TJ Hirst

Try-It With-Me Tuesday, an interactive weekly time and place to foster connections that challenge and encourage the process to become a well-rounded person.

I believe in life after death. In the last year I researched many of our ancestors’ lives and the close connection to our family history confirms my belief even more. What I believe happens to us after death is dramatically different from the fictional story by Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven. Yet, I appreciated a fresh look at this topic that we rarely discuss for fear of offending one another with our personal beliefs.

Following Eddie through his death is like wandering beside him through his search for understanding. His death is not the cliffhanger but the impetus for his journey. The story is his process of coming to terms with his life, his relationships, his choices.

In addition to moving Eddie forward through the steps of heaven, Mr. Albom uses flashbacks to his birthdays in life to inform the reader of Eddie’s history. These flashbacks, like most flashbacks as a literary tool, are difficult to comprehend and fit together in a reader’s mind. However, they establish the circumstances better than a chronological story would and keep the immediacy focused on Eddie’s life after death rather than those moments themselves.

Eddie meets five people who have also died and they assist him in his journey to learn about his life. Each person crossed Eddie’s path—some he knew, others he didn’t—and changed his life. Now in heaven, these five people meet with him and “illuminate” his life as the first person explains to him.

One of the main concepts of this book is that in life we do not know the impact of our lives, for good or for bad, on other people. In heaven Eddie has the chance, with the aid of these five people, to learn about his relationships with his family, seek the peace he desires, look past himself to forgiveness, and discover redemption.

The story does not identify God or His purposes in heaven or in our lives. Rather, the author focuses on the five individuals to bring Eddie through a process. This prompts a curious question for me. If I were in Eddie’s story, “Who would my five people be?”‘

I believe it might be some of those people in my life who have played an important, but less verbal role—like my mother or my oldest daughter. It would certainly include several strangers and an acquaintance or two.

So, I ask you, which five people would you meet?

By having Eddie meet five people in heaven the story is more universal for all faiths. Still, I lead my life with faith in God, assured that he is there and lives even though I cannot see him and do not have tangible evidence of him. Faith makes possible the restoration of relationships through forgiveness and redemption here in this life.

So, I would maybe change my question from which five people would I meet once I died, to whom should I meet now?

Did you read this book with me or have you read it before? What did you think? Leave a comment below or go to my contact page and send me a link to a post you have written about it and I will publish it.

Galatians 5:22-23

My Daily Question: Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us today?

I try too hard. Once, in my enthusiasm—others might call it zeal—to pursue a goal, someone said about my efforts, “Don’t shove it down their throats.” What followed was a pattern of resistance to any changes I suggested, and I took it personally.

Now, I have a new responsibility with new people. Again, I’m interested by what I can learn and give and excited to be involved with new people. But in a short time, I sensed and then saw that some are not so excited about the change.

I couldn’t help but think, “Am I repeating a pattern? What is wrong with my approach?”

And sensitive as I am, I took it to heart. I thought I’d toughened myself against the hurt, but it still stings. When my emotions grew, I stewed over how to resolve the problem head-on, cataloging in my mind all the things that “should” happen. My problem-solving turned to fretting, instead of inspiration. Humbled, I prayed to know where to direct my efforts and still move forward.

The answer: I needed to set aside this immediate challenge and allow another leader to work towards its solution. While I still felt like I had something valuable to add and cared about the outcome, I trusted the answer to shift my focus to different individuals.

I contacted them, and as we talked, I recognized their strengths and considered those. I approached my leader with a suggestion of how to use them for an upcoming assignment. She agreed, and I prepared.

In the course of doing so, I discovered that we were putting in place a new environment in which it would be possible for the other issue to be resolved from a different angle. That approach would have remained unknown to me without prayerful tempering of my will and refocusing of my energy.

My friend is in crisis. The anxiety of the situation permeates her life. As I help her carry the burden, it touches mine as well. But in these days of stress, I remember many faith-filled days we’ve shared. We’ve sat on her couch and read scripture together. We’ve talked on the phone and uplifted each other. I’ve taught her, and she’s taught me.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, as I said unto my disciples, where two or three are gathered together in my name, as touching one thing, behold, there will I be in the midst of them—even so am I in the midst of you.

