My best friend died on December 10, 2005. I don’t know how else to start this post. It’s just what it is. Song Su Shin died of lung cancer after fighting for a year and a half. He left behind his beautiful wife Cheryl and two boys, Ryan and Isaac. I’m still not sure what to do with this.
I’ve known Song since the first grade. We grew up together. Found this idea of following Jesus about the same time. Graduated high school the same year. Got married within 4 years of each other. Had our children just months apart. We served in youth ministry together for 6 years. He took over leadership of that when I left to work in Colorado. I find it very difficult to describe how close Song and I were. Neither one of us had a biological brother. We were each other’s brother. We also shared this desire to follow Jesus. To make that real and a living part of our lives. We wanted to make studying Jesus make sense. Not just for the students we worked with but for ourselves.
There are a few things I still struggle with. Some are pretty deep but this one is pretty surface. I didn’t get back in time to say good-bye to Song. I got the call about 5:45 a.m. that Saturday. I got on the first plane I could. I got there by 2 p.m. but Song had left about 11:15 a.m. It still bugs me. We talked all the time, weekly usually. But this time we hadn’t talked in about 10 days. Just got busy. We did have time to share over the year and a half. Time to tell each other “I love you”. But we never said good-bye. We never admitted to each other that the end was either near or here. I wished for that. I would have liked to say good-bye to my friend.
The other things that I struggle with are deeper. I’m really having a hard time understanding why. Why Song? Why now? Why wasn’t Song healed? Why did he have to die? I want to blame God to be honest, even though I know that doesn’t make sense. Even though I’ve taught so many others it doesn’t make sense. But why Song, God? I hurt. I miss him. I want him back. I want to pick up the phone again and call him, I can’t. I want to be able to complain to him, laugh, tease, pray… but nothing. He’s gone. I want to know what it’s like to meet Jesus. I want to know what it feels like to be complete. There are so many things I want...
Or do I believe what I’ve been selling (so to speak)? Do I believe? And the only answer I can come to is, Yes! A resounding, Yes! I have nothing else to hold on to. God makes the most sense. I believe that as a student of Jesus, Song is with Him. I believe that because Song followed Jesus, accepted what he offered – he’s with Jesus. I believe. I believe.
I still miss my friend. Sometimes I’m just pissed he got through all this before me. He knows the ending.
To paraphrase The Choir…
Now I feel the gravel under my feet
I suppose you’re walking down golden streets
Everybody always forgave you, a child of mystery
And I remember you were merciful to me
Hey Song, we remember you, yea, we laugh when we think of you Song.
Hey Song, we remember you, yea, we cry when we think of you Song.
Hey Song, we remember you , yea we love you, anyway
Give Jesus a kiss for us.
Hey Song, Flap your wings, flap your wings.
About Me
- Jeff
- I try to follow Jesus. I love my wife and kids. I love bands called The Choir, The Violet Burning, David Crowder Band. I love the Chicago Fire. Not necessarily always in that order...
Family
Tradition Honor Passion
2 comments:
Hi Jeff,
I've never lost anyone as close to me as Song was to you, so I don't pretend to know everything you are feeling, but your post made me think of something I read earlier tonight. It is from Eugene Peterson's "Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places" and is related to Communion (see my recent post on my blog for more on that). He goes through each of the verbs used when Jesus broke bread with his disciples, and during his discussion of 'broke' he says this:
"Because of this 'broken' it is impossible to understand our participation in salvation as a life of untroubled serenity, a life apart from suffering, a life protected from disruption, a charmed life, a life exempt from pain and humiliation and rejection. This 'broken' banishes even a hint that salvation might be a program of self-help. We discover that in Jesus - the body broken, the blood poured out - and then we discover it in ourselves."
You and I have a promise of a better place, but we still walk in a broken land. Things are not 'right' here and God knows that. Song is with Jesus now and can see the fulfillment of God's promises. The rest of us must wait. You and Song's family are feeling the pain of his departure. God knows the pain that you and they are feeling, and He doesn't want it any more than you do just like he never wanted this world to be broken as it is. But as you saw Song's 'departure', God saw his 'arrival', and the same will be true for all of us who have called Jesus our Savior.
I hope this helps in some little way (and I certainly hope it was in no way out of line).
Grace, my friend.
My thoughts about saying goodbye...I have a wonderful friend. I came by him by a kind of default of sorts. When I started dating and later married my husband, it was a package deal. He came with a friend named Jeff. Over the years, after trying to know my place at getting to know my husband's friend, trying not to overstep my boundaries, trying not to interfere with he and his wife's relationship, I have become a friend in my own right. Not completely, not in any way a full relationship that he experienced with my husband, but a friendship just the same. I'm thankful for his love for my husband. I'm thankful for his love for me and my family. For his respect for Song's memory. This is my favorite part...that he has love for my husband in present tense, not just in memory. So often we believe that because someone has died, our relationship with them is in memory only. I refuse that. Don't we believe that heaven is present? Don't we believe that heaven is current and that we may converse with the ruler of this place we call heaven? So, I choose to believe that my relationship with my husband will continue, just on a different level. A level that God can and does know our thoughts and feelings and that He is our link and love.
For this, both Song and I didn't belive in real goodbyes. Why goodbye? If we are just stepping onto a different plane of the universe, and only for a time at that, why goodbye? When we leave this world and as followers in Christ we are born in heaven, why the need for goodbye? If Christ is our center, our relationships do not end here, but continue on with Christ as our link and love.
Jeff, I hope that you know Song didn't need to say goodbye to you. Goodbye isn't what he thought was important. Here, now. That is what is important. Relationship. That is what is important. You kept not just a friendship, but a purposeful relationship with him for most of his life. That is what matters, what is important. Not only to Song, not only to me, but also to God. He doesn't care who shows up for the funeral as much as he cares who shows up for the life! I say this only to encourage you...I hope you find it that way.
I can't believe that I can be glad for any part of Song's death. But this amazing miracle from God is that I can actually say something I'm glad for. I am glad that I can now see God for the caregiver he wants to be in our lives. I never would have had that as fully as I do if I didn't have Song for a time and if I hadn't lost him as well. Song was an amazing husband and father. Not that he didn't have his faults, we all do. God uses the image of a bride and the bridegroom to give us an example of how our relationship should be with the father. As limited as our humanly minds can be, I was able to get a glimpse of that kind of relationship with Song. People use the analogy at times that we need to be 'Jesus' to the world, 'that the world may see' a difference because of Christ and want Him for their own. Well, as sacrilegious as you might find either statement, that was Song to me. Song was Jesus to me. A real, touchable, example of Jesus to me - at least as close as I will get until I am able to touch Jesus for myself. I knew my husband. What is most sad these days for me is that he knew me too. I didn't have to explain much, didn't have justify my feelings, he just knew me. Our talks late at night were rarely arguments, but just discussions - thinking things out to each other. Isn't that what God wants of us? He wants our talks late at night (or anytime) to be discussions - thinking things out to each other. I'm glad that I can link the two relationships I have together. I'm glad that even though I have so much more to learn about Christ, because of Song's death, I have a glimpse of a new and right relationship with him.
Post a Comment