Ask the Questions that Beg Asking

One of Lake Ann Camp’s 10 core values is “Ask the question that begs asking.” I was particularly drawn to this value because of my grief experience this past year and a half. I found that because grief was an entirely new state I was unable to put words to my thoughts or to organize these thoughts in a way that made any sense. To compound the problem, as my friend in Uganda noted, I am “broad minded and big brained.” I think he meant that I am a thinker; I process my thoughts and emotions intellectually. So, without a way to organize and process all that had happened, I was more than a little lost.

Few people know me well enough to know that I needed them to ask the questions that beg asking. Few people love me deeply enough to be willing to challenge me during that fragile time by asking the questions that beg asking. Few people were unafraid of talking about grief and death with me, unafraid that I might burst into tears, unafraid of their own mortality to ask the questions that beg asking.

The questions that beg asking are not questions like: How are you feeling today? Is there anything you need? Do you miss him? The questions that beg asking are more like: What is it like to not have anyone touch you? How do you feel when you put away his things? Who is encouraging you every day? Even these questions don’t scratch the surface of the depth needed to draw out my experience in a way that helped me process the grief.

Thank you. Thank you to those few people who know me, love me, and have the courage to ask me the questions that beg asking. Don’t stop. You made it safe for me. I pray that I can take what you taught me to Lake Ann Camp and be bold enough to ask the campers those “deep unanswered questions that often lay dormant in the human heart until someone cares enough to mine them out” in a way that campers “will not be afraid to allow God to minister to them.”