Of Lost Boys and Suffering

"The family accepts. God meant it this way."

The words of a family who lost a boy. The words of a family who will sit with his empty chair for the rest of their lives. Who will mourn the lost voice, the laughter, the future they thought was theirs.

I keep arguing with myself, keep going 'round on this. But now I finally want to write it down. Even if the family accepts it, I do not believe God meant it that way.

I have wanted to glide past this part of Chapter 5. For days now, I have wanted to glide past it. This dialog raised by eight little words: the question of suffering and evil in the world. Why the little boy lost? Why Haiti? Why the girl in the brothel? And the mother lost to suicide? Why?

I do not believe God means it this way. This "creation groaning,"* this fallenness, this "human beings sold as slaves."**

I do believe God works to transfigure, as Ann says. And that we are transformed when we can give thanks "at all times because He is all good."

But who am I, in this great dialog that has been going on throughout the ages? Just one little voice.

There are bigger voices who can continue this dialog better than I, and I hope to read them in the days to come. One is After Shock: Searching for Honest Faith When Your World Is Shaken, by Kent Annan. The other is The Innocence of God, by Udo Middelmann.

And I am curious to hear what they have to say.


*Romans 8:22
**Revelation 18:13


Quotes from Chapter 5 of the beautiful book One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are.

Empty Tent

Thinking of Joy. How hard to bear that name, in the midst of sadness. Perhaps the way it was hard for Abraham (Hebrew: Av-ra-ham) to bear the name Av, meaning father, for all those years when his tent was empty of childish laughter.

Thinking of Joy, in her sorrow.

And asking You to hold her close, near Your own heart that knows well the tragedy of losing a Son... knows well the empty tent... the silenced laughter.

Thinking of Joy.

Thinking of You.

Irreparable

On days like this, when two guys from two different companies stand in my garage and declare the spring that lifts that old, heavy door, irreparable. When one good friend weeps inconsolably to me about all that is irreparable in her life. And when I think of all those sick and dying and fighting...

and the whole world

seems irreparable...

I ache for You. Close my eyes
to the wind. Listen to the scritch scratch
of dry oak leaves and little thsk thsk
sounds of squirrel's feet
and a soft chrr chrr in the pine
and the rush of air
against the landscape.

And I remember that dark place
when the earth was formless
and void and Your Spirit
was a wind blowing across
the waters, whispering to the
chaos your deep conviction

that it was not

irreparable.