These first thoughts were shared by Tara, missionary to Haiti, and though I have not lived through anything so horrific, they capture emotions I too have had:
"In a period of an hour I've wished for and thought totally opposing things. I've told Him I love him, told Him I don't know if I believe in Him, told Him I have no faith in His power, told Him I trust Him to walk me through this. Thanked Him for redeeming me - for loving me, asked Him how He can be love when such suffering is allowed? I've begged Him to show himself, to speak, to become real to me. My anger has scared me and my thoughts have been frightening. I've ended up in the place where I began. I've run in circles. I've found my words and questions hollow and empty and maybe even immature. The distance I feel between my God and I scares me ... I want to sense Him close and yet I know whether I feel Him or not - He has not left me."
(yes, yes, this is human and normal and it's okay to wrestle with God)
"The things God might do as a result of it (the earth quake in Haiti) is an entirely different debate. I don't pretend to understand any of that. I am not the variety of missionary that understands everything God does or does not allow ... I am just the variety that tries really hard to trust Him while NOT understanding it."
(this is the cry of my heart - to keep trusting even while I do not understand)
My friend Loren lost her precious 6 year old daughter a year ago, and this is what she had to say recently about what she's learned this past year:
"God loves us and longs to be reunited with us so much that He sent Jesus to earth to rescue us. Yes, Jesus physically healed many. Yes, Jesus took Jairus' daughter by the hand and brought her out of death. Yes, there have been many instances of people being healed miraculously even these days. But not all are physically healed, and if Christ's primary purpose was/is to physically heal then he's done a lousy job.
But if, rather, his purpose is to heal the hearts of the whole world, to rescue us from sin, and that his death and resurrection made the way for that, and all I have to do is believe that yes, this is indeed why he came, then his purpose has been fully accomplished. It also means that when he physically heals it's to help people see this purpose...and when he doesn't physically heal, it's also for this purpose." (there's lots more good stuff in that same post, read it here)
And on a similar theme:
"From my perspective, our time with Keren will always seem too short. We had six years, four months, and a day. What is that? Already her life is creating legends in our home as Clare and Ev grapple with questions about Keren: "Why didn't Keren walk?" "Why didn't she talk?" Clare is keen on telling Jonathan things about Keren because "he didn't get to meet her, and he needs to know about her!" I love this, but I also know that what we tell him and what my little girls remember is changed by who we are now. We know there were things that drove us crazy about Keren (constantly getting her to stop poking her eyes or gouge her gums, keeping on top of tube-feedings and doctor appointments, changing bedding and clothes after diaper soak-throughs and spit-ups).... But while we know those things in our heads, the reality of the day-to-day struggle has faded. We really only remember and miss the beauty of a blue-eyed girl with incredible dark lashes, fly-away eyebrows, a squeal that could burst our eardrums and a hug that could crack our bones. Of course, those are the memories that are worth holding. And as for the time her life spanned, I am reminded continually of Psalm 139:16:
You saw me before I was born.So the time was the right time, and as much as I might not like it, Keren's life had accomplished what it needed to. I have to trust that the God who loves Keren and me infinitely beyond anything I can imagine intends the same for me. That the time He has given me is the time needed to accomplish what He wants for my life. As a result I can quit worrying about everything I'm doing or not doing and wondering if it's "enough." I can't sit around living in the past, wishing things were different and Keren was still here. Instead I want to let Him use me and be willing to do what He asks of me. I need to rest in Him."
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.
(New Living Translation)
(yes, Lord, help me to rest in You, without worry or fear of the future)
It was through Loren's blog that I discovered the following article, written by Steve Saint and originally published in the March 2009 Decision magazine. You may know Steve Saint's name ~ he is the son of Nate Saint, who died along with 4 other missionaries in 1956 as they were attempting to reach out to the Waodani people of Ecuador with the message of God's love and forgiveness. This is long, but it's just so good, I am reprinting most of it. For the full article, please go here.
"Countless lives have felt this impact (the impact of his father Nate's death); thousands of missionaries name the story as the reason their hearts were moved to respond to God’s call. Our family has been blessed by the love and kinship of the Waodani people. Mincaye, one of the men who killed my father, is now the man my children call Grandfather. All of this was God’s plan.
A lot of people believe that when bad things happen, God merely allows them. But God didn’t merely tolerate my dad’s death, and I don’t think He turned away when it was happening. In His sovereignty, He was orchestrating events for His glory and ultimately for our good. This was a hard realization for me, but then I read Acts 2:22-23:
Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross (NIV).
