'My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?' pt. 2 by April Swiger [Holy Week Vigil 2022]
Jesus gave us a litany of last words, known as the Seven Last Words of Christ. The deathbed words of the Suffering Servant provide a framework for Holy Week. Each day between now and Resurrection Sunday, seven friends will share their own stories to help us retrieve lament and to keep vigil with Jesus. Their stories have helped form my understanding of cruciform suffering and I believe they could also encourage you too.
Each short story will be paired with an image, a Scripture passage, and a prayer. This year I’ve curated a series of contemporary icons from Ukrainian iconographers. As we hold space for each other’s stories, we take shelter under the outstretched arms of Christ for every story of suffering around the world. In order to lean toward the suffering in Ukraine, one of our storytellers is giving us the opportunity to send help to two organizations on the ground in Ukraine and neighboring friendly countries, and to receive a special thank you gift from Michelle Van Loon in return.
Would you read April’s story with an open heart for any words Christ might be speaking to you?
Black House with Thorn Wreath, Danylo Movchan (b. 1979, Lviv, Ukraine) - Source
“From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’”
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? pt. 2
by April Swiger
There is a picture of me sitting in a rocking chair with a thoughtful look on my face. I'm at my bridal shower and one of my bridesmaids is holding up a white board behind my head with the phrase ‘4 or 5’ written on it. We were playing the how-well-does-she-know-her-future-groom game and I had just been asked how many children Adam and I wanted to have. This one was easy - “At least four, a mix of biological and adopted”.
I wish I could hold the sweet face of my 27-year-old self and prepare her for what the next twelve years would hold.
***
Fast forward three years and Adam and I were deep into family planning. Pregnancy hadn't happened yet (but we weren't worried). We had recently moved to my home state of Connecticut and began to explore the possibility of foster care and adoption.
In 2014, we welcomed our son Jayda into our home. He was two and a half years old, and we had four hours notice before a couple case workers dropped him off at our home. In an instant, our family had grown from two to three. We also became White parents to a Black boy - an immense privilege and responsibility.
After a year of uncertainty about Jayda's case, it became clear that we would soon become his adoptive family - even though it would take another full year to make it official. It was around that same time that we decided to open our family to the possibility of another child joining us. Within days of praying about who might come to us next, we got a call from our case worker about Isaiah.
Isaiah was only a few weeks old. He was currently in the NICU, and needed a safe home to come to in a couple weeks. The case worker told us that "there is no way he will be reunified with his mother. We chose you because we know you're open to adopting." We welcomed him into our family without hesitation. It felt like all the pieces were coming together. Jayda would have a sibling, and Adam and I were almost halfway to '4 or 5' children - the desire of our hearts.
Over the next sixteen months we lived in a newborn and toddler fog. Most days I was drowning in regular parenting duties, while sleep deprived, and juggling visits with case workers, various therapists, and birth parents. Life was extremely full as Adam and I loved these boys with everything we had. Even though we don't share a drop of DNA - we were family. I couldn't imagine my life without these two boys in it.
I remember the phone call in early December, 2016. The case worker on the other line informed me that Isaiah's case wasn't as clear-cut as originally predicted, and he would most likely be reunified with his mom. The case was shifting, and we needed to prepare for a very different outcome - an outcome that, at that time, was our worst nightmare.
Isaiah was with us for another six months before we helped transition him to life with his mom. The day he left, and for many months after, it felt like a sort of death. Some days it still does, even though he's very much alive. We were a family for just shy of two years. Isaiah was our son, and he was Jayda's brother. I didn't know how to make sense of the fact that God orchestrated Isaiah's entry into our family with perfect ease. All of the details had come together just as we planned, and all of our prayers were being answered. Why did it seem like we were chosen for this child, and him for us, and then it didn't happen?
The following months and years I felt forgotten and forsaken by God. I was learning how to grieve for the first time. This was the biggest personal loss I had ever experienced, and it was the biggest loss our family had experienced as well. On top of that, about two months before Isaiah left, I was diagnosed with benign uterine fibroids, which may be the reason I had never been able to get pregnant. It felt like God was closing every door to our family growing - something I never expected to be this painful or hard. Jesus's cries from the cross - "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” - mimicked the same cries from my own broken heart. I felt pain. Torment. Abandonment.
As our family learned how to navigate grief, bellies around us continued to swell with life, and children were adopted seemingly with ease. I started to become acutely aware of the obsession in Christian culture with having lots of children (more equals blessed). I began to reckon with the fact that we had one child, and we may only ever have one child. Did that mean God wasn't pleased with us? Was there some sin we weren't aware of that He was punishing us for?
