Peter Witkowski Pain & Suffering

From Grief to Hope and a Lifting Fog

As the soft rain struck the ground atop my late wife’s grave with the relaxing rhythm of summer tranquility, a rather clarifying if not somewhat cruel thought snuck into the recesses of my brain. April’s closest earthly friends were now those grimy little worms wiggling about that damp Virginia soil. We who once were one in the most glorious and wonderful of ways were now forever separated by time and space until such measurements are no more. She under me, and I under her.

But instead of allowing the dark clouds hovering above her grave to stain my face afresh with tears, I just gazed out at the cemetery and sighed…a deep abiding sigh. I miss her deeply. But at that moment, I could not conjure up the wailing that had defined the first 6+ weeks that followed April’s death.

During those first 40 days or so, I cried and cried profusely. Everything from the pictures in my office to the pillows on my bed shattered the composure of my soul. I hated family meals. Instead of being able to share my day with my purplely person, I had to banish my thoughts to the confusing realm of inner dialogue while my kids bantered about the finer points of steam locomotives and the proper way to eat ketchup. Grief even accompanied the sweet joys of ministry. Those moments indirectly highlighted the wretched truth that my spiritual helper and greatest source of earthly wisdom was gone. As Lacey told me when she presented me with a new portrait complete with tears, “Daddy, you cry a lot.”

Being the planner and muddled visionary that I am, I attempted to estimate the ebb and flow of my grief almost from the moment April died. Though I now know such an enterprise is doomed to fail, I could not help myself. I predicted then that the dark misty cloud of sorrow that swept over my soul the morning after April’s death would remain over my heart at least into the early months of 2023.  

But shortly after the 6-week mark while driving home, that dark wet flog unexpectedly lifted. The hope of God blew afresh into my soul through the ordinary means of Christian fellowship, scripture memory, and prayer. That afternoon, I suddenly and inexplicably felt the goodness of God afresh for the first time in months. As Psalm 42 says, I could, “again praise you. My salvation and my God.” He was no longer a painful mystery to question but a loving Father to trust. On that Tuesday afternoon, I had tasted the goodness of God. That following Wednesday proved to be the first day without tears.  When Thursday arrived, I just sighed.

I do not believe that week represented the end of my grief, but rather the unpredictable changing nature of my sorrow. The external tears of those first weeks have seeped into the depths of my soul and formed a never-ending stream of loss. At times and without warning, it will still rush to the surface of my consciousness. The last few days have been particularly brutal. In years past, I never minded getting older but celebrating my 38th birthday as a single dad with three kids proved to be a vicious reminder of why death is so evil. I have lost a lifetime of goodness. The tears still come. I suspect they will continue to flow until I am reunited with my dear April in heaven which dries up all tears and sorrow. In other words, grief will undoubtedly always be my companion in some form. She cannot be buried. She cannot be escaped this side of heaven.

But, I also learned a few weeks back that grief has no right to banish hope. Rather, the two emotions work in tandem. We see this in the grand scheme of the Christian gospel. The grief of sin leads to the joy of faith and holiness. As Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted (Matt 5:4).”

The same proves true for this widower. When I come across our wedding photos, I cannot help but stop and appreciate the goodness of God represented in those mementos of love, joy, and happiness. October 20, 2012 was a good, good day. The loss of that goodness rightfully leads to tears. But, I must not remain forever in the sadness of that grief. No amount of tears spilled (not even a years’ worth) nor of time traversed can heal the heart. But hope founded upon the character of our God who promises to bottle our tears can.

When resting with Him, I am reminded that the blessings of time past do not represent the limits of God’s love but rather his great ability to bless me afresh. His love for me did not end when April died. In other words, the grief of today increasingly fills me with hope for tomorrow. I have come to understand that April’s story which so gloriously shaped my story points to the reality that Jesus is still working in my life for my good today. As the Psalmist reminds us, “By day the Lord commands he steadfast love and at night his song is with me (Ps 42:8).” In other words, the sorrows for what has been increasingly give me hope for what could be – albeit in a new and varied form. Grief must accompany my soul but hope also proves to be an equally close friend. She too will never be buried. And so…as I walk into tomorrow…I embrace the sorrow of today trusting that its end will be joy. May God be merciful.

Peter Witkowski Memos, Pain & Suffering

5 Weeks Later: A Postscript to April’s Death

The last few weeks have been hard…unbelievably hard. During the last weeks of her life, I told April many times that my heart would forever contain a purple stain. Having lost a son four hours after his premature birth and having buried my own father not too long ago, I thought I knew something of the scars that wound the human heart. But when I awoke on June 26 to a world that no longer contained my purpley person, I experienced a penetrating and soul crushing grief unlike anything I had ever encountered. My heart had not been wounded. It had been severed…wrecked at its core.

