Dying, yet Alive W/Laura Whaley

"This week we hear from our former director of administration and connection in a recorded video she made about a month before meeting her Lord... after a two year journey with cancer. In it, she reflects on 2 Corinthians 4 and Christian paradox of outwardly wasting away while being internally renewed day by day. Laura takes us through this text as it intersects with her experience of suffering and trust. Her desire was not so much to be a faith hero as much as to encourage us to fix our eyes not only on what is seen, but on what is unseen... for what is seen is temporary, and what is unseen is eternal."

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

What shall we sing unto the grave? Christ, He lives. Christ, He lives. And in a lot of ways, I believe that's what we're doing here together today. We are telling the grave, we are telling our last enemy something. We're saying, even though we die in Christ, we live. You can kill us, and that's not death. On Monday at Laura's funeral, I said there are moments and places that our last enemy, death itself, might be tempted to believe that he has gained ground among us. But I reminded us that even in the darkest place of all, the very bottom of a grave, even that place is not out of God's reach. Because God in Jesus went there, ahead of us, for us, so that we do not have to go to the grave alone. And so, in making the video that we will watch today, Laura was singing that same truth to the grave. She knew that death was likely on the horizon. She didn't know how soon. And yet she was telling the grave to its face, Christ He lives. Christ, He lives. Going back to give some context, early in December, I had finalized the titles and the scriptures of our Lent series. And 2 Corinthians 4 sort of jumped off the page to me as a sermon that I should not preach. Though outwardly we are wasting away, inwardly we are being renewed day by day. And so on one of our drives to church, I asked Laura if she would be willing to give testimony around this passage and not just personal testimony, but to really unpack it for us theologically in light of her own experience. And I told her that day, I said, I am not looking for you to be our can't our token cancer patient. I wanted to be very clear about that with her, and I want to be clear about that with you. My goal was not to sort of mine this hard experience out of Laura's life just for a good sermon illustration. Nor did I want to use her suffering as a manipulative tactic. Like, well, if you won't listen to me about 2 Corinthians 4, I know you'll listen to Laura because she is dying. I told her, I just think God has been preaching this text to us through your life, and I'm wondering if you want to add any words to that sermon that you've already been preaching. And then I said, Well, what if we videoed it to take the pressure off of you know being on the platform? Um at that point, she was already having a few unpredictable health challenges. And so she was, first of all, she said yes. She took a few days to think about it. And she said yes, and she was really relieved by this idea of being able to video it in advance, and you know, if she needed an extra take or two, or if uh she wanted to edit something, she liked that. But I also asked her that because I had the sense that I really wanted something lasting for this church, for her family as well. And then I thought I'm really gonna push my luck now. I said, Well, what if we filmed it in your home? As you know, Laura bought a home and renovated it so beautifully over the last couple of years. And um, Laura's a super private person. So as much as we all feel like we were her best friend or lifelong best friend and knew her really well, she was crazy private. So I was really sort of pushing my luck. Like, what if we bring the camera into your home and film you there? But I really wanted to highlight her in that space, the space that she had renovated so beautifully. Shout out to her brother-in-law Nick, who did the wallpaper with her. Um, and I wanted to highlight this gift of God's goodness that He had given her at the end of her life. Because I remember her asking the question if I don't know my prognosis, should I buy a home and do all that work and invest in that? And God's goodness was all over that beautiful place. And so I have a picture, that's that's the day that we spent together on Monday, February 9. James brought a wagon full of equipment and set up all of his cameras and lights and and microphones, and Laura preached. And we were there almost five hours, and she was not feeling great that day. She'd not been able to sleep very well the whole week leading up to this, and she put a very costly effort into writing the script for what she would say. She did every take at least twice, and there was a wardrobe change in there, and there was a lunch break in there. And by this point, you have to know Laura was moving extremely slowly. Um and so it was with great effort that she did all of this, and and it was slow. It was a slow process. And I shout out to James, I don't know where he's, oh, he's at the back. Shout out to James, because James never rushed the process. As I was watching him interact with Laura, it was really beautiful. He made room for Laura to have the agency over this experience. And if you know Laura, agency was really important to let her do something the way that she wanted to do it. So I'm really grateful for that. But I realized watching her pour out that day the way she did, I realized that was probably one of the last days she could have