When Life Doesn’t Make Sense !
- Post # 17
When Life Doesn’t Make Sense !
Howdy!
And once again I say welcome aboard. Whether you prescribe to the whole creation story or not, with the garden of Eden, and how sin entered the world, you have to admit that this world of ours is broken, seriously twisted on so many levels. I’m not going to be the glass half empty guy here , because things can always be much worse, and they seem to move in that direction just a little bit more every day. If you go back to some of my earlier post about Covid , when the world was crumbling around so many people, there was also a lot of good taking place as well, but we automatically gravitate towards the negative. You know the news, “if it bleeds ,then it leads ” . There are no shortages of horrific things that we see in the news, and one of the saddest things is how we have become numb and desensitized to it. . We look on in disbelief as we see parents fearing for their kids at another school shooting . Perhaps it a prominent politician or spiritual leader caught up in some scandal with sex or money. There is always some world catastrophe going on, earthquake, hurricane, mud slides and of course wars, thank you Mr.Putin. The story of injustice and suffering is as old as the dust of the earth. And if you have been on the planet for any length of time and made your share of trips around the sun, then you know first hand about some form of heart ache, pain , or disappointment. None of us get to go through life unscathed. There is no shortage of personal tragedies or personal stories, and each one , should quake our hearts to the core. I was just the other day talking to a friend of mine down outside of Atlanta. They have been house shopping, and in her travels she ran across a lady, going through a divorce, dealing with cancer treatment after having a double mastectomy, and on top of that, having to find a new place to live. This is where that saying comes from about when it rains , it pours. I must confess that a lot of times when I see, things going on that may warrant tears, I always think that those events as going on in other people’s lives and families, not mine. The question then becomes, what happens when it hits close to home? The truth is that none of us are exempt from getting that phone call in the middle of the night. Whether you prescribe to being lucky or blessed, we are all vulnerable to the unexpected. Here is the one for me that hit to close to home . Back before Christmas last year, a series of tornadoes swung through Tennessee. This couple that my ex and I were friends with and our kids played together. We did church and some home school events with them as well. I could give more background, but I think you get the picture. Anyway, they had four kids, and their oldest daughter was living in, you guessed it…Tennessee. Her and her husband had four boys and they had been holding out hope for a little girl, which she was now pregnant with. Please forgive me for skimming over some of the details, because it still brings great sorrow to me. They were caught up in the tornado and lost everything, and everything can be tremendously over used at times, because a lot of stuff can just be replaced, because it is just stuff. The things that are irreplaceable, is everything. Their daughter suffered a brain injury and was in a coma. They took or delivered the baby girl , prematurely. The baby lived for a week and then died. Their daughter lived almost three months in a coma, but she subcome to her injuries as well and went to be with Jesus. Where is the sense in this? , how do we wrap our minds around parents having to bury children and grandchildren? I’m going to lighten the mood a little bit, by telling you that God has a sense of humor. When ever I look at a situation, be it someone’s life choices or the fate that befell them, and make some kind of rash judgment about them and their situation, as in saying “that could never happen to me”, or “i would never choose that”, God has this way of letting me know that I’m not above the fray, and if not for the grace of God, there go I. Just a quick example is how I thought about other couples who experienced divorce, before my wife and i took, that journey. Yeah! , you guessed it those words came out of my mouth, that could never happen to us, turns out….not so much, ! because it did. I think that we all believe that things like being a junkie, or homeless, or abused, couldn’t happen to us, but the truth is you would be surprised. There are many avenues for misery and misfortune . The line between being this or that is very thin. We try to reassure our security with insurance policies, or bank accounts, 401 k plans and the like, but as the saying goes, the only two things that are sure in life is taxes and death, and I think that the pandemic made that real for a lot of people. If, you wish to make it a little brighter, think that life will be full of change and sometimes joys or sorrows. There will always be sad stories in life, be it around the world or even next door. You know the guy, who shoots up his job, and all the neighbors saying what a nice guy that he was, or the neighbor on the other side who beats his wife. We aren’t exempt from tragedy and if you believe that you are, you are only kidding yourself. Here is one more for you before I bring this train into the station. In New York, or just of the coast, there is something known as heart island. It was used as a POW camp by