The night before, April had been my everything…the source of my earthly happiness and the marrow that infused hope into my future. Even as she slipped into an unconscious state on the evening of the 24th, our marriage was real. Memories of vows, first dances, and nights alone rightly informed my vision for tomorrow. Hope, however precarious, still remained. Relationship existed. Her soft inhale and exhales and the touch of her warm hand brought comfort to my heart. But the moment that she turned cold, I was alone. What had been the most fundamental and essential essence of my life was became but a memory – a treasure chest of joys and wisdom to be stewarded well- but still a lifeless memory. Life to death. Hope to tragedy. Whole to less than whole.

Though my grief is profound, I know that all that has transpired is no tragedy for my dear bride. She has exchanged her frail body for one of eternal peace and her flawed husband for the perfect love of Christ. Though I know her desperate wish and prayer was to stay with me and our children and though I affirm that her love for us still resides within her heavenly heart- albeit a perfected love, I cannot wish her back to this troubled planet. I cannot ask her to exchange Christ’s headship for mine. She has achieved her end. She is glorifying God and perfectly enjoying him forever. Her joy is complete.

And yet, mine remains hidden by hidden a glass covered by shadows.  

In the hours after her death, an unsettling silence settled over our home. As I wandered are room alone, I could not help but fill that forsaken space with the simply cry of, “Where are you?” Though I asked the question often, no reply came. All those pictures that she valued so much just coldly stared backed at my tear-stained face. I miss her. Ten years ago when I stumbled into April at Southern Seminary, I found in her something far greater than any ruby or diamond. Though she has gained all, I have lost the companionship, the wisdom, and the affections of this woman worth more than gold.

These last weeks, I have found a new affection for Paul’s sentiment in Philippians 1:23 which says,

“My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better (Phil 1:23).”

I long for Christ…for the joys that my dear April knows well. Life is hard. Oh, what faith it takes to say, “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away, blessed be the Lord.”

The Path Forward

Though no prophet or son of a prophet, I suspect my life is not close to its end. At the very least, I know God has not called me to prepare for death as much as he has called me to prepare for and to minister to my children and to my church family. As Paul notes in the next verse in Philippians 1, “But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.” Thus, I will cherish the days ahead. I will navigate the dark alley ways of doubt and the swamps of sorrows, knowing that my savior will hold me fast. As the Psalmist says,

“When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their trouble. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit (Ps 34:18).”

Though hard and emotionally complex, the path forward possesses a spiritual simplicity that even the youngest of believers can easily recognize. God asks nothing special of me during this season. He calls me to trust his wise, loving, and all-powerful character. Then, he commands me to live out the gospel within my local church context, attending to the things that he has called me to such as preaching and loving my children well. In short, I am to love the Lord my God with all my heart soul, mind, and strength and my neighbor as myself.

When April and I lost our first-born son, we found simple obedience to be the surest pathway to hope. Even as she and I grappled with her cancer over the last three years, our souls were forever and always reinvigorated by ministry. The very act of caring for our neighbor in the midst of our sorrows often brought us the divine perspective and hope that our hearts needed to make sense of the very pain that only hours earlier had tempted us to withdraw from the community of faith. If I will but obey Christ in the minutia of life as I suffer, hope will come. As Paul wrote,

“Suffering produces character which leads to the hope of Christ that never disappoints (Rom. 5:2-5).”

With this in mind, I have resumed working on my dissertation, returned to the church office, and reascended the pulpit. The pathway to restoration is beautifully simple.

As I traverse the many ups and downs of this path of grief over the next months, I know there will be many more tears…some anticipated – such as the first full week of school – and some not so much. Life will continue to hurt for a time. And I fully suspect some sorrows will not fully healed until the other side of heaven. But I also know there will be new joys…new relationships…new and increasing evidences of grace in my life, in the lives of my children, and in my church family. Christ promises of abundant life have not grown stale. The God who knew April would live but 39 years and ordained that I would have the blessed joy of being her husband (of being one with her) for 9.5 of those years still loves me. The valley of Bacca will once again flow with the streams of hope. By God’s mercy, I will go from strength to strength (Psalm 84:5-7). The clouds will lift. Joy will come in the morning, and I will praise him again.

I greatly appreciate your prayers for me and my family as we continue walk through this valley.  

May God be merciful!  