done this. She had a couple of hospitalizations soon after this. It was probably one of the last days we could have accomplished this project. And she gave it everything, she gave it her all, knowing that God had given her this message that was meant for us, and she wanted to share it with us. But I want to give some context and I want to set it up a little bit today because I want to be clear about a few things. I know it will not be easy for everyone to watch this. Having just had her funeral on Monday, seeing her alive and talking with us on the large screen, that has an effect. And I know that. I acknowledge that. And we even considered delaying it. Was it too close to the funeral? And yet there's something about this testimony shown right after her funeral that gives the enemy no ground among us. It is a testimony that overrides the boast of death. Because even being in this space after Laura has died, it's like our whole staff feels a little lost because everything feels like Laura. And so there's almost this boast that could creep in of death to say, haha. Look what I stole, look what I destroyed. But this testimony today overrides that boast in this space. And so we felt it was important to keep it today. And she did get to watch it with her family, and she did believe it was the message for the church. And she even wanted people at her funeral to know that it was going to be shown in church and that it would be on our YouTube page. Secondly, it's really important to note, and I want to really say this strongly: Laura had no interest in being your hero of the faith. She did not want you to walk away from this video saying, Laura is so amazing. Or wow, Laura's faith is so strong. She intentionally put reflection questions at the end of this video for us because she wants you to reflect on how this text intersects with your life and your experience. She wanted the Holy Spirit to use this in your life for good and for Christ to be exalted in this video and not her. And third, something happened while we were filming that we were not expecting to happen. And I do want to give a little context and a heads up about it. Laura wanted to be really real about her cancer journey, and so we were talking about well, how might we reflect the reality of that? And decided, well, let's capture some scenes of you in your home with some b-roll, I guess it's called. So other scenes of Laura doing things when she's not just talking to the camera. And among us at church, you'll know that Laura was almost always uh covering her head and covering her port. And honestly, always looked beautiful among us. Even to the last Sunday she was here, and I was picking her up on a Sunday morning, even as she was getting weaker and weaker, I thought, wow, you look so beautiful today. And so for some of us, it almost um came as a surprise how much she was wasting away because she always looked lovely. And so we were talking about that, and I I said, you know, how comfortable would you be showing us more of the reality of of the season, whether it's, you know, you don't have something on your head uh covering your hair loss, or or maybe you would inspect your port a bit um so that we could see that that is a reality. And we thought, well, to do that, well, we'll we'll film, we'll film the mirror and and and her looking in the mirror to inspect that. But as she did that, as she leaned into the mirror to look at herself, very unexpectedly she began to cry. And it was sort of this harsh reality, I think, of her of her own wasting away bodily. And she did not know that would happen, and we did not know that would happen. And James kept filming. And I tell you this because it's a really hard scene to watch. It's a really hard scene to watch. And some who have previewed it have asked, like, should that stay in there? That's really raw. And especially for our young people. What about our young people? But I felt it was important to leave in. And I'm telling you this in advance because I think it's important that you know that Laura was not trying to manipulate our emotions. Or we are not trying to sensationalize the message that she has for us today. It is what happened in real time, and it was unexpected for her and unexpected for us. What I see in her face in that moment is Laura joining in with all creation and it's groaning as she too waits on our redemption. And I think showing our young people what suffering with faith looks like is better formation than all the other images that flicker across their lives these days. Paul digs into the harsh realities of suffering and death because the church at the time in Corinth was triumphalist. And he wanted to make sure that they remembered that they carry around the death of Jesus in their bodies all the time. And that being raised with Christ in this life, it doesn't mean a pass from suffering or an escape from suffering. It just means we're given the power to endure it as we wait. And so I am actually really glad that Laura is real and visible in her suffering to the point of tears, even if it's hard for us to watch. And if we only show young people Christians in their strength and in their vitality and success, then we will unintentionally disciple our young people to that same triumphalism. A sort of live, laugh, love Christianity, where faith means that there are no clouds and the and the skies are sunny all day. And our young people see too many images of suffering that are void of meaning and are not theologically grounded whatsoever. But to see someone they know, like Laura, facing death with hope, with confidence in