When Things Happen Suddenly

This past week, Monday, as usual, I stopped for lunch at the best place in Lee County to have fifty cent wings.  The place has caught on and every table was being used.  Deciding that I was not going to wait for one, since there was only me anyway, I sat at the beer bar along side a number of other men; ordered my eight wings, medium garlic, extra wet, basket of out of the world fries, and water with extra lemon.  The two televisions were on but not loud enough to hear therefore easy to pick up on two or three other conversations of fellas sitting close by. One of the conversations was between a what seemed to be a man of fifty or so with a tenor of anger in his voice with another man across the counter. I quickly recognized the issue he was talking about from the local media coverage of a traffic death, just prior to Christmas.  In brief, his daughter’s husband had been instantly killed as he was transporting their children to a Christmas celebration party, by a drunk driver. He now was relaying that less than a week later, he was called into the doctor’s examine room with his wife and given the diagnose that his wife is untreatable for lymphoblastic leukemia; in hospice care and would probably die before the end of January. In a flash, this husband, father and grandfather’s life has taken a tragic turn.

As I left that place, I buckled up, started my car but could not bring myself to back out of the space without thinking; this is not an isolated incident. I know better than to think the exaggerated thought that I that I know what life will bring me. Regardless of who I am, whom I know, what worldview I hold, or how much stuff I have or influence I am, I am not privy to the next second of my life. As I think about it, sitting here, journaling, I stop and gasp at the unexpected outcome of a dear friend, my age who had the proverbial "rug" or residence pulled from under him and his wife. I'm thinking of the many family, friends, neighbors, colleagues I know and have known and pause to think of the times I have also not been spared the unexpected turns of life – both for better and for worse.

I think of the uncertainties of life that have naturally left me feeling anxious and insecure.  When life has served me suffering, have I always found an immediate anchor?  Have I always been certain that there is hope, if I’ve held any at all?

I’m also remembering a story told of a widow who had lost her only son. First she lost her husband and then her child. How devastating it must have been for her. Thank You, Father that I’m not in a society where male relatives offered the only stability and status a woman could have, because this woman’s son would have been her only source of support, hope, and strength. Being the only son, she probably invested all of herself into him. He was quite literally her hope and her future.

Now that he was dead, her only hope was gone. She faced an uncertain future. As she followed his body to its place of burial, she was no doubt weeping and overwhelmed with grief and pain. Life held nothing for her anymore, she likely thought. We are told that when Jesus saw her, his heart went out to her. Unlike many situations in the gospels, this widow did not ask or request for help. Yet Jesus reached out to her. "Do not weep," he said in an attempt to comfort, seeing her pain, her situation, and feeling along with her. "Don't cry."

He then did something that no right-minded Jew would do. He touched the casket and said to the dead man, "Arise." He risked being ritually unclean according to Jewish law by touching the casket and his unfathomable words to a dead man no doubt seemed insane to those around him. But the young man immediately got up and spoke. Nothing was recorded about the mother's reaction, but I see in my mind’s eye that she was both shocked and overjoyed. One moment she was completely hopeless, and the next, her entire world was returned to her.

What an ending to a sorrowful story. I realize that her life circumstance somehow reflects the situation I’ve been in and will most assuredly be in again.  I know as I’m writing this, there is someone in my life, a relationship, a situation in which I have given up hope on. How do I proceed?

In this story, Jesus touched death and reversed it; bringing life out of what was dead, making pure what was impure. He did this throughout his ministry again and again, touching those who were dead to touch—whether corpses or lepers or women without voice or means—and bringing healing and new meaning into life. He not only offered hope, but embodied that hope for lives in need of knowing what is real.

I’m convicted that from now on, when I encounter the uncertainties of life and death, Jesus's promise can remain comforting, though perhaps not always with the result I will desire or expect. "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." This is both a personal and real promise—that Christ is always present as I journey through life. What gives credence also is that so many I have come in contact with over the years have come to know this as a hope unlike any other. For the widow, in the biblical story, His presence in the midst of her pain was the first spark of life.

Knowing that Jesus is with me in the struggles and darkness of life keeps me from surrendering completely to my fears and insecurities when uncertainty or tragedy is near. The hope that I clings to is a promise that is affirmed by the God who came near: "Do not be afraid, for I am with you." 

Father,God, thank You for Your promises!  You are the only God, thru Who's promises given are always met.  I may not receive my deceased loved ones like Jesus did for the widow, but I am assured that despite all that life serves me I will not walk through any earthly sojourn alone. Amen