As many have discovered in their sojourns, life viewed solely through the lens of death and its attending fear can shatter us, and the corresponding fragments of self-recrimination and despair can leave us unequal to the task of moving forward. It has been five years since I have considered writing again: partly through natural indolence and partly because the passing of one’s spouse of 34 years is a large stone to swallow.

Indeed, the only thing more painful than breaking one’s teeth on death’s gnarled stone is the fiery process through which we draw wisdom and resolution for our anguished hearts.  Yet, when we call out for relief to that “Bright Blur” at the terminus of our gasping prayers, why does it initially seem as if we have stumbled headlong into an avalanche – never to fully recover? At what price do we purchase such wisdom?

This is not to say that the necessary breadcrumbs leading out of the labyrinth are not there, only that finding them requires a deeper and more painful revelation of faith and self-examination than we are perhaps ready for.

The believing Christian can live all his life with a head knowledge of doctrine and ritual, yet when the sickle of the unthinkable strikes us, how often we are unprepared to be winnowed and rendered like chaff in the furnace of the world. To be sure, friends and family are there; but at night when the house is empty and forlorn, we are left with the same ache that extends a thousand leagues to the marrow of our souls.  Our slumbering doubts that began as fissures, soon expand into chasms, and our casual faith that seemed well enough while the sun shone brightly, grows pockmarked with caveats now that the night comes knocking with her questions-- complaints that men have wrestled with since the Fall of Man became our default condition. 

I tell you this: there were times when I would have traded my reflective humanity for the opaque blackness of unthinking sleep. There will be a null season when all Christians will be tempted to barter their harvest of suffering for the reptilian narcotic of calm indifference.

But He who is without beginning or end would have none of my cowardice; and if five or forty years of wandering in the parched desert of my guilt and self-pity were necessary for me to again take up the business I was created for, then so be it. Job was given an answer, and so will we all if we learn the right questions that lead us out of the slough of despondency. The whirlwind is waiting for our questions, so our paltry indictments can be spit back upon us, and we can again be healed.

And so let the ancient recitation proceed.

Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does it seem that at times evil prevails, while the innocent are ofttimes humbled and trodden underfoot? Why is there death at all, if God is all-knowing and the author of perfect love? Why are our families plagued with suffering and sickness? Why are we so prone to addictions and selfishness? Why are our mothers, sons, and brothers too quickly swept away from our arms - to a place behind a door that for all intents and purposes appears to be welded shut from the inside? Why are loving families wrenched apart by pride or misunderstanding?  The answer the Bible tells us is sin, yet it also says that this horror that infects our moral DNA was never intended for us, but was one of the ironic consequences of God’s gift of free will.

Now if that is true, then why would a good God grant us free will if He knew what a mess of things we would make? The answer astonishingly is this -- He wanted to love us, and in turn, to be loved by these precious pathetic creatures He fashioned.  You see, if there is no free will, then there is no real love. A puppet’s mechanical devotion offered without free choice would be hardly worth creating. Free choice gives us the option of either ignoring God or embracing Him.  To God, it was worth the possibility that we would turn our backs away from love and light. And when we did so, He would then show us just how far He would go to prove His love -- by nailing those addictions and hatreds, selfishness (and the entire catalog of human-caused horrors) on that same rough-hewn piece of wood where He Himself was crucified… proclaiming with His last breath “Tetelestai” -- It is finished! You were bought and paid for freely -- by the God of grace, mercy, and unshadowed love.

The Philosopher Kierkegaard said the most revealing thing about life: “We live life forwards, but we can only understand it backward.”  God, who exists outside of time’s constraints, knows that the suffering and heartbreak we experience from the loss of a child or the pain wrought by cancer or divorce can often only be redeemed and overcome within the crucible of pain. Not that He desired our suffering; No, but that His plan for each of us will give us final victory over our suffering. Christ has the potential to transmute pain into something uniquely beautiful.  Suffering then, counterintuitively, would appear to be the means by which our souls are refined and deepened.

When we have ourselves wept, we can then weep with others and offer our outstretched hands to them in their time of need. In looking backward at her life from the vantage point of eternity, I am certain that my late wife Darla, and all believers who “sleep in hope,” understand that what were once perceived as losses and disappointments, were in fact positive lessons that sculpted their souls in preparation for that grand and beautiful day when they were presented before the Living God as creations of unparalleled beauty.  This, my friends, is the final metamorphosis -- when the lowly worm emerges as the exquisite eternal butterfly. Each one of us here will have such an appointment: maybe tonight or 25 years from now. And all that will matter then is whether we have either accepted or rejected the freewill choice of submitting to “the Father of Lights.”

As the ones we most love are one by one taken from us -- to a place that we cannot yet go, remember that we were never intended for death. This is why every fiber of our being is outraged at the audacity of it. We are ultimately citizens of an undiscovered country, passing time here as immigrants, while yearning for that final destination that harbors the true source of happiness and love. The more I seem to lose and the older I become, the more I am shown that the longing and ache within my heart cannot be satisfied here. And as creatures simultaneously inhabiting two worlds, we must either choose in faith the promises of the Most High, or forever wallow in despair like a candle slowly flickering into darkness. How blessed we are if we have placed our lives, and fortunes, in Him who cannot fail.

Photo credit: 3atbulletz CC BY-SA 4.0 license

Glenn Fairman writes from his lowly haunt in Highland, CA. He can be contacted at glenn.fairman@gmail.com          

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