Turning to Him

I found out yesterday that a dear friend’s sister was killed in a car accident.  I grew up with this family, having first introduced myself in kindergarten before spending the next twelve years in school with the younger daughter.  I remember countless weekends spent at her house playing hide and seek, faking Aussie accents and pretending to be Steve Irwin, and curling up on the couch to listen to her mom’s wise advice about life.  I don’t pretend that I was best friends with her older sister, but my heart goes out to my friend and her mom and dad, and I’ve just been overwhelmed with grief for them.    

I have to confess that I didn’t want to write this post today.  Death is a painful reality of life that is hard for anyone, even Christians, to accept.  I searched for anything to write about besides this.  I read chapters of the Bible, four of Oswald Chambers’ devotions, Captivating, a Beth Moore Bible study, and other blogs for ideas, any topics or verses that would be meaningful but wouldn’t require me to share this pain.  I found nothing.  As much as I want to focus only on the good things in life, this is reality.

When hardship happens to others, I am just as guilty as the next Christian of searching for comforting verses from the Bible or clichés about God wanting another angel in Heaven to explain away heartbreak.  But it’s only when tragedy is personal do we realize that these “wise words” don’t soothe.  The pain is too real, too raw, for a simple fix.  It’s difficult to watch others grieve and feel utterly helpless.  We can’t fix the problem, but oh how we desperately want to offer something, anything, that will bring comfort and peace.   

In the middle of pain, the only thing to do is turn to God and cry.  We must mourn.  God’s promises through Scripture bolster us, certainly, but in our state of heartbrokenness, our only comfort comes from falling into our Father’s loving arms and just weeping.  In  John 11, Jesus weeps at the death of his friend Lazarus, even though he knows that Lazarus will have eternal life.  Though we as Christians know God’s plans for eternal life, we are not immune to the pain and sadness of this world.  We mourn, and we turn to God in our grief.  This is the start of the healing process.

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.

 –Psalm 46:1-2