Jesus, even though she's sad, I think our young people then are being formed in a more cruciform imagination where we find fellowship with Christ even in his suffering. Second Corinthians 4 begins this way, calling us jars of clay, which Laura picks up on a little bit. We have this treasure, this news of the gospel in jars of clay, in these in these regular sort of vessels. Mary, Chloe, and Eve Tamling created these for our Lenten art gallery, jars of clay, based on this text. And I love these so much. Each one is totally unique, like us. And and it they really highlight what Paul is saying, in that we do not proclaim ourselves, we proclaim Jesus Christ. We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. And so to say there's treasure in a jar of clay is not to say, well, that jar is so perfect. I love how the Tamilink sisters capture this. These are three beautiful pieces, yet they're beautiful in their imperfection, actually. They don't look like they just kind of came off a factory line and all look the same. They're beautiful in their imperfection, but they are not meant to draw all kinds of attention on their own. They're rather meant to hold something that is precious, this message of God's power, of God's love held within a weak and breakable vessel like Laura herself, like all of us. In fact, Paul says, For God who said, Let light shine out of the darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Maybe you remember Laura's crazy Lent idea last year. I was thinking about the sermon series last year, and I was trying to explain to her what I was imagining for the sermon slide. And I was like, I don't know, what's it called? Kitsugi, where where when something is cracked, that's where the gold, you know, shows up, and and it's the fractures of something where the beauty shines the most. And and Laura took that and she went and got these huge appliance boxes, and with Dan's help, she painted them black and she cut them up into these fractured spaces, and then she put lights inside of them. And I just was reminded of this piece because I think this is really what that video that we're about to watch is trying to do among us today. Laura let her life crack open among us a little bit, and God's light shines out of her. Laura, this jar of clay, and it shines out onto all of us. And so we'll receive this as not just a gift from Laura, but as a gift from God through Laura to us today. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed. Perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not abandoned, struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day, for our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

My name is Laura, and in 2017, at the age of 29, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. After a year of treatment, chemotherapy, surgery, radiation, I was told I was cancer free, and I spent the next several years trying to rebuild my life post-cancer. I took preventative meds and I was in remission for six years. In the winter of 2024, I thought I hurt my back shoveling snow, but when the debilitating pain wouldn't go away, I received the shock of my life. The cancer was back. Innumerable bony lesions all throughout my spine, rib cage, shoulder blades, pelvis, and skull. I was diagnosed with stage four metastatic incurable cancer and informed that a diagnosis like this had an average prognosis of only two to five years of life post-diagnosis. Initially, the bone pain was severe and profoundly limited my mobility. I couldn't bend, lift, or do stairs, and I could barely walk. But once my first line of treatment began to work, I was blessed to experience a full year of normalcy. I worked full-time, was proud to graduate from a two-year spiritual direction training program, purchased and renovated my first home, became a first-time aunt, and delighted to experience my nephew's development from sweet baby snuggles to silly kitchen dance parties, and enjoyed numerous summer adventures hiking on the shores of Lake Michigan. You wouldn't know I was sick. So when a scan in the summer of 2025 revealed that treatment was no longer working and the cancer had progressed to my liver, I was shocked for the second time. I didn't really know what livers do, but apparently they are very important because, in the absence of a working one, every area of my life began to unravel faster than I could keep up with. And it's now been six months of wrestling and suffering. Six months of glimmers of hope, only to be continually met by brutal blows. Six months of fatigue and low energy, of struggling to eat solid food, of wearing maternity pants to accommodate the painful pressure of fluid-filling my abdomen while the rest of my body shrank to two-thirds of its previous size. Of not driving, of using a cane or walker or wheelchair to get around, of rarely leaving my home outside of medical appointments and work commitments, of more providers and prescriptions than I can keep track of. And it's here, in this place, that I am humbled and honored to sit with you before our sermon text today and reflect on what it looks like to live out 2 Corinthians 4 verses 7 through 18 in the rawest, realist way. Not with abstract theology, but as embodied creatures in a physical world, in the spaces of our deepest sorrow and most profound pain. I know I do right now, but I'm okay with that. Having my weakness on display. So often when we talk about cancer and cancer patients in mainstream culture, we talk about fighters, warriors, and battling cancer. I'm so grateful that God doesn't have that expectation of me. He says, I will fight