I’ve been feeling a little out of sorts lately. In the past few months I’ve been closer to the deaths of two children than I’d like to be. The first was a young boy who at age six, after a hard fought battle, lost the fight against leukemia. The other happened last week. After a long medical and emotional journey to get pregnant, the mother who was six months pregnant lost her baby and nearly her own life. In strange but tragic coincidence these two families are good friends.
With five kids of my own and I can’t even begin to imagine how these parents must feel. When I got the most recent news I was at work and pretty much blocked the impact all day. On my ride home I began to feel the weight of the loss. My stomach became uneasy and I didn’t eat much that night. The father and I had a conversation not long ago sharing our pregnant wife stories and him just beaming with joy knowing he would be a father. I had seen this couple a few days before and everything seemed perfect. Mom looked great and dad was really starting to think father type thoughts. Little did they know that their perfect world was going to end so soon. I did all the normal stuff; sent out the prayer request to all my church friends and talked to my coworkers about what a tragedy it is. But if I’m truly honest the guilty thought I keep having is I’m so glad this didn’t happen to my family. It almost seems unfair that my wife and I have five healthy kids. Some of my uneasy feeling comes from almost causing the death of one of my children in a car related accident several years ago; a story for another time.
Logically I know that in the grand scheme God has purpose in all of this. I know that God also didn’t make this happen and that nothing the parents did made it happen. Logic doesn’t help. You can’t use logic to deal with pain. Pain isn’t diminished by reason or anger or denial. The real struggle is to own your pain before it owns you.
I’ve been trolling through the bible to help come to terms with these tragedies. I didn’t find the perfect verse. The passage I kept coming back to is the resurrection of Lazarus. Before Jesus went to Lazarus he told his disciples that Lazarus had fallen asleep and he was going to go a wake him. Everybody knew what “asleep” meant. Now the disciples understandably didn’t want to go to Lazarus because he was in Bethany and the last time they were there the locals tried to kill Jesus. So they get to Bethany and Lazarus’s sisters are feeling that crushing sorrow of loosing their brother. Mary is so upset she can’t leave the house until Jesus sends for her. This is the part that brings me some kind of comfort. Now Jesus knows Lazarus is dead and he has told several people that he will bring Lazarus back from the dead. This is pretty good news. This is the kind of news that you think Jesus would be pretty excited to tell everybody about. But that’s not how it goes. When Mary finally comes to Jesus she just can’t keep it together any more and breaks down weeping at the feet of Jesus. In verse 35 is just says “Jesus wept”. He didn’t tell her everything would be alright or explain what he was going to do he simply wept. He allowed the sorrow and the pain to, as the bible says to be “deeply moved”.
I don’t have any advice for people who have lost children. I can only imagine how that must feel. The thing I cling to, is knowing that our God loves us enough to be deeply moved by our pain.
With five kids of my own and I can’t even begin to imagine how these parents must feel. When I got the most recent news I was at work and pretty much blocked the impact all day. On my ride home I began to feel the weight of the loss. My stomach became uneasy and I didn’t eat much that night. The father and I had a conversation not long ago sharing our pregnant wife stories and him just beaming with joy knowing he would be a father. I had seen this couple a few days before and everything seemed perfect. Mom looked great and dad was really starting to think father type thoughts. Little did they know that their perfect world was going to end so soon. I did all the normal stuff; sent out the prayer request to all my church friends and talked to my coworkers about what a tragedy it is. But if I’m truly honest the guilty thought I keep having is I’m so glad this didn’t happen to my family. It almost seems unfair that my wife and I have five healthy kids. Some of my uneasy feeling comes from almost causing the death of one of my children in a car related accident several years ago; a story for another time.
Logically I know that in the grand scheme God has purpose in all of this. I know that God also didn’t make this happen and that nothing the parents did made it happen. Logic doesn’t help. You can’t use logic to deal with pain. Pain isn’t diminished by reason or anger or denial. The real struggle is to own your pain before it owns you.
I’ve been trolling through the bible to help come to terms with these tragedies. I didn’t find the perfect verse. The passage I kept coming back to is the resurrection of Lazarus. Before Jesus went to Lazarus he told his disciples that Lazarus had fallen asleep and he was going to go a wake him. Everybody knew what “asleep” meant. Now the disciples understandably didn’t want to go to Lazarus because he was in Bethany and the last time they were there the locals tried to kill Jesus. So they get to Bethany and Lazarus’s sisters are feeling that crushing sorrow of loosing their brother. Mary is so upset she can’t leave the house until Jesus sends for her. This is the part that brings me some kind of comfort. Now Jesus knows Lazarus is dead and he has told several people that he will bring Lazarus back from the dead. This is pretty good news. This is the kind of news that you think Jesus would be pretty excited to tell everybody about. But that’s not how it goes. When Mary finally comes to Jesus she just can’t keep it together any more and breaks down weeping at the feet of Jesus. In verse 35 is just says “Jesus wept”. He didn’t tell her everything would be alright or explain what he was going to do he simply wept. He allowed the sorrow and the pain to, as the bible says to be “deeply moved”.
I don’t have any advice for people who have lost children. I can only imagine how that must feel. The thing I cling to, is knowing that our God loves us enough to be deeply moved by our pain.
