Warning: Christmas cheer not included.
The phone rings the day after Christmas, Boxing Day, in between setting the teakettle to whistling and dealing another game of rummy. Mom comes out of her bedroom with a box of Kleenex—a dear friend has died at 48 years old. Her mother has waited to call until after the holiday, even though it happened a week ago.
What is one to think about a quick-witted girl with a crown of strawberry blonde hair and a smattering of freckles who could stay up all hours talking books and ideas but who was troubled always and ultimately drank herself to death? What sense is to be made? God’s on His throne, but this doesn’t feel like His plan. (My feelings on the subject are worthless, I know.) God gives us free will—can we miss the plan He has for us? Is that what happened here?
There are more questions than answers. This uneasy place is breeding ground for the familiar feeling of wanting to grip tight and take charge. What if she’d been my sister, my best friend? She was sick, so sick. Couldn’t someone have made her get help? I recognize the fallacy of this thinking as fast as the thoughts come. I’m such a fixer. Is this a good thing or a control thing?
Where does one draw the line between faith moving mountains, doing for the least of these, pouring out mercy—and just plain meddling, trying to butt heads with Management?
And what about Management? Does The Boss preordain? Is He a puppeteer of sorts? Or does He let go, shedding tears all along, allowing things to play out in this fallen world but promising to be there, always with us? I used to favor the former, now I lean toward the latter.
But how do I reconcile such so-called allowances with this trust, this believing in my bones God is sovereign? What’s His management style, micro or macro? I know about the sparrow and the hairs on our head. But I don’t understand this lovely girl with a master’s degree from an Ivy League school who never really held down a job but stayed inside an apartment for years and years and didn’t get better but self-destructed. Where’s the redemption, the crosses-to-crowns in that?
We don’t have to figure out why—I’ve long since given up on that game. Or have I? Are these questions simply a big whiny why in disguise?
Was she a Christian? my girls ask. No, their grandmother answers quietly. They look horrified and then hang their heads. Well, we don’t know, I fumble. And we certainly don’t know what she thought as she lay in a hospital bed slipping away. More questions.
As I get older the distance grows between me and the land of black and white, oh comfortable planet but built by fear!
I’m floating around outside that world of dogma, probably swimming in soft theology, but somehow my heart finally camps out here: God is good—all the time.
I think maybe it’s a place to start.
I’m so sorry. It is never easy to reconcile with things like that. I thnk your conslusion is best. “God is good, all the time.”. I dont think it is important that we understand all of the whys and hows. In our human effort to controll the world around us understanding is key, however, when my allegiance is stuck on God the Father I have to leave all of that to Him. That He is in charge and orchestrating all things to the good for those that believe in Him is enough. It has to be, else I would be in a place not unlike that your friend found herself in.
God bless you and yours, and thanks for sharing.
Thank you…
First, I am sorry to hear of your loss. It makes my heart weep to hear these words, but then, I, too, can’t understand how someone can self-destruct with the goodness of God right there if only they had stretched their fingers to touch His proffered hand. My own pain resonates with yours…I am so sorry.