the Union during the Civil War. Since then the city has used it for a cemetery for the unclaimed dead, or people that no one cared about. At the height of the pandemic, people who had saved their whole life to ensure that they would be taken care of, guessed what? , yep ended up in heart’s Island. Peoples who sometimes chose success over a family life, and put their trust in wealth , slipped through the cracks. They thought that they were all set, but do to a chaotic world or untrustworthy executors, they ended up in or at hearts island. No matter how hard we try, we can never have all of the bases covered. Lets turn the page, this is not a condemnation, more of an observation , but I really don’t know how people make it in life without God, or a hope that there is more to come. I have a cousin who is a mortician, and he sees it all the time and what a difference it makes at a grave side to know that this is not the end. When believers greave, it is because of loss and knowing that there will be separation, loss and longing to have that loved one around,, but its not because you will never see them again. Such sorrow for those who don’t know or have that hope. A couple of post ago, I was challenged with the question of why or how does God let bad things happen to little kids. First and foremost let me answer that question for you with a resounding I don’t know! I am not God, and I will go on the record stating that I would never want that job, even though I have my moments. Some how God works all of the things that we can’t understand or get our minds around for His purposes. As I just said, I don’t know how all of this works, but sometimes on the backside of things I catch a glimpse of what He is up too, and even then, I wrestle with, couldn’t it have been done in a better way and without so much pain.? One of my dearest friends in the world had his son killed in a drug deal. At the time it seemed senseless and a high price to pay for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I watched as he and his wife grieved the loss of their only son. God used the death of Jeff to reach so many other lives and people, that didn’t previously have that hope that I was talking about earlier. I said it before, God doesn’t waste our pain. My friend and his wife, now lead a ministry known as “grief share”, and they have helped hundreds of people deal with and process their grief, after losing loved ones. Some how God uses things that were meant for evil and turn them on their perspective heads. He some how makes beauty from the ashes and messes that we make of our lives. Ultimately, this was displayed at Calvary, evil intentions, turned into blessings for all generations and all people. I have ,as you know been struggling with a personal loss of my own, with my last relationship. I would not dare to begin to put it on the same level with parents burying their children, however the premise remains the same, I’ve gained pain, that some how God will use, and I don’t understand what happened there, and can’t get my mind around something that made so much sense, well at least to me anyway. Life can be extremely hard and difficult at times and we have different temperaments and breaking points. We all process grief and pain differently. The working of my mind is very aware how different we can be, and we definitely live in a nation with many different divisions. I can’t ever remember a time when there were so many voices vying for our attention and wanting to grab the microphone. When I got to my first reserve post, I dealt with a fair share of Vietnam vets, and it perplexed me as how guys who were in the same theater of operations were changed so differently by the same events. Some came back and ran fortune 500 companies and others became homeless and dysfunctional based on the things that they saw and were forced to do. Again, if not for the grace of God, there go I, and it doesn’t have to be about a war. I know for those of you who don’t believe, this may sound like a conversation between Charlie Brown and his teacher. I can’t tell you why bad things happen and why bad people sometimes live great or prosperous lives. I just know that God has got this and somehow He works it for good, even when we can’t or don’t get to see it. I can tell you honestly that I believe with all of my heart God could have prevented that tornado from disrupting their lives, and could have kept Jeff from being killed, and every other horrible thing in life. He is not weak, or discompassionate, or incapable, and while He doesn’t cause these things to happen, He does allow it for some greater good, that we are not always privy too. Again , I don’t have all the answers and I’m not going to pretend to. God doesn’t always deliver us from tough things, but He never abandon us and He walks with us through those tough seasons in life. Often He is preparing us for something else, such as with Jeff’s parents, or refining us and strengthening our faith and trust in Him, and I can tell you first hand , is easier sad than done. One final note, I sometimes rag on social media, because I sometimes see more harm than good, and it reminds me of some of the reality TV shows, they only show you the reality that they want you to see😀. In this thing of when life doesn’t make sense, I will give social media props for the “Go Fund Me” campaigns ,it has help ease a lot of suffering for people, when life’s unexpected turns take place.
Till next time ✌️
Sandy The Southerner
