A year and a half ago I woke up on a Sunday morning and literally couldn’t speak. I’m a preacher. This was a problem. After my hurried trip to the hospital, doctors initially labeled it a “T.I.A.” It stands for Transient Ischemic Attack, which is the sophisticated way of saying, “mini-stroke.” I had never heard the term. While I felt fine in every other respect, it was as if my dentist had injected an excessive amount of Novocain directly into my tongue.
Finding myself speechless when I was expected to bring a message was truly unsettling. But I was perversely grateful to at least have had a medical excuse this time. Much more unsettling has been those times I stepped behind a pulpit or podium only to have words fail me. Unfortunately, this experience usually converges with those occasions when people are most attentive and eager to hear what the preacher has to offer. They are the times of crisis, catastrophe or deep confusion. What can a preacher say? Sometimes there are no words.
Meghan’s funeral service was one of those occasions. My words rang hollow. I was speechless. Meghan was only 12 years old when she died. Her life was wrapped in mystery. She had been born without a heartbeat and without breath. It seemed she wasn’t intended to live. Her parents and the medical team fought for her. With persistent, determined and dedicated intervention, with monitors, medications and machines, they gave her a heartbeat. She was infused with the breath of life.
The doctors said Meghan would only live 24 hours. For three days in a row they said it. Then they said it was time to turn off the respirator. They said Meghan wouldn’t live long once this was done. They said that on the rare chance she did live, her life would never be normal. Her potential would be limited. Her movement would be minimal. Her mental functioning would be indeterminate. She would need a permanent feeding tube. She would have trouble hearing and trouble seeing. She wouldn’t speak.
I’ve been with families when faced with this terrorizing choice. I’ve wondered what to say. Do you voice the unspeakable? “Let her go.” Or do you commit them to a life of providing endless, intense care and resources with the words, “Help her live.” The family decided to remove the respirator.
But Meghan disregarded the doctors’ words. She ignored the voices around her and instead made her own choice. When the respirator was turned off, while everyone around her held their breath, Meghan caught hers. Her exceptional life began.
Hers was a life of doctors’ appointments and specialist appointments. It was a life of consultations with health equipment technicians, health care workers and home care helpers. It was a life of being fed, being changed, of someone else dressing her and leading her where she did not want to go. Her life was a mystery that had people reflexively asking the question, “Why? Why was Meghan alive?” There she was, in a wheelchair her entire life, mostly blind, mostly deaf, unable to eat, never mind feed herself. She missed out on all the things children love like playing, skipping, singing, arts and crafts. She never spoke. She never said a word. Then at 12 years old, she died. Why? What could I say?
In most respects my life is a study in contrast to Meghan’s life. I’m a six-foot-tall, white, North American, male pastor with a postgraduate education. I supposedly possess many pieces of advantage that can be used to assemble a purposeful life. I have tried. I have built my life around encouraging people to follow Jesus. I have given my life to declaring God’s unconditional love. I have been endlessly trying to teach and call out self-sacrificing love from God’s people. I talk about it all the time. Sometimes I wonder if that’s all I ever talk about.
Yet for all my supposed advantages, Meghan in her short life totally surpassed my ability to evoke Jesus’ life of sacrificial love in others. She accomplished it without saying a word. Meghan taught everyone around her that true love isn’t earned but a gift to be received.
Meghan was not loved because she was clever, or fast on her feet, or charming. Meghan was loved simply because she was Meghan. Through her weakness and vulnerability, she brought forth unconditional love from those around her. Her parents, her brother, her sister, her extended family, her neighbours and friends the staff and students at her schools, her doctors and nurses, they all gave practical, abiding and sacrificial love, as a gift, expecting nothing from her in return. I don’t know that I’ve ever elicited that kind of response. Words fail me.
Without the advantage of height, or ability, without a post-secondary education, without the authority of any role or title, without speaking a word, Meghan did a powerful and exceptional job of shaping people into the likeness of Christ. I can only pray that I might be half as effective as she was.
When speechless, I have echoed the apostle Paul’s prayer, asking for my weakness to be removed. I have wanted to be powerful for God. Paul said he pleaded three times for God to take his weakness from him. God answered him with the words, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). What Paul didn’t anticipate was that, like Christ, weakness and vulnerability make one effective for God’s purposes.
Meghan didn’t need words. In her weakness and vulnerability, Meghan was a lighthouse, drawing on the power of God’s grace and love in those around her. Meghan’s life said all that needed to be said without saying a word.
I would do well to listen.
