Happy New Year! These past 3 weeks, I have been in a small town in Northern Thailand teaching english in the high school here. It has been really fun but the time has been fleeting. I leave for a week long debrief/rest on Saturday and will then travel onto Myanmar for a month of ministry. I have loved my time here but my team and I are excited to have a week of rest and processing before all the fun adventures in Myanmar.
Before I start this blog, I want to apologize for the messiness. The Lord told me to write this blog and I have no idea what is going to come out of it. I hope you can get something out of this.
This past week, there was a tragedy in my community back home. Two of our family friends died in a car accident. They were 16 years old. Anytime anyone passes, it’s awful, but to have two bright and wonderful humans who were way too young to have left us, the news is almost suffocating. You can’t help but feel crushed for the families and close friends who lost someone so close.
In these situations where the grief is so colossal, it’s our natural reaction to question. It’s normal to ask God why He would let something like this happen when we hear at church all the time how loving and kind he is. Sort of contradicts his character, right?
This happened to me a few years ago. One of my friends from school committed suicide. It was a complete shock and at the risk of sounding dramatic, it rocked me to my core. I didn’t understand why God would send his son to die on Earth because He loved us so much but would let these tragedies happen everyday. It simply didn’t make sense.
So I simply stopped worshipping this contradictory God. And my life completely sucked for about 6 months. I made mistakes and choices that didn’t represent my character and it only brought more pain. It finally took a lot of soul searching to realize that the root of all the aftermath was that I walked away from God, and that without him, my life was useless.
A few months ago, when I was telling someone this story, they asked me, “where was Jesus when this happened?” The question shocked me, but when I finally swallowed my pride enough to ask the Holy Spirit to show me where they were when I was at my lowest, He showed me that He was sitting right next to me as I sobbed into my pillow, with his hand on my shoulder, letting me know that it was going to be ok. This realization brought me lots of comfort, knowing that Jesus was sobbing with me, that He cared enough about my friend and that He was closer to me than ever before.
I don’t mean for this post to be about me in the slightest, I just want you to know that I understand the questioning. I understand the need to know, and the need to be mad at someone. You can’t be mad at those around you, because they did nothing wrong, so you turn your anger to the Lord. He let this happen right? But in reality, He’s mourning right beside you. He’s the closest he’s ever been in those moments.
I tell you this story to let you know that if you are mourning a loss now or still recovering from one in the past, Jesus was/is right there beside you. He never left, and won’t start now. I think it’s comforting to know that the savior of the world cares enough about our pain that he sits there and walks with us through the grief.
And as far as the anger and bitterness towards God goes, he’s a pretty big guy and can probably take it. Do you think he would have created us to be bitter at him after a tragedy if he couldn’t take it? Don’t be ashamed of being mad at him, but don’t stay there. It takes time, but I eventually realized that He didn’t want the end to be there for my friend, and that me being stuck in my anger wasn’t hurting him, it was hurting me.
So air your grievances with him, he already knows you’re mad, so what’s the point in holding back? Then remember He IS the loving and kind God you hear about in church and the same guy who sent his son to rescue us from anything far worse than the grief here on Earth.
Sorry if you were looking for answers as to why bad things happens, I’m still completely baffled myself. I honestly think that even if we were to know, we wouldn’t understand. I think God has so many explanations that wouldn’t make any sense to us in our narrow view of the world. This honestly doesn’t bring any comfort, but it does give perspective. We’re never supposed to know, so the questioning is a perfectly normal reaction, but we’re never going to get an answer. If that changes, let me know. It’s one of those things that once we’re out of our stages of anger and feelings of betrayal, it needs to be let go of.
If you are going through loss right now, whether it’s related to the car accident last week or something else; I would seriously love to pray for you. Please message me or comment below.
Get angry. Let it out. Then worship the dude, because at the end of the day, He’s the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow and he is amazing.