for you. You need only to be still. And because he operates from a place of victory, I can too. I don't have to strive. I simply get to rest in the assurance that when I pass through the waters, he will be with me. When I pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over me. When I walk through the fire, I will not be burned. The flames will not set me ablaze. I have peace that surpasses understanding. Or as one of my favorite songs, Firm Foundation, says, I've got peace that makes no sense. Any power I have is from God and not myself. These past six months have been the most pressing and perplexing of my life. But while I fight against discouragement on a daily basis, I am not in despair and I have not been defeated. Because my hope is not in an outcome, but in God. And that means that even if nothing changes in my circumstances, I can still have access to life and life to the full. It means I can still have access to joy because, unlike happiness, which depends on happenings, joy is a settled assurance that God is a good father who wants what's best for his children. It's a deep contentment that grows in the presence of gratitude. And it means that I never lose access to God's presence. I have God's word that he will never leave me nor forsake me. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death itself, I do not walk alone. God goes with me. I am pressed and perplexed, but I am not in despair because I am never abandoned. We longed to see a church in which every member was on fire for prayer and praying regularly. It seemed like a beautiful and innocent enough desire at the time. But what I never in a million years imagined is that I would become the prayer request. When you tell me that you are praying for me daily, when you share that your relatives in other countries are praying regularly, when our elementary school students approach me after service and proudly declare that their entire school is praying for me. I see your faithful, fervent commitment to praying without ceasing. I see your faith for miracles. I'm fueled by your steadfast belief in a God who does exceedingly more than all we ask or imagine. Death is at work in me, but life is at work in you. And it is absolutely terrifying to witness. In just several months, despite working very hard not to, I have lost a third of my body weight and muscle mass. My bones are protruding everywhere, and it is next to impossible to get comfortable or stay warm. But while my body is a visual depiction of death, I can absolutely testify to God's redemptive work in and through me as He forms me through the suffering of this season. I see it in my work, my relationships, my faith in general. I am more likely to share the load with others. I'm more likely to choose connection over independence. I'm more perseverant, surrendered, hopeful, more likely to believe in the impossible. Outwardly, I am wasting away. But inwardly, I am being renewed day by day. And she asked, What hurts? And I replied, My life. My life hurts. Everything is hard, and everything hurts. Suffering has a way of forcing us to be present to the immediate moment. And it can be difficult to see or feel or think about anything outside of that. Pain doesn't feel light, it doesn't feel momentary. But what it does do is it joins us to Jesus in his suffering. It drives us deeper into the arms and the heart of God. And he draws near the brokenhearted in return. I'm comforted by a God who not only sees, knows, deeply cares about our pain, but who has experienced the worst of pain himself. He knows physical suffering, isolation, rejection, betrayal. He wept with his friends for his friend, and he weeps with us as he collects our tears in his bottle. And when we share in Christ's suffering, we also share in his glory. His radiance lingers on our faces, and people can tell that we've been with Jesus. Not only are we joined to Jesus in his suffering, but also we join suffering saints through all of time and around the globe a great cloud of witnesses. It's not that our pain on this physical planet doesn't matter, but rather that it does. Far more than we will ever know. We are connected to a bigger picture, a greater plan with ripples we will only ever see in part. It's not that our suffering isn't real, it's so real. But there is something realer, truer still, something longer lasting that will continue far beyond not only our pain, but our very existence. Our immediate troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we focus on the unseen because the unseen is eternal. So, where do you find yourself today? What particular flavor of suffering do you find yourself up against? It's easy to hear the story of someone's cancer journey and quickly dismiss your own pain, saying something like, Oh, well, my experience isn't nearly as bad as yours. But I assure you, with suffering, there is no comparison. Pain is pain, and you will feel the fullness of it no matter what you're going through. Today wasn't meant to be an inspirational story about a woman with cancer. Rather, it is an invitation from the God of the universe who became flesh and dwelt among us and still dwells with us, that he might enter our heart and embody it with us. He shares in our deaths and our life, even as we share in his death and resurrection life. So you, you beloved, fragile, worn, cracked jar, what do you desire from God today? Who do you need him to be for you? How might he desire to fight on your behalf? How might he long to show you life to the full, joy in the midst, and a tangible expression of his presence? How might he be inviting you to grow your sanctified imagination and believe for exceedingly more than what you're currently asking for? How might he wish to renew you today? How might he want to bestow his radiance upon you and share his glory with you? Friends, no matter what you are going through today, know this. Jesus has an invitation for you, and you never walk alone.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