Doctrine and Covenants Section 6:32

So I help her remember these times that felt like this. And watching her persevere, I know such gatherings in His name became her reservoir of faith that she stored unknowingly before this storm.

But even so, her crises does not cease—nor the resulting apprehension and fear. The words I offer sound shallow because they cannot pry away the pain. How grateful I was when my eyes traveled down the page and I could share these promises from the Lord:

Therefore, fear not, little flock; do good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock, they cannot prevail. . . Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.

Doctrine and Covenants Section 6: 34, 36

While I have tried to give words of support or strength, the words I say almost don’t even matter; its my ear she wants and someone to steer her to the Lord’s words.

My daughter and I just finished reading The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, which is the June Book Selection for the Bodacious Bloggity Book Club at Marathon Bird. Today EH and I each share our impressions for the discussion.

Every step in life opens into a future of uncertainty. Some of the experiences brighten us with pleasure, others hurl horrific happenings toward us and some seem to have no consequence beyond that day. The future of Corrie ten Boom’s world, like all of ours, was unknown. Yet, in her youth and early adulthood the daily faith of her family prepared her to meet the destructive forces of World War II when they reached her country and her own family with compassion and courage.

One of my favorite examples is of her wise father’s response to Corrie’s questions about sex. They were riding the train. He set his heavy bag in front of her and asked her to carry it off the train. When she said she couldn’t, he taught her this parallel truth. He said,

It would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load. It’s the same way, Corrie, with knowledge. Some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you are older and stronger you can bear it. For now you must trust me to carry it for you.

Corrie’s father is not only giving an appropriate answer to his child but teaching her a pattern of faith. He is saying, “trust me with your unknown questions and fears,” just as she later applies that pattern to faith in God during her loneliest and most disheartening moments.

Now that my own daughter is “older and stronger” to bear some of the weight of these historical events, I invited her to share this book club discussion with me. She said:

The Hiding Place, the story of Corrie ten Boom, is a remarkable one. Through her many struggles of hiding Jews in her family home, she learns from her sister how to have faith in God. After being sent to Ravensbruck and being shown where they were to sleep, a smelly, straw-covered platform covered in fleas, occupied by seven other women, almost the first thing they did was pray. Not in sorrow, asking to get out of their situation, but thanks. Thanks for everything, including the fleas.

As Corrie remarked to her sister, “Betsie, there’s no way even God can make me grateful for a flea.”

Her reply was profound. “‘Give thanks in all circumstances,’” she quoted. “It doesn’t say, ‘in pleasant circumstances.’ Fleas are part of this place where God has put us.” When, during their daily Bible studies with the other women in the barracks, they realize that their area is rarely patrolled, Betsie finds out that it is because of all the fleas that the guards avoid the place.

Other miracles abound as Corrie’s faith grows. The vitamin oil that she snuck in for her sister continued to produce oil, even after Betsie had passed it around to so many others. When they received vitamins from a friend who worked in the hospital in the camp, the oil stopped coming out.

I read the story of Anne Frank in school, and even though I knew it had actually happened, it didn’t seem as real to me. Then I read this book, and it seemed real. It took me a little while to figure out why. Her faith, so similar to my own, allowed me to compare my life to Corrie’s.

I learned from Corrie’s story, like my daughter, by comparing it to my own life. Despite the crimes committed against her, her sister and many others, she continued to identify and strive to correct her personal weaknesses like selfishness. Ironically, her tragic circumstances of the concentration camp magnified her understanding of the biblical account of the apostle Paul’s own “thorn in the flesh.” Through that comparison she learned this truth:

The real sin I had been committing was not that of inching toward the center of the platoon because I was cold. The real sin lay in thinking that any power to help and transform came from me. Of course it was not my wholeness, but Christ’s that made the difference.

Corrie’s faith prepared her. Her adversity transformed her. That purifying process took place not in an idyllic setting but one of the most cruel. Most of our lives are not idyllic nor horrid but the reality of them presses upon us the same opportunities to meet them with faith to live and love.