Peter Witkowski Pain & Suffering

Mark’s Witkowski’s Funeral Sermon

Grief proves to be a powerful emotion. It can heal divisions, mend marriages, and inspire us to accomplish goals that previously seemed out of reach. Conversely, it can shatter relationships, uproot lives, and remove the good inhibitions that prevent us from spending our life savings on an outlandish trip to Australia or on that life-size Star Trek Enterprise model.

Our Lord and savior knew the emotion as well. Luke who wrote the gospel which bears his name famously reported that “Jesus wept” when he came to the home of his then dead friend Lazarus (11:35). The verse before Luke 11:35, reveals that Jesus intensely felt the sorrow of death. The text says Jesus, “was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled (Lk 11:34).” Even though many of us like Jesus place our hope in the resurrection from the dead, it is not wrong to grieve Mark’s death. The Puritan writer John Flavell helpfully noted,

It is much more becoming a Christian to ingeniously open his troubles than to sullenly smother them…Griefs are eased by groans and heart-pressures by utterance.

In other words, we do not need to fear the tears on our face or the sorrows that invariably slip into our minds as we start this new season of our lives. We should both celebrate Mark’s life and grieve his death. And we should do those things in a productive and constructive manner. Were my dad here today, I think this would be his concern for us. He would want us to grieve well. He would not want his memory to burden his dear wife, children, grandchildren, extended family, or friends with excessive sorrow.

Over these last few years, my dad championed Ephesians 5:15-21 as his life verses. He wanted to live with great care for he knew the days were evil. Since death remains the most profound manifestation of evil, I believe these verses that meant so much to my dear father in life will prove meaningful to us as we grieve his death. I hope Paul’s letter will inspire us to walk carefully and to study the Scriptures. It is these two principles that best explain who Mark was. And it is these two principles that helps us grieve well.

To Walk Carefully

To grieve well, we must walk carefully.

If ever there was a planner, it was Mark Witkowski. Whether it was the purchasing of little tikes cars for track meets, the calling of U.S. senators to book his next economic speaker’s forum, or the mailing of valentine’s day cards accompanied by a five-dollar bill to all his grandkids, Mark lived life with great care and intentionality. He thrived on organizing basketball tournaments, coaching our baseball teams, and coordinating anniversary trips. If he wasn’t doing something big, he was busy selecting the right flowers for his various gardens, creating a tree house for his grandkids, or decorating the house for my mom. He never stopped planning. Even on his death bed, he constantly talked of redoing the floors in his house and of renting a store front so that he could open an extension campus of my Northern Virginia church in the St. Louis area.

He did all that he did with others in mind. He walked carefully so that his employers would thrive, so that his kids would have opportunities to succeed, and so that Joetta would be well cared for. Even as he approached death, he talked of getting his childhood train set to Little Thomas and Luke. He wanted the childhood toy that had brough him such joy to bless another generation of Witkowskis. He longed to make the best use of his days for he had experienced evil.

Though Mark saw the best in others, he remained ever aware of the days were evil. He had been wrongfully terminated from more than one job. He had developed and beaten brain cancer. And, he had walked through all the ups and downs of his kids’ and grandkids’ lives. He understood the realities of sin nature. In Ephesians 4:17-18, Paul said that the Gentiles, those who do not follow Jesus, walk “in the futility of their minds…darkened in their understanding.” Dad knew the world was broken and needed to be fixed.

The Faith of Mark Witkowski

Dad also knew that he was broken. As a young man and in his earlier years as my father, he had been dead in his trespasses and sin. He made mistakes. Some tense moments punctuated those early years of his life. But they never defined him because he found Jesus, the life and light of men. What Paul writes in Ephesians 2:4-5 proved true of my dad: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loves us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved.”

Mark understood that he was made in the image of his creator and that that image had been corrupted by his father Adam and by his willful desire to do evil. He also grasped that he could not work his way to heaven through baptism or being kind. More importantly, he knew he did not have to trust in good works because Jesus, being both fully God and fully man, had lived the perfect life that God had called all of us to live. Mark knew that Jesus had freely offered to exchange his life for ours. He had died on the cross and rose again so that we could live with him forever. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” By the God’s grace, Mark had understood and responded to the gospel with repentance and faith through grace.

It was the grace of Jesus that inspired my dad to see the good in all of us. It was the grace of Jesus that motivated him to plan. It was the grace of Jesus the proved to be the source of his wisdom. It made him the man we knew, loved, and now miss. It was this grace that he hoped all his children, grandchildren, family, and friends would encounter through faith. It is this grace friends that I offer to you today. Repent and believe.

Were Mark to tell us anything today, he would tell us to place our hope in Jesus and to keep our grief in check. He would allow us to be sad for a few days. Then, he would encourage us to graciously do the next thing. He would want us to love our mom, our families, and those around us. He would encourage us to walk carefully.

