Early vs late...

Dear Sara,

It's either very early or very late.  I guess it's really a matter of perspective.  Tonight is the first night that I just can't go to sleep.  I'm not even tired.  It's 2:00AM and I haven't come close to sleeping since I first tried almost 3 hours ago.  Maybe all the sleep I have been getting has finally caught up with me.  I'm not sure, but it presents another opportunity to talk to you through this keyboard.

My reading today (yesterday, actually) sparked a flame to a thought that's been wandering around my mind since your funeral.  I'm still trying to flesh it all the way out.  The reading talked about the phrase "it must have been God's will" or "it must have been God's plan" (is there a difference?...different argument, different day.)  It's something people say all to frequently to those who are grieving, and I've probably said it myself, but I'm not sure it's really the truth. I think it's a half truth we say more to protect ourselves and avoid awkward conversation than to actually provide comfort to the grieving.

I wonder, as Christians, if we've managed to confuse God's omniscience with God's will/plan.  I don't believe that this was God's plan for you, for Miranda, or for me.  I have a hard time believing I'll ever think that.  I believe God knew it would happen, but that doesn't mean it was His plan or His will.  I think Pastor Mark really was onto something in his message at your memorial service.

The Word tells us that God has plans to prosper us and not to harm us.  This is a message that is repeated throughout the Word.  However, we also read that bad things will happen to good people and good things will happen to bad people.  And then there's Death.  Death was never part of God's plan.  Death entered this world as the result of sin.  God's plan was for a perfect eternal communion between Himself and the man (and woman) He created in His own image.  Sin, the harbinger of death, interrupted that plan.

The story of Lazarus, in John 11, contains the shortest verse in the Bible, "Jesus wept."  The story around it tells us that Jesus was so moved by Mary and Martha's weeping for their brother that he himself wept.  I wonder if there wasn't more to it?  I wonder if Jesus' tears were partly in recognition that the sacrifice he was soon to make, while providing us with a means to reach the Father, wouldn't be enough to take away the pain of death? That until He comes again, until death is defeated, that His children will have to suffer the pain of loss and grief.  That even with the hope of the resurrection, we will still hurt when those we love are taken from us, especially when it feels premature.  I think Jesus weeping was a lot more complex than the situation.

I don't know, maybe I'm completely off track with this line of thinking.  I know God has a plan for us.  But I think that that plan gets distorted and broken because we live in a broken world.  That doesn't mean He stops caring.  That doesn't mean He doesn't weep with us.  I think it just means we have to rely on Him to heal us, and help us get to the end of the race, to that place where His perfect plan can no longer be derailed by the broken world we leave behind.

"Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come,
Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heav’n and home,
When Jesus is my portion? My constant Friend is He:
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free,
For His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

“Let not your heart be troubled,” His tender word I hear,
And resting on His goodness, I lose my doubts and fears;
Though by the path He leadeth, but one step I may see;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free,

For His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

Whenever I am tempted, whenever clouds arise,

When songs give place to sighing, when hope within me dies,
I draw the closer to Him, from care He sets me free;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free,

For His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me."

Civilla D. Martin - Matthew 10:29-31

I wonder if this doesn't help explain why Jesus wept.  He watches us so closely, cares about us so much, that the pain of our loss, my loss, affects Him just as deeply as it does us/me.  Did he weep because he knows this wasn't the plan?

I'm starting to feel like sleep my finally be on its way for me.  I hope my rambling makes a little bit of sense.

I love you.  I miss you.  Give Miranda a kiss from daddy.

Love, 

Chad