Eulogy For My Twin, Jennifer Jane
“Who is man that you Oh Lord should be mindful of him?”
In response to this, Jennifer wrote:
“That small question interrupts the consideration of the story of my life. The narrative appears rather ordinary at first. It is short on especially entertaining accounts and the usual gripping high points that make for the best story telling.
But when I look closer, as I would a scene in a child’s diorama, I see that the entire landscape has been made wholly dimensional by the artistry of God Himself. It is beautiful and I cannot look away so quickly. The moments, the characters, the background, all speak of a Designer and Redeemer who has never told a dull tale.”
On Sunday night, I sat in a dark hospital room and held the hand of my beloved twin sister who passed from this life into eternity just moments before. What I had feared most in my life had come to pass and as I sat quietly, I poured out my heart to God with thanksgiving for her precious life - the life that God had given to Jennifer but also to me -to share in so intimately these past 34 years. Most everyone enters the world alone and must move out into realm of relationship. We entered life together and were forced to learn separateness and the meaning of individuality. I would hope to find words that might describe such connection, such oneness and intimacy if able….but perhaps words fail me. Each soul longs to be heard and for their heart feelings to be understood and what naturally might take tiresome effort to cultivate, seemed a relationship granted to us from birth.
She wrote to me:
“Sweet Sister,
Do you know how every sun shining moment of windy kisses on my face reminds me that I am blessed to love you and be loved by you? Bliss is the full heart of a sister so full of beauty that you share in it and never run out.
The love and happiness you and I find in each other is the smallest fraction of the love and happiness we find in God. He really “sees us” and His love is more comforting that any moment we’ve shared snuggled in under a bright pink afghan.”
I know many of you here today need no introduction to Jennifer’s life story as you may already feel very much a part of that story as she lived it with you and by you – pursuing honesty in genuine relationship. She sought to see the beauty in others not only as they were – but what they could be and earnestly desired to move them beyond themselves to a deeper desire, a better hope. Her sensitivity to the thoughts and feelings of others moved her to consider what the need of the moment was or how someone might feel special or encouraged. There was an inclusiveness that didn’t want anyone to feel left out. Her gifts of mercy and compassion drove her to the outsider, the “less lovely”, suffering people, loved ones of suffering people, sinful people and godly people. But the compassion was real – not condescending or motivated by guilt. She genuinely loved people. True, there are many who care about the feelings of others; but it is a very rare person who fights for what is truly going on inside of a person and yet still be there to hold them and hug them when it is found. And although unwilling to defend herself, she was uncompromisingly bold in defending those who had been wronged or bullied. She was always willing to forgive others of their offenses toward her and to believe the best of them and delighted in who they were.
There was enjoyment of life in God’s creation because Jennifer was worshipful. His little gifts to us were good in and of themselves and spoke of the One who made them. An obese dog with gnarled hair, a one-eyed cat, an unintelligent fluff ball were perpetually loved and learned from. They spoke of God’s creativity, faithfulness, and delight in what He made. She lived believing it was not only okay but good to delight and find pleasure, as God does, in what he has made.
One morning, sick in bed, Jennifer wrote to me:
“Jessica - It is a bird paradise here! I am being spoiled by their visits. This morning I have been sitting up in bed and behold, fatty little bird after fatty little bird has come by to show off their fluffs! Yellow bellied ones, white poofy ones, black and white finches. Their little brown eyes all a wonder at the world and the abundant provision of the rose bushes which are in bloom. I keep saying “fly to the food, fly to the feeder!” but they are well content with God’s feeding there on the roses. He has given them more than they need and so they aren’t even looking beyond the branches and leaves to my feeder. Soaking in the sunshine with their beaks to the breeze – they have it all! And so do we!”
She looked at those birds and saw God’s provision. God provided for those weak creatures, and He’d take care of her also. Not just the wing-flittering creatures; but He would take care of the broken and hurting ones too.
Paradoxically, Jennifer was both morose and optimistic - especially low and fantastically hopeful. She refused to see the world in a shallow or superficial manner; and had a way of facing the reality of life head on – the reality of living in a fallen and broken world.
Her journal entry reads:
“Lord, you promise you are doing good to us just as in those beginning days of creation. Why did we, your children, throw it all away? You were protecting us from evil – from seeing and knowing and feeling the weight and care of it! You wanted to keep our eyes closed as a father covers his son’s eyes from a horrible scene that will forever impact his days. We have been that child who wrestled away from you to look,- to want to see,- to delve into, and now, we cannot look away and cannot erase the visual horror of it!
