“God never gives us more than we can handle,”* she said as she leaned to give him a sympathetic kiss. She had no idea that her platitude of sympathy hurt him to his core, as if he was not hurting enough already. He asked himself, “Did she mean that if I was weaker that God would have let my wife live? Am I complicit in my wife’s death because ‘I can handle this’?” A friend grabbed his hand and said, “God must have needed another good one in Heaven.” He thought to himself, “God has needs? God needed my wife more than I needed my wife? God needed to take her?” Arms embraced him and a voice whispered in his ear, “Everything happens for a reason.” “What reason? There were three reasons that God should have let her live, and they were ages three, five and seven.” He could take no more platitudes that piled pain upon his grief. He excused himself from the line of well-meaning mourners who wished to soothe his pain, but instead added to it. His brother caught him and said, “I’m heartsick over her death. I’m so sorry. This is so wrong.” Those words helped, but when he was alone, he raised his fist, shook it, and shouted, “Why?” Let’s Pray: Dear God, we ask You why and hear silence – nothing to satisfy our souls, or soothe our hearts, or heal our minds. Are there no answers in this unordered world? When we are finally with You, please explain it to us. Amen. Here’s a Thought: Share the grief. Visit: dailydevotions.org
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 11:00:00 +0000
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