'Into your hands I commit my spirit' by Sheli Sloterbeek [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 Sheli’s story with an open heart for any words Christ might be speaking to you?
Epitaphios, Arsen Bereza (b. 1989, Lviv, Ukraine) - Source
“It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.
Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!’ And having said this he breathed his last.
Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, ‘Certainly this man was innocent!’ And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts. And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things.”
Into your hands I commit my spirit
by Sheli Sloterbeek
I’ve got a thing for the vulnerable - people, animals - empathy fills and spills out my eyes and through my hands. So it was really no surprise when I brought up the idea of bringing an unaccompanied refugee minor child into our home to my husband. I had walked with other refugee families who had been resettled where I live and through my work with an international relief and development organization I felt I had a pretty good grasp of the overall situation. I had a friend who had already navigated the process, and while it wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns, it seemed to be going okay. So we signed up for the required foster care classes with the local agency facilitating the process.
Every week for months we made our way to the three-hour class. And when the classes were complete we waited on a caseworker. And after a caseworker, we waited for interviews. And after the interviews, we waited for a home inspection. And after the home inspection, we waited for another interview. And FINALLY, we were approved. But it was 2017. And by October of 2017, the president at the time decided that refugees, adults or children, were no longer welcome here in the US.
And so we waited again. We prayed again. Anticipating hearts ready to love fully, but there was no one coming.
Then the call came - a girl who for one reason or another needed a new home. We met and she agreed, and just like that - a family of four. And so we began adjusting to this beautiful black-haired child. She was fiery. It was evident how she had made it this far. Her spirit was strong. My heart was full. We had committed to the long haul with whoever was placed in our family. Visions of future family vacations and walking into adulthood with another child.
But it didn’t last long. About a week later some individuals from the agency and caseworkers came over to check-in. Throughout the conversation it became evident something was not quite right, some threats were made toward the staff and herself and they decided she needed to be placed somewhere she could receive supervision and help for her mental health.
As we sat around the table I began to cry deep, full tears. I cannot begin to imagine her life or her trauma and hearing her hurt pour out in what little broken English she knew, broke my heart.
And within an hour she was gone.
The rest of the story is my story - for it is the only one I know.
I wept for days. And just when the crushing weight felt like it might reside, it overwhelmed again. In the past, I’d operated under the “pick yourself up and move on” method of life. You know the times when you press forward suppressing all the emotion, all the hurt because it’s easier. But as I wept I felt invited by the Spirit to sit with the grief. To allow myself to feel the deep sadness of her brokenness and our unmet expectations. To not push through to happier days, but sit with the why’s.
Why do people groups murder each other? Why do parents have to save their children the only way they know how - by setting them out on a path alone? Why this girl? Why to our family? We had prepared and waited and prayed - and for what? Is she alone now? Why would no one allow us to connect with her?
And so I sat with these questions and with the grief with Jesus. Releasing my own spirit into God’s hands.
And I sat there with grief for months allowing the fullness of the emotions, the sadness, anger, frustration, the questions, the void, the unknowing of her situation, what felt like betrayal from the whole system. I wept like a woman who had her own child taken from her. It was dark with grief, but when I felt like just shoving the heartache, the body ache, away I sat down with God and grief again. I voiced my hurts, my questions, my unanswered longings. Five years later and the tears still are here.
After a few months, I wrote this poem that I wanted to share with you.
Welcome Grief
I saw her coming to my door.
I felt her knock. It was desperate and lengthy.
I had a choice.
I could busy myself with many things “to do”
Or I could let her in and sit with her.
I opened the door
and let her flow into the center of my home.
She was hot and flushed and tears were pouring out of her body.
“Welcome,” I said.
She was surprised I’d opened the door
I hadn’t so many times before.
I asked her to sit.
And I sat with her.
I already knew why she was here
But I let her talk anyway.
Her pain washed over me
Over the center of my home.
And for a while it was overwhelming.
Her pain, both dull and sharp, became my own.
It ran through me, with no escape, no getting up
As I sat with her.
And that was all she needed this time.
A short visit.
But sometimes she comes back
Once, twice, three times a day to sit with me.
Will I welcome her?
I hope so.
When I welcome her I enter deeper into
The center of my home.
Into the hands of Christ, I commit my sad, angry, frustrated, weeping spirit. Welcome grief.
Sheli is a a mom, wife, daughter, sister, friend, spiritual director, retreat leader, and most especially, beloved child of God. She loves watching other people grow into who God has created them to be. Her passion is for the whole person spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically – to be alive and live fully. She enjoys reading, writing & poetry, being outside and giving life to the beautiful imagery that comes up in whatever form that may take. You can find Sheli at her website: www.aslowjourney.com
The Seventh Word: Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.
Read
I called to the Lord, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and thou didst hear my voice. For thou didst cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood was round about me; all thy waves and thy billows passed over me. Then I said, ‘I am cast out from thy presence; how shall I again look upon thy holy temple?’ The waters closed in over me, the deep was round about me; weeds were wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me for ever; yet thou didst bring up my life from the Pit, O Lord my God. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord; and my prayer came to thee, into thy holy temple. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their true loyalty. But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to thee; what I have vowed I will pay. Deliverance belongs to the Lord! [Jonah 2:2-9]
There was darkness over the whole land…while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” [Luke 23:44b-46a]
Pray
Strong Jesus who gave yourself to weakness, as you once entrusted your spirit into the hands of the Father, so we give our lives to you. With Sheli, we commit into your hands every deferred hope and unrealized dream, every unanswered question, and every good thing that ended tragically or too soon. We sit with the mourners around your tomb and welcome any grief that draws our hearts into your own. Thank you that you don’t despise our humanness and we ask in our frailty that your Spirit would minister, counsel, and comfort us in the middle of God’s saving story.
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.