Then as Paul, he would encourage us to avoid foolishness. To put it positively, we should carefully study the word of God.

Carefully Study the Word

My father loved to watch old T.V. shows and movies with my mom including the Bob Newhart show. In an episode of that show, Newhart plays a psychologist who blurts out “Stop it” as he become annoyed with his patient. The patient starts again, and Newhart says, “I know but am telling you all you have to do is stop it. Two words, stop it. No, you are not hearing me, stop it.” In Ephesians 5:17, Paul is telling us to “Stop it.” The idolatry, the greed, the selfishness, the anger, the pride, the sexual immorality, the drunkenness, he says, “stop it.”  To grieve well, we must avoid foolishness. “Stop it,” as Newhart says.

Thankfully, Paul does not end where Newhart ends. He goes forward to positive instruction, telling us that the Word of God can cure foolishness. “Understand what the will of the Lord is.” As Psalm 119:9 reminds us, “How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word.” God’s Word cures foolishness.

It reminds us that death is the result of sin and that Jesus is the antidote to death. The Bible also reveals that baby Jesus is coming again. Jesus will one day install a new and perfect world free of sorrow. In other words, we grieve the loss of relationship brought about by death, but we grieve in hope for we know a day is coming when as the prophet Isaiah says,

No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days (65:20).

The will of the Lord proved to be grandpa Wit’s source of wisdom. Though my dad was committed to getting us to every baseball, basketball, and dance recital he could, he never let anything interfere with church. Even when on vacation, all seven of us would stumble into some unsuspecting church. Even as he grew weak, he continued to share how the Psalms he read shaped his understanding of life. He ever and always wanted to know the will of God.

If we understand God’s will for our lives, alcohol and all other addictive behaviors will lose their appeal. We will have no need of liquid courage for we will have spiritual courage. If we grieve with the spirit, our sorrow will lead not to depression but to singing, thanksgiving, and service.

Singing

Mark Witkowski loved to sing. At his insistence, us guys would all sing “We Three Kings” with him every December. As our family grew, he would have us all sing the “Twelve days of Christmas.” He took great joy in belting out “5 Golden rings.” When the calendar finally flipped to Christmas, he insisted that the family sing all the Christmas carols on the song sheet he had printed off before moving on to presents. When he tucked us in at night, he would make up songs that ended with him saying, we were his bundles of joy. He would sing loudly at church and delighted in hearing my mom sing.  There was always a melody in his heart when he made us his sausage casserole, worked in the yard, or washed mom’s Christmas dishes. Even when he was down, music proved to be one of his favorite remedies. When the Cubs lost in the playoffs, he would lock himself in his office and play Christmas carols. Were he hear today, I think he would us to channel our grief into the singing of Psalms, hymns, and spiritual song.

Thankfulness

Secondly, my dad was always thankful. There were many moments at the dinner table when the five of us would sit there staring at those whole wheat noodles wondering if this was the moment of revolution. My dad would then sit down at the head of the table and begin to go on and on about how he loved my mom’s spaghetti or latest casserole. Once he gave thanks, we knew the gig was up and begrudging settled into to eat our food.

 According to my dad, my mom was the best cook, teacher, mother, wife, actor, and musician in all the world. Though such verbose language many times proves disingenuous, Dad genuinely believed my mom had hung the moon. Even as he muscles gave way, he talked of getting well because he wanted to care for the woman of his dreams. Though mom was the primary focus of his gratitude, he remained thankful for everyone he meets. He delighted in my sister’s ballet recitals, Thomas’s commissioning service, James’s tap-dance performance, and Andrew’s baseball career. We knew he was thankful for all of us for he seized every opportunity to pray for us, publicly voicing his gratitude to God for us.

Service

Lastly, Mark was submissive. He put the needs of others first. If a homeless guy needed a ride, lunch, or even a job my dad would provide it for him. He regularly took time out his schedule to tutor his college students and to disciple his kids. He always and forever put the needs of the family before his own. His first earthly passion was my mom. He worked hard often holding down two jobs to ensure she had a nice home and could fulfill her passion of teaching and discipling her children. If any of us encountered a hardship, we knew we could ask dad for help, and he would be there. No matter how foolish we had been our dad was already ready to forgive us and to help us afresh. He loved serving others. May our remembrance of Mark end in us singing, giving thanks, and serving others.

Final Thoughts

Mark Witkowski was a special man for he lived out the truths in Ephesians 5:17-21. He walked carefully and understood the Scriptures. May we honor his memory by doing the same. May we grieve well intentionally doing the next thing and studying afresh the word of God. My way faithful honor the legacy of Mark Witkowski.