…You have shown me insight that I feel I never wanted to see. You are showing me the truth about myself and I don’t really know if I even want to face it. Ignorance and deceit are the easy way to carry on one’s existence. Such meditation on truth is rare. This world is not my home. These people in it are not my family. This is not the end – this is not all that there is – this isn’t even life…”
Jennifer was not easily satisfied and nothing was every “perfect”. In a way, dissatisfaction is the word that comes to mind. She resisted easy answers, excuses, half-hearted effort, or quitting. Like a child at the beach catching a tiny glimpse of something shiny buried under the sand, she dug excitedly and thoroughly into the heart and thoughts - the soul of others. Her hope was that people would not minimize their failures, but also that they wouldn’t minimize how they had been failed. It wasn’t about pulling a weed off the top and just cleaning up; but getting down to where the thing was growing and getting at its lifeblood. She had a thirst for truth but not truth for its own sake but truth pursued for the good of the soul. She made us self-aware – a compassionate questioner asking why we did things - said things – or thought about things, the way that we did. And she held the same sorts of inquiries for herself.
I’m sure you’ve heard the well known phrase: “Everybody is a saint on the day of their funeral” but when looking at Jennifer’s life – her persevering faith and grounded hope, what I equally find there is weakness and frailty. She struggled and wavered and fought for faith in her own life. She never saw herself as someone who had it together. She didn’t see the world in terms of “us” or “them” but rather as walking the path alongside each other like the image on your program – it is titled “the stragglers”. Her recognition of her own infirmities moved her forward and beyond herself and He carried her for “power is perfected in weakness.”
She wrote:
“Dear Lord, My soul is restless and my heart is anxious. I know that it is because of your prodding that I cannot even stop and rest for a minute from the weariness I feel…but you promised that you would never let me fall from your grip no matter the times in my life I have fought to get away. I am glad for this when I take into account what really matters…
Lord, you have brought me to the testing place and it is clear and I know what it is you are requiring of me – it is my very life –it is everything familiar and safe and to give it up is to die…and I feel that. I have never felt so weak and the task is too difficult. Trusting You is so hard and yet “my way” is not what I desire either. Being my own God is comforting for a time. I feel that within my own power I do not have enough will or strength…Lord, help me to be broken and surrender my life into your caring hands. Allow me to love you with my whole heart – a heart that bends to the sway of your call. Give me the strength to pursue what you are working in me. I want to run away from facing the choice between heaven and here. Will my eyes look up? I pray I might be willing.”
In December of 2005, Jennifer was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer – a serious and very rare form of advanced breast cancer. She underwent the most aggressive cancer treatment: severe chemotherapy, a left radical mastectomy, and weeks of radiation. Nine months later, Jennifer was told there was "no evidence of disease".
About a year later from her initial diagnosis but months out of treatment, Jennifer was diagnosed with a new (and second) cancer in her right breast. This cancer was different but also an aggressive stage III cancer. She had another radical mastectomy, with more months of chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Again, it was determined there was "no evidence of disease."
After almost a year of good test results and stable cancer markers, in August 2008, those results began to change. This past holiday season, various scans revealed that Jennifer's cancer had returned to various parts of her body, including her bones and her liver, and she became seriously ill.
Jennifer lived with hope, but not because of a refusal to see her condition as it really was. She did not comfort herself by fooling herself or glossing over the seriousness of her illness. In fact, the opposite - I believe that it was because she was willing to face and accept the reality of it all that she held so tightly to an authentic hope. Her confidence was not in the notion that God would heal her body from cancer – although she fully believed He was capable. Her hope was not in healing but in knowing that Christ would sustain her and make her able to patiently endure the hardships and suffering without being overcome by it.
In a recent card Jennifer encouraged me with what gave her hope:
“Jessica, I want to remind you of my love for you and that I am praying for you as you go through your own suffering as a result of me being sick. I hope you know that God is encouraging my heart daily and is enabling me to live with a security and belief that I am going to be handling this with His strength. I know some days are really hard for you and I wish I could be with you to hold you and assure you that all will be well. I hope instead, that you are truly experiencing you Father in a deeper way and that in the midst of your world falling apart you are coming to trust the One who ‘holds all things together’. We are not left to fear in the darkness or feel alone – God is holding both our hands and leading us into the thing we didn’t think we could ever face; but HE is with us. –Even now, we have Him by our side to help us face it all. I love you and stay full of faith. –Jennifer”
During her initial diagnosis, while sitting in a room and hearing the matter-of-fact prognosis that she would die in less than 5 years, Jennifer told us that this thought immediately passed through her mind: “But my sins are forgiven.” That Christmas, she drew me a card – a picture of a bow-wrapped present sitting under a tree and on the package was written “cancer”. Her diagnosis was devastating to her, yes - and yet she also saw it as a gift.