If God could plan the death of His own righteous Son, why couldn’t He bring about the death of my dad?
Another Part of the Plan
My wife, Ginny, and I had three boys. Then we finally had a little girl, Stephenie, whom I made promise me that she’d never grow up. She broke her promise and went away to college. Then Youth for Christ asked Stephenie, who played the piano and bass guitar, to travel with one of their groups for a year, sharing the Gospel around the world.
It was a tough year. I wanted my daughter home, because I knew that some day she would probably meet a boy and go off to get married. She was tall and slim and, in my eyes, beautiful. She was Ginny’s bosom friend. She was our baby.
Finally, the year was over and she was coming home to Orlando. Ginny and I met her at the airport. Grandfather Mincaye was there, too. He was jumping around, big holes in his earlobes, wearing a feather headdress.
Stephenie arrived and we headed out for a welcome home party with the whole family.
Later, I passed Stephenie in the hallway of our home, and she just leaned on me and said, “Pop, I love you.” I thought that my life would never be more complete than it was right then.
A while later, Ginny said, “Steve, Stephenie’s back in her room and says her head is really hurting. Let’s go back and be with her.” So we ditched everyone else and went back. Ginny sat on the bed and held Stephenie, and I put my arms around those two girls whom I loved with all my heart, and I started praying.
While I was praying, Stephenie’s body tensed and she let out a little yelp of pain. Her eyes rolled back into her head. We called 911. The medics rushed her to the hospital. I rode in the ambulance while Ginny, Mincaye and our son Jaime followed us in the car.
Grandfather Mincaye didn’t understand why strangers had rushed into the house and hurried off with Stephenie. Then he saw her at the hospital, lying on a gurney with a tube down her throat and needles in her arm. He grabbed me and said, “Who did this to her?”
I didn’t know what to say. “I don’t know, Mincaye. Nobody is doing this.”
He grabbed me again and said, “Don’t you see?”
No, I didn’t see. My heart was absolutely tearing apart; I didn’t know what was happening.
Mincaye said, “I see it well. Don’t you see? God Himself is doing this.” He started reaching out to all the people in the emergency room, saying, “People, people, don’t you see? God, loving Stephenie, He’s taking her to live with Him.”
“Look at me,” he said. “I’m an old man; pretty soon I’m going to die, too, and I’m going there. Please, please, won’t you follow God’s trail, too? Coming to God’s place, Stephenie and I will be waiting there to welcome you.”
Finally the doctor determined that Stephenie had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. She had no hope of recovery. This was the time to either lose my faith or to show the God who gave His only Son to die for my sin that I love and trust Him.
As my daughter died, I watched the plan unfold. My sweet wife, too, accepted this as God’s will and plan. Sometimes Christians have an idea that if we do what God wants us to do, then He owes it to us to take suffering away. I don’t believe that anymore.
I believe that in His sovereign will, He brought this to pass.
Seeing God’s Heart
In the years before Stephenie died, people had started asking me to speak. I began to realize that there was a deficiency in my heart: I could not see the world the way God does.
“I can’t keep doing this,” I told Ginny. “I’m speaking to people from my head, and it doesn’t work. I can’t speak unless I feel the passion of this.”
So I started praying, “God, please let me have your heart for the hurting world. I see it, and I empathize a little bit, but I don’t have a passion for it.” I had no idea if God would give me such a passion or how He would do it, but I begged God to let me see His heart.
Oh, be careful what you pray for. Through the loss of my daughter, God did change my heart. He broke it. He shredded it. In the process He helped me see what He sees. From God’s perspective, just as I was separated from Stephenie, our loving heavenly Father, the God and Creator of the universe, is being separated every day from those He desperately loves. And He will never be reunited with them again if they die without knowing Christ.
I don’t know what role God has for you, but I know He has a role. His great passion is expressed in His Great Commission, and He has given it to messy, wimpy people like you and me. He has made us His ambassadors of reconciliation, and suffering gives us credibility with a hurting world and demonstrates God’s sufficiency to meet our needs."
All of these words, and others, have given me much to chew on and wrestle with. These are hard things, but they are true things. I'm so thankful that God is patient with me as I strive to live in his truth, both the happy truths and the hard truths.
I really needed to read this today. Thank you for sharing it.
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