As I continued to grieve, asking God all my hard questions, I began to grow more comfortable with the plan God might have for our family. The question 'What if God is calling us to have a small family?' was something I started to explore. Author Matthew Arbo provided me with a helpful perspective. He said: “For some couples God may provide a child of their own progeny, and for others he may not. But to all those Christian couples who have not conceived, and who may never conceive, please take the following to heart: you are not being punished, you are not comparably less faithful, you are not failures, and your prayers are not somehow less efficacious. You are God’s child. You are a part of his family….If you are without children, please know that God has not forgotten or forsaken you, but has instead, perhaps only for a time, given you a slightly different way of being family and thus of participating in his life and mission” - Walking Through Infertility (page 40-41).
God began to gently move my heart and my mind to see how that slightly different way of being family could apply to the three of us. I can feel like we hit the jackpot with our son (because we did), and also grieve the dreams that will never be realized. Hope began to grow, and I began to find joy again alongside the sadness and loss.
Just over a year ago my physical health hit a breaking point, and my fibroids caused me to be bedridden for weeks. Author Amy Julia Becker said “Our bodies bear witness to the pain in the world.” Grief and loss has had a profound effect on my physical body. I don’t have stretch marks that remind me of babies, but I do have tired eyes, stress weight, and fibroids that grew so large they put my health at risk in some new and scary ways.
A few months later I had surgery that would close the door on ever having biological children. I learned that two things can be true at the same time. I can grieve what never happened, and also celebrate a physical body that (while still failing) has more energy, and less pain than it has had in years. For the first time in almost a decade, I feel comfortable in the physical skin God gave me. That is a reason for joy.
When Jesus cried out in pain from the cross, He still acknowledged that God is His God. This is an important detail that I don't want to miss. I may feel forsaken because Isaiah didn't get to stay with us, or forgotten because I've never experienced pregnancy and childbirth - these things don't mean God has left me. The truth is that he's very near, even when He doesn't change my painful circumstances. He may be moving in ways that, in my grief, I am unable to see. Sometimes lament is all we can do, and that's ok.
***
I think it's important to share that even though we were devastated by the loss of Isaiah in our family, there is also reason to celebrate (although that wasn't something I could do at the time). Isaiah's mom is a woman who I have the privilege of calling 'friend.' We never doubted her love for Isaiah, and that was made clear by every step she took during those two years to move into a healthy place for Isaiah to come home to her. That's the way it's supposed to be - children raised in safe and loving homes by their biological parents. And that's the tension I continue to live in - two things can be true at the same time. I can lament what was lost, and find hope in the places I see God moving. He is "My God" even when I feel forsaken.
April lives with her husband Adam, and son Jayda, in Southbury, CT. She is a writer, virtual assistant, and advocate for human dignity and racial justice. After over fifteen years in vocational ministry, April and her family are enjoying life from the other side, learning how to heal, and hear from God in new ways. You can follow her on Instagram @aprilswiger.
The Fourth Word: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Eli, Eli, lamma sabacthani.)
Read
Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Behold and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow which was brought upon me, which the Lord inflicted on the day of his fierce anger. [Lamentations 1:12]
I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath; he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long. He has made my flesh and my skin waste away, and broken my bones; he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago…. He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes; my soul is bereft of peace, I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, “Gone is my glory, and my expectation from the Lord.” Remember my affliction and my bitterness, the wormwood and the gall! [Lamentations 3:1-6, 16-21]
Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” [Matthew 27:45-46]
Pray
We echo the prayers of Jesus and April: My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?
We give you thanks, Jesus, for bearing the complete abandonment of your God and father so that, even in our darkest days, we are not completely forsaken. Even when darkness feels like our closest friend, when we are sinking down, sinking down, your wondrous love, Jesus, holds open the sliver of light we need to see God.
Help us now as we join April’s prayer: You are "My God" even when I feel forsaken.
We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world. If we have died with him, we shall also live with him; if we endure, we shall also reign with him. We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world. Amen.
Listen
Listen to Last Words - a playlist for our Holy Week Vigil
Give
For your donation of $25 or more, Michelle Van Loon will send you (or the person of your choice - U.S. addresses only) an autographed copy of her new book, Translating Your Past: Finding Meaning in Family Ancestry, Genetic Clues, and Generational Trauma.
Any funds Michelle raises through this initiative will be divided between these two organizations who are both doing important work right this moment on the ground in the region.
If you would like to donate $25 or more and receive a signed copy of Translating Your Past as a thank you, click here to email Michelle with the name and mailing address of the person to whom you’d like her to send the book. In turn, she’ll send you her PayPal and/or Venmo information so you can send her your donation.
Click through the images below for more details.
