The Why of Grief

Recently I've written about grief. I mentioned that when my mom died, I felt quite unraveled. While missing her terribly, I could acknowledge the reality that her entrance to heaven represented a wonderful upgrade from her earthly life. True for anyone, but my mother had suffered much in this world and mentioned before her death a need for a vacation. She sure got one.

Currently I am dealing with a dear friend in a coma. Unlike my mother, this woman faces life with gusto. She serves God at our church with youth. She has young adult children she anchors and mentors. A granddaughter she has helped to raise. She is the most optimistic person I know. Laughs at everything. Tells me every time we talk, "love you much," and means it.

Heaven is an upgrade for anyone, but it's harder with someone like this to discern why she needs to depart so soon.

We always want to know why. We detest randomness. We know God is a God of order, so life cannot be random. When situations make little sense, we protest. Or at least I know I do.

If we can find a logical answer, we can avoid that circumstance. If we can blame something concrete, we know how to stay safe.

But that doesn't work, not for the children at Sandy Hook, or my friend, or many others who suddenly face death without a logical reason.

I don't understand why. And that ranckles me.

But I am comforted by the reminder that as much as death seems the enemy, death is really the door to eternity, and although we don't want to pass that way in haste, it is actually a door to freedom and glory. These words comfort me:

The righteous perish,
    and no one takes it to heart;
the devout are taken away,
    and no one understands
that the righteous are taken away
    to be spared from evil.
² Those who walk uprightly
    enter into peace;
    they find rest as they lie in death. Isaiah 57:1-2

I have no specific answer why my friends is being taken away while so young, so useful, so loved, so needed. But I do rejoice that she will find rest in death. She does deserve that.