa was dressed and settled in her recliner, she looked more relaxed and was able to speak more clearly. Quietly, she answered my questions and told me about herself. She was 72, widowed, with two children and two grandchildren. At the mention of them Lisa burst into tears as, I learned, she often did when speaking about people she loved. Her grandsons were two and four. She was facing the fact that she wouldn’t see them grow up.
“Are you angry with God?”
I remember the question being hard to ask. To say it out loud, to even consider the possibility, can sound like an accusation, because often we are taught it isn’t allowed. Anger at God is always wrong, we think. I didn’t want her to feel I was accusing her, but I was curious if this was part of the story.
She was quiet for a moment. “I feel distant from him…,” she said. Another pause. “I guess I’ve been upset I won’t get to be with my grandsons.” Another flood of tears.
I could tell it was a relief to say it (try it; you’ll probably agree). It is always a relief to speak our heresies to another person—those things we’re not supposed to be thinking or feeling.
Lisa and I began to meet once a week. We’d discuss what she’d been thinking about, how she was coping with the disease. There were often tears. She was afraid her grandchildren wouldn’t remember her. We would pray scripture together using lectio divina, a very old practice with a Latin name meaning, “divine reading.”
I would read a passage of scripture out loud while she listened. Then, I’d read it again and invite her to listen for a word or phrase that stood out to her. We’d take a few moments to hold that phrase with God, then I’d read it a final time, inviting her to listen for an invitation. What might God want her to know, do, be?
Lisa loved praying this way and often had beautiful conversations with God from what she heard in scripture. A few weeks in, Lisa’s daughter Ellen began to join us. A busy working mom, she parted the waters of her schedule to make space for our meetings each week. The first time I led Ellen and Lisa through lectio divina, we read a portion of Psalm 18:
“He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
he drew me out of deep waters.
He rescued me from my powerful enemy,
from my foes, who were too strong for me.
They confronted me in the day of my disaster,
but the Lord was my support.
He brought me out into a spacious place;
he rescued me because he delighted in me.”
I asked them what phrase had stood out, and both shared the one that had resounded in my own ears:
“Spacious place.”
I remember looking around at them, our chairs pulled close like a little model of the Trinity, knowing the Holy Spirit was with us. “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am with them,” promised Jesus. And so it was.
I love lectio divina because I find that God always speaks to people through scripture. Often, I don’t know what to say, but when I open the Bible with another person, the Holy Spirit speaks right into their hearts.
This day, that “spacious place” became an image of what God had for Lisa as she moved into an unknown future—a vision of rest and peace, of there being plenty of room for her.
As Lisa’s disease progressed, she got weaker, looked more hunched, ate more slowly, lost the ability to use her phone. Her voice became faint. She would ask me occasionally what dying would be like.
Strangely, I’ve never done what I’m walking people through. It is odd and sometimes intimidating to have someone look into my eyes and ask what it will be like. I’m seen as the expert—the one with connections in heaven. I tell them the truth: I don’t know. I haven’t done it. They are the experts, the only ones looking at death head-on, trying to make sense of it, cope with it, grapple with their fears. I try to listen, imagine what they are feeling, pay attention to what they are saying and not saying, allow them to talk through it. But ultimately, I have not stood facing death, watching it draw near.
So, when Lisa asked, “What will dying be like?” I once again had to say, “I don’t know.”
But then, “Do you want to ask Jesus?” She closed her eyes and sat for a long while. I prayed for her and watched her, wondElleng what was going on.
When she opened her eyes, she described being in a peaceful forest. She was sitting against a tree. Jesus was there. He told her he would be with her all the way through it.
She said it made her feel better, knowing he would be there.
When her voice had become barely a whisper, Lisa asked again, “What will it be like?” The unknown is sometimes the scariest thing about dying—just not knowing what to expect. Again, I had to answer, “I don’t know… Do you want to ask Jesus?” She did. This time, as before, there were no concrete answers—what would happen, who she would see, what it would feel like. Just words:
“I will be with you through it all.”
I could see the peace on her face. She wouldn’t be dying alone; there was an expert to lead her across the river, like Moses at the Red Sea, like Harriet Tubman leading out the newly free—one who knew the way. One who had done it before.
Eventually, Lisa lost the ability to walk. She’d been clinging to her walker, hunched over but able to get to the bathroom, or eat a meal in the dining room with other residents. Now, she no longer had the strength to stand and needed a wheelchair to move around. Another loss.
One day, I led Lisa through an imaginative prayer I’d come across. At the end, there was an invitation to picture Jesus giving her a gift: How was it wrapped? What did the package feel like? What was inside?
Lisa sat with her eyes closed. Eventually, she opened them and looked at me questioningly. “It’s a pair of black shoes,” she said, curiosity in her eyes.
“What does that mean to you?” I asked. I certainly had no idea.
“I don’t know,” she replied.
“Would you like to sit with Jesus for a moment and ask him about it?” This was always the best question for Lisa. She had a closeness with Jesus and nearly always heard or saw something from him in these moments.
She again closed her eyes for a long time.
Then, “We were walking in the forest together.”
They were walking shoes, given to a woman with Parkinson’s who was going to walk again in the next life, with Jesus, just a few months later.
After Lisa died, as Ellen and I sat and talked about her life, Ellen shared that she pictures her mom now in that quiet, peaceful forest, the green light streaming through the trees.
Lisa, it was an honor walking with you as you were walking with Jesus, as you still are.
If you’d like to try praying scripture via lectio divina, check out “The Slow Word Movement,” podcast by Summer Joy Gross. Lisa loved to listen to these between our meetings. Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Find more from Summer here: https://www.athirstforgod.com/the-presence-project