Jennifer’s deepest longing was fulfilled as the old hymn lyrics read: “I’ll say when the death dew lies cold on my brow, if ever I loved thee my Jesus ‘tis now.”
The Christ she confessed was not merely one who saved her soul but was with her, the Christ who was for us, our Christ, my God, my Father, for me. -there with you in the battle, holding you in His arms. Her heavenly perspective grew and she acknowledged often that the good things here were just a foretaste of something far better waiting. God fulfilled her deepest desire but it came with a cost that we do not willfully welcome.
Quite a few years ago, Jennifer wrote:
“Everybody has a devastation they can call their own. God in His providence takes our safe life and turns it on its kilter for the purpose of our sanctification. The details of my individual pain brought me face to face with a God who was messing with my private and controlled world. I had no resources in my toolbox that would fix it, patch it, or paint over it. It was at this crisis when life faded to gray, and when the echoes of my confusion were all lost in surreal emptiness that God chose to prove His character and display his compassion. He rescued me from my unbelief and gave me faith that would not perish under the crushing blows of a fallen order. My security and significance are found purely in surrender to God, for He alone is able to give “the surety of things not seen.”
Jennifer’s cancer was not only for her and for Peter, but was also a gift to those of you who have been impacted by her. With the advent of cancer, she became unable to have children, but God has enabled her to impact hundreds of kids and many others - through her testimony and her life.
When Jennifer and I were younger, my father recalls Jennifer feeling sad because she felt she didn’t have the particular gifts that I had. He told her that God gives differently and some gifts would not be as evident or appreciated until a later time. He told her that one day, she would write a book that would make a difference. Her unique ability to express herself in thoughts and words takes hold of people and compels them to listen, to think. Although not formalized, her journal entries and writings have become her book. Her life is her book.
And Jennifer said it best: “Christ makes up where we fall short and yet moves us onward in our story that it may have the happiest of endings…”
In response to this, Jennifer wrote:
“That small question interrupts the consideration of the story of my life. The narrative appears rather ordinary at first. It is short on especially entertaining accounts and the usual gripping high points that make for the best story telling.
But when I look closer, as I would a scene in a child’s diorama, I see that the entire landscape has been made wholly dimensional by the artistry of God Himself. It is beautiful and I cannot look away so quickly. The moments, the characters, the background, all speak of a Designer and Redeemer who has never told a dull tale.”
On Sunday night, I sat in a dark hospital room and held the hand of my beloved twin sister who passed from this life into eternity just moments before. What I had feared most in my life had come to pass and as I sat quietly, I poured out my heart to God with thanksgiving for her precious life - the life that God had given to Jennifer but also to me -to share in so intimately these past 34 years. Most everyone enters the world alone and must move out into realm of relationship. We entered life together and were forced to learn separateness and the meaning of individuality. I would hope to find words that might describe such connection, such oneness and intimacy if able….but perhaps words fail me. Each soul longs to be heard and for their heart feelings to be understood and what naturally might take tiresome effort to cultivate, seemed a relationship granted to us from birth.
She wrote to me:
“Sweet Sister,
Do you know how every sun shining moment of windy kisses on my face reminds me that I am blessed to love you and be loved by you? Bliss is the full heart of a sister so full of beauty that you share in it and never run out.
The love and happiness you and I find in each other is the smallest fraction of the love and happiness we find in God. He really “sees us” and His love is more comforting that any moment we’ve shared snuggled in under a bright pink afghan.”
I know many of you here today need no introduction to Jennifer’s life story as you may already feel very much a part of that story as she lived it with you and by you – pursuing honesty in genuine relationship. She sought to see the beauty in others not only as they were – but what they could be and earnestly desired to move them beyond themselves to a deeper desire, a better hope. Her sensitivity to the thoughts and feelings of others moved her to consider what the need of the moment was or how someone might feel special or encouraged. There was an inclusiveness that didn’t want anyone to feel left out. Her gifts of mercy and compassion drove her to the outsider, the “less lovely”, suffering people, loved ones of suffering people, sinful people and godly people. But the compassion was real – not condescending or motivated by guilt. She genuinely loved people. True, there are many who care about the feelings of others; but it is a very rare person who fights for what is truly going on inside of a person and yet still be there to hold them and hug them when it is found. And although unwilling to defend herself, she was uncompromisingly bold in defending those who had been wronged or bullied. She was always willing to forgive others of their offenses toward her and to believe the best of them and delighted in who they were.