We fix our eyes on Jesus. And we do not lose heart. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. And so we fix our eyes not on what we can see, but on what is unseen. Since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. And Laura did not lose heart. Could you not tell that jumping off the screen today? That Laura took that seriously. She did not lose heart. She was not afraid. Even after this, as death was tightening its grip on her body outwardly, inwardly, she remained confident that she was in the grip of an eternal and loving God. This was Laura's act of hopeful resistance right in the face of our death-dealing enemy. Amen. He seeks to kill and to destroy and wants to pull us down into despair and into hopelessness. But he has no ground here among us today. It did not work. And I think about Laura was talking about her weight loss. She could not gain weight no matter how hard she tried at the end. She kept losing it and losing it and losing it. But see, even in that, she was gaining a very different kind of weight. Her soul was accumulating the weight of glory even to the end. And so she would want your soul to gain that kind of weight too. She would want us to grow in this way. On the same day that Laura died, earlier in the day, before Laura had died, on March 11, Maddie Vanderwell and I were in the office together, and it was a Wednesday, so we were working on the newsletter together, but mostly we were just being sad near one another. So we weren't getting a whole lot of work done. But it felt good to be sad in proximity. Sometimes we just need to be sad in proximity, which is what we're doing today. We're being sad and hopeful in proximity to one another. But Maddie and I were talking about Laura and we were looking at her desk together. Um we knew the end was probably somewhat near. We didn't know how near. And we were by Laura's desk because we were wondering, should we ask Susan or or Laura's family to go through her desk at all and take anything that might be personal from her desk? And this plaque has been on Laura's desk forever. It's been there all these years, and I've never really noticed it. It's been in the office. I've I've seen it over and over, but I've never paid close attention to it. But then Maddie and I were looking more closely at Laura's plants. Um and then I noticed the text on the plaque is 2 Corinthians 4, verse 18. Which I had never noticed before because it's actually really small in there. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. That's the verse that's listed there. And we were surprised for two reasons. First, how unbelievable it seemed that out of all of the verses in the Bible, the text that Laura had already preached for today was the one that was on the plaque on her desk. And secondly, we were surprised because the word grow does not show up in that verse at all. So we were a little bit confused. Thematically, I was like, grow? I looked it up and it's a different translation. Grow? There's no grow. But I believe that today, if Laura could have all of this be about anything, she would not want it to be a memorial of Laura. But rather that God would use her life and her message to grow us in hope. To grow us in confident boldness as we live in light of the resurrection, that we might grow in faith as we fix our eyes on what is eternal. And so Laura's message might be the thing that plants that seed and others may water it, but Paul reminds us it is God who will make it grow among us. And so may God give an increase among us. After seeing this, with Laura's life and testimony still living among us, may God give an increase of eternally minded Jesus eyes fixed, jars of clay, all of us, beautiful, but decidedly imperfect. Sorry. Beautiful and imperfect jars of clay who hold a treasured truth of God and his goodness, a treasured truth that Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again. Amen. Let's pray together. God, we give you thanks for this message that came from you to us through your servant Laura, who spoke of your grace in bold confidence until the very end, who was radiant with the life of Christ on her face to the very end. And so, God, I pray that we would not leave this place today and say, wow, Laura's faith though. Or wow, Laura, so strong that we would actually leave this place and say, my imperfect jar of clay holds the same beautiful message as Laura's imperfect jar of clay, and that that would be where we fix our eyes on Jesus Christ and his work among us. And so I pray that you would strengthen us, strengthen our weary feet as we walk this Lenten journey, strengthen our grieving hearts as we still feel the ache of loss. But also I pray that you would continue to strengthen our confidence in the one who has overcome the grave, who has swallowed up death in victory. And so we thank you, God, for the beauty of Laura's life among us, for her testimony among us, for her exhortation to keep looking at what is unseen, at what is eternal, that we might carry the death of Christ in our bodies day by day by day. And even as we take every step toward that grave, as outwardly we are wasting away, would you renew us inwardly day by day? In Jesus' name we pray.