last week a child at my daughter’s school passed away.  Sunday we received news that big Papa has cancer….it’s in the lymph nodes.  the prognosis is months to live.  2 years ago fire raged through our land at hurricane force.  our dear friends and neighbors lost their house.  we lost our cabin.  last year fire returned and took the rest of the community.  Tuesday tornados in Oklahoma.  2 elementary schools.  last year floods and tornados and all those waves and water on the East Coast.

the point of all this recapping is this.

grief.

grieve.

oh Christians, grieve.

there are no answers, no platitudes for times like these.  verses like Romans 8:28, yes it’s true.  but when you are standing in the rubble of what used to be your neighborhood…..its not the time for that.

its time for quiet prayers of strengthening of the inner man.  time for standing beside, holding and weeping together.  letting the wailing come.  for giving blankets and socks and tea.  for listening without drawing conclusions about a person’s faith…or lack of it.  and certainly no conclusions about what God is doing or saying.  oh from one who has grieved-i implore you-none of that. 

  “Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm.  He said:  Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge? ….. Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand…..”

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there is this book.  its quite an old book written by one who had seen great sufferring, and was experiecing her own personal sufferring.  it has brought me great comfort as it is not a book written ‘from the well to the ill and so misses the mark.’  

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when i rode in the ambulance holding my 8 month old son….sat outside the door where my husband was inside helping to hold him down while they desperately tried to get the life-saving IV in him.  hearing his  cries of deep pain as they kept sticking the needle in again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.  11 tries.  hours of trying.  there were no answers.  the prayers of faith pleading for the one who controls the seas to guide the doctors hand….  left unanswered….no, left answered with; “no.”  i did believe He could.  i did believe He would.  He didn’t.  why must a little one suffer so?  why must his mother suffer so?  if he is going to die, get it over with already, why this agony?  oh those hours took me so many places.  questions and accusations.  confusions.  he lived.  the questions have never been answered. (just new ones-like ‘why did he get to live?’)   but they have been stilled. it has been a journey-and the Lord who knows the number of hairs on my head is the One who knows how to still me.  Amy’s words:  “Thy calvery stills my questions.  a love that loves like THAT can be trusted with THIS.”    its not a place of answers, but of trusting that His love was proved at Calvary, and even this is not able to disprove it-though it tries hard.    

if God hasn’t given an answer, lets not make one up for him.  let us rest in His love proven.  let us hold on to His goodness for those who cannot right now.  let us not fear the journey.  the questions. the absence of answers.

let us pray. 

let us PRAY.