There was enjoyment of life in God’s creation because Jennifer was worshipful. His little gifts to us were good in and of themselves and spoke of the One who made them. An obese dog with gnarled hair, a one-eyed cat, an unintelligent fluff ball were perpetually loved and learned from. They spoke of God’s creativity, faithfulness, and delight in what He made. She lived believing it was not only okay but good to delight and find pleasure, as God does, in what he has made.
One morning, sick in bed, Jennifer wrote to me:
“Jessica - It is a bird paradise here! I am being spoiled by their visits. This morning I have been sitting up in bed and behold, fatty little bird after fatty little bird has come by to show off their fluffs! Yellow bellied ones, white poofy ones, black and white finches. Their little brown eyes all a wonder at the world and the abundant provision of the rose bushes which are in bloom. I keep saying “fly to the food, fly to the feeder!” but they are well content with God’s feeding there on the roses. He has given them more than they need and so they aren’t even looking beyond the branches and leaves to my feeder. Soaking in the sunshine with their beaks to the breeze – they have it all! And so do we!”
She looked at those birds and saw God’s provision. God provided for those weak creatures, and He’d take care of her also. Not just the wing-flittering creatures; but He would take care of the broken and hurting ones too.
Paradoxically, Jennifer was both morose and optimistic - especially low and fantastically hopeful. She refused to see the world in a shallow or superficial manner; and had a way of facing the reality of life head on – the reality of living in a fallen and broken world.
Her journal entry reads:
“Lord, you promise you are doing good to us just as in those beginning days of creation. Why did we, your children, throw it all away? You were protecting us from evil – from seeing and knowing and feeling the weight and care of it! You wanted to keep our eyes closed as a father covers his son’s eyes from a horrible scene that will forever impact his days. We have been that child who wrestled away from you to look,- to want to see,- to delve into, and now, we cannot look away and cannot erase the visual horror of it!
…You have shown me insight that I feel I never wanted to see. You are showing me the truth about myself and I don’t really know if I even want to face it. Ignorance and deceit are the easy way to carry on one’s existence. Such meditation on truth is rare. This world is not my home. These people in it are not my family. This is not the end – this is not all that there is – this isn’t even life…”
Jennifer was not easily satisfied and nothing was every “perfect”. In a way, dissatisfaction is the word that comes to mind. She resisted easy answers, excuses, half-hearted effort, or quitting. Like a child at the beach catching a tiny glimpse of something shiny buried under the sand, she dug excitedly and thoroughly into the heart and thoughts - the soul of others. Her hope was that people would not minimize their failures, but also that they wouldn’t minimize how they had been failed. It wasn’t about pulling a weed off the top and just cleaning up; but getting down to where the thing was growing and getting at its lifeblood. She had a thirst for truth but not truth for its own sake but truth pursued for the good of the soul. She made us self-aware – a compassionate questioner asking why we did things - said things – or thought about things, the way that we did. And she held the same sorts of inquiries for herself.
I’m sure you’ve heard the well known phrase: “Everybody is a saint on the day of their funeral” but when looking at Jennifer’s life – her persevering faith and grounded hope, what I equally find there is weakness and frailty. She struggled and wavered and fought for faith in her own life. She never saw herself as someone who had it together. She didn’t see the world in terms of “us” or “them” but rather as walking the path alongside each other like the image on your program – it is titled “the stragglers”. Her recognition of her own infirmities moved her forward and beyond herself and He carried her for “power is perfected in weakness.”
She wrote:
“Dear Lord, My soul is restless and my heart is anxious. I know that it is because of your prodding that I cannot even stop and rest for a minute from the weariness I feel…but you promised that you would never let me fall from your grip no matter the times in my life I have fought to get away. I am glad for this when I take into account what really matters…
Lord, you have brought me to the testing place and it is clear and I know what it is you are requiring of me – it is my very life –it is everything familiar and safe and to give it up is to die…and I feel that. I have never felt so weak and the task is too difficult. Trusting You is so hard and yet “my way” is not what I desire either. Being my own God is comforting for a time. I feel that within my own power I do not have enough will or strength…Lord, help me to be broken and surrender my life into your caring hands. Allow me to love you with my whole heart – a heart that bends to the sway of your call. Give me the strength to pursue what you are working in me. I want to run away from facing the choice between heaven and here. Will my eyes look up? I pray I might be willing.”
