The re-shape of things to come: Beth Allen’s journey through grief and illness

‘God uses our willingness even when our motives are mixed.’

Two and a half years ago, my husband died of Covid. He had been frail and virtually housebound for a few years. A month later I was diagnosed with cancer, and began treatment; I had a hysterectomy and chemotherapy.

Before my illness, my outward life was busy and mostly, I hope, productive. My inner life was fairly organised and structured, with regular spiritual reading, Bible reading, and some intercession. I was an active member of my Local Meeting, and also fully occupied with looking after my husband. When I went into hospital, my accustomed outer life ended, and all my inner life fell apart. In the weeks after the operation, I couldn’t do anything at all. Gradually, as the effects of the anaesthetic and surgery wore off, something of a pattern to my days and nights emerged, but my brain was all over the place, I could not concentrate and I was exhausted. I was also grieving, but I shelved a lot of those feelings until I was more able to feel and look at them.

This was a time of childlike dependence, relying on other people for everything, looking at clouds and flowers, sleeping a lot, and being thankful for cards, messages and occasional visits. Meanwhile my body and mind slowly gained strength. I wasn’t brave – I didn’t have the strength to pretend to be, or even to try! In hospital, they said I could give myself daily injections, but I knew I could not, and was thankful for the competent ministry of the district nurses. I knew family and friends were holding me in the Light – sometimes surprising people who I had thought would never consider prayer. It was good to be told of this, and I was grateful. I know some people have felt a sense of warmth when they were aware of being upheld; I never had that, but I did feel the results. When I told my consultant that I believed the prayers were enabling my body to respond well to the medical treatment, she replied ‘Yes, that’s how it works.’

The Bible-reading scheme I was accustomed to was impossible to follow at this stage, and I abandoned it until I felt strong enough to pick it up again. For many months, all I could do to connect with the Divine was to say the familiar words of Psalm 23 to myself as I tried to go to sleep; it was something positive to hang on to. My memory of that year and a half is confused, but I think it was many months later that I started to read a very short passage from the Gospels each morning. I could say Jesus’ pattern prayer, the Our Father, but not much else. I haven’t yet had an opportunity to reflect with others on what words might support them as they reach out of the depths to the sustaining presence. I was not capable of silent reflection or worship of any kind; well-known words were my small supporting ladder upwards.

A lot of mindless TV occupied some of what brain I had. Months later, I felt I had achieved a lot when I was able to read a book. I began to re-read easy, familiar ones, old friends I could revisit without any stress. Another achievement was to do some of a quick crossword. Chemotherapy just wiped me out. Sitting in the garden just looking at everything growing was healing.

My Meeting had been badly hit by Covid and was not able to set up online worship; in any case I couldn’t join anything for some time. After perhaps a year, I was able to join online. I was so thankful for Zoom, and I still haven’t got back to Meeting for Worship in person. My Meeting makes those of us online feel really welcome.

While my husband was ill, he really valued a visitor from his church who brought him communion. In physical illness a physical demonstration of God’s love is so helpful. A local Quaker came to me a couple of times for fifteen minutes of shared worship in the garden, and I really valued her visits.

I became aware of so many people who were also ill or grieving, and as I got stronger I was able to pray for them. This has developed into quite a long list, and a new form of ministry for me. I have recently realised that in bringing their pain, illness and grief into the Light and before God, I was also bringing grief itself, and my own situation. But I don’t think my muddled motives matter. God uses our willingness even when our motives are mixed. I think lovingly of all those I pray for, and send them energy and love and Light – I don’t do it only for my own sake! I shall see how this develops. Alongside this, I feel it’s essential to pray for the NHS and all its staff and systems, alongside the social care systems, and for the political will and money to sort out its problems. I have recently thought that I needed to join with others in doing this, so I have linked up with the Friends Fellowship of Healing, who have online healing sessions as well as some in-person groups. The Fellowship has years of practical experience, knowledge and reflection to draw on. The Gospels tell the story of four companions who brought their sick friend to Jesus; unable to get to the house through the crowd, they lowered him through a hole in the roof. Quakers in the Fellowship have the same loving, imaginative persistence, and work together in their ministry.

My other forms of service have completely disappeared, apart from speaking through Zoom in Meeting, which perhaps I do too much. I’ve had to give up being an elder, and almost all of the other ways of serving the Society of Friends. In the Bible, both Paul and Jeremiah speak of God moulding us as a potter moulds the clay, first into one shape, then into another. The ministry I did have has gone, and another one is taking shape, so I just have to be patient and let myself be re-moulded. This absence of purpose is also a chance to simply rest and be, without feeling I have to run around being useful. A new lesson for me! Recently I came across a sentence from a Jewish writer reflecting on the emptiness of the tabernacle in the wilderness and the empty space between the cherubim on the ark of the covenant. The vacancy is ‘the space we make for the otherness of God – by listening, not speaking; by being, not doing; by allowing ourselves to be acted on rather than acting’. That helps me.

My image of the Divine has also changed. For years I valued Paul Tillich’s understanding of God as ‘the ground of our being’. On the surface of that ground, I could skitter around, running my active life – always busy, organising, thinking ahead. I channelled the earth mother; I cooked and provided for everyone within sight. Now, I find more meaning in the old concept of the Divine Spirit as the ‘first mover’, the active underlying energy which originates and pulses through everything, but which is also somehow personal, relatable. I can relax! I can appreciate what other people do for me; they can do things their way, I can watch, to appreciate the gifts of others, and to be aware of where I can put my limited energy. I’m learning again the discipline of only following my leadings and not going beyond them. In short, I can give up control, and see where God’s energy flows.

Finally, I value the Psalms so much. The psalmists don’t pretend. They are frightened, they doubt, they rage, they question the Spirit. Psalm 88 is the most terrible, ‘You have put me in the depths of the Pit… O Lord, why do you cast me off?’ Most of the desperate psalms finish with some sense of renewal, but in this one there is no word of relief. The one positive element is that the lyricist feels it is worth laying out all their misery before God. Somehow, howling from the depths is not just a hopeless cry. Beyond the clouds of the dark night, we sense that there might be invisible stars of hope and perhaps a sunrise.

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