In December of 2005, Jennifer was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer – a serious and very rare form of advanced breast cancer. She underwent the most aggressive cancer treatment: severe chemotherapy, a left radical mastectomy, and weeks of radiation. Nine months later, Jennifer was told there was "no evidence of disease".
About a year later from her initial diagnosis but months out of treatment, Jennifer was diagnosed with a new (and second) cancer in her right breast. This cancer was different but also an aggressive stage III cancer. She had another radical mastectomy, with more months of chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Again, it was determined there was "no evidence of disease."
After almost a year of good test results and stable cancer markers, in August 2008, those results began to change. This past holiday season, various scans revealed that Jennifer's cancer had returned to various parts of her body, including her bones and her liver, and she became seriously ill.
Jennifer lived with hope, but not because of a refusal to see her condition as it really was. She did not comfort herself by fooling herself or glossing over the seriousness of her illness. In fact, the opposite - I believe that it was because she was willing to face and accept the reality of it all that she held so tightly to an authentic hope. Her confidence was not in the notion that God would heal her body from cancer – although she fully believed He was capable. Her hope was not in healing but in knowing that Christ would sustain her and make her able to patiently endure the hardships and suffering without being overcome by it.
In a recent card Jennifer encouraged me with what gave her hope:
“Jessica, I want to remind you of my love for you and that I am praying for you as you go through your own suffering as a result of me being sick. I hope you know that God is encouraging my heart daily and is enabling me to live with a security and belief that I am going to be handling this with His strength. I know some days are really hard for you and I wish I could be with you to hold you and assure you that all will be well. I hope instead, that you are truly experiencing you Father in a deeper way and that in the midst of your world falling apart you are coming to trust the One who ‘holds all things together’. We are not left to fear in the darkness or feel alone – God is holding both our hands and leading us into the thing we didn’t think we could ever face; but HE is with us. –Even now, we have Him by our side to help us face it all. I love you and stay full of faith. –Jennifer”
During her initial diagnosis, while sitting in a room and hearing the matter-of-fact prognosis that she would die in less than 5 years, Jennifer told us that this thought immediately passed through her mind: “But my sins are forgiven.” That Christmas, she drew me a card – a picture of a bow-wrapped present sitting under a tree and on the package was written “cancer”. Her diagnosis was devastating to her, yes - and yet she also saw it as a gift.
Jennifer’s deepest longing was fulfilled as the old hymn lyrics read: “I’ll say when the death dew lies cold on my brow, if ever I loved thee my Jesus ‘tis now.”
The Christ she confessed was not merely one who saved her soul but was with her, the Christ who was for us, our Christ, my God, my Father, for me. -there with you in the battle, holding you in His arms. Her heavenly perspective grew and she acknowledged often that the good things here were just a foretaste of something far better waiting. God fulfilled her deepest desire but it came with a cost that we do not willfully welcome.
Quite a few years ago, Jennifer wrote:
“Everybody has a devastation they can call their own. God in His providence takes our safe life and turns it on its kilter for the purpose of our sanctification. The details of my individual pain brought me face to face with a God who was messing with my private and controlled world. I had no resources in my toolbox that would fix it, patch it, or paint over it. It was at this crisis when life faded to gray, and when the echoes of my confusion were all lost in surreal emptiness that God chose to prove His character and display his compassion. He rescued me from my unbelief and gave me faith that would not perish under the crushing blows of a fallen order. My security and significance are found purely in surrender to God, for He alone is able to give “the surety of things not seen.”
Jennifer’s cancer was not only for her and for Peter, but was also a gift to those of you who have been impacted by her. With the advent of cancer, she became unable to have children, but God has enabled her to impact hundreds of kids and many others - through her testimony and her life.
When Jennifer and I were younger, my father recalls Jennifer feeling sad because she felt she didn’t have the particular gifts that I had. He told her that God gives differently and some gifts would not be as evident or appreciated until a later time. He told her that one day, she would write a book that would make a difference. Her unique ability to express herself in thoughts and words takes hold of people and compels them to listen, to think. Although not formalized, her journal entries and writings have become her book. Her life is her book.
And Jennifer said it best: “Christ makes up where we fall short and yet moves us onward in our story that it may have the happiest of endings…”
8 comentarios:
Hi Jen,
I enjoyed reading Jennifer's journal entries. I was very blessed by her hope and faith in the Lord. Will her journal be published sometime in the future?
Just powerful Jen! Thanks for sharing. n.
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