a letter to a grieving friend questioning his faith

 

My friend J____,

Your words leave me grasping for words that don’t smack of buttoned-up pietism or following predictable lines. As I mentioned earlier, I believe the Lord has kept me on an essential fast from offering you words that might lose their impact as soon as they touched your device! It’s now the middle of the night and I feel I’m awakened by God with a direction in response to a repeated cry to him for such.

A couple weeks ago I was in the Poconos of Pennsylvania with Sandy where I served as the guest speaker for an audience of disabled folk at their annual July Camp. I try to only preach what the Father burns into my heart (I wish I always succeeded at this, but it is my fervent intent), and, for reasons known only to him, I was given the task of preaching through the book of Ecclesiastes.

I know. 

It could *only* be his prompting.

Long story short, it was a marvelous dive that was wonderfully received (praise God!) and His gospel came through each session through the book and I believe he got what he was after through it. That became clearly evident as I counseled many in between the chapel services.

During one of the sessions I went off script and shared my story (which you’ve heard) and was asked afterward by a woman who was there as a volunteer if I’d ever been bitter about the whole ‘satan-meant-it-for-evil-God-intended-it-for-good’ drama of my life. Never hesitating, I said “never, not even once.”

It’s been asked of me dozens or more times in these 38 years, and my response has never wavered. It’s always, “Never, Ever.” I usually  go on to explain (as I did that morning with C____) that I prayed for it to happen; that my heart lifted up the offering of my legs to God in an anguished moment of surrender. He took me at face value and, voilà!, I’m a paraplegic. I am often quick to add the disclaimer: in my fevered, youthful zeal, I only meant I was willing to forfeit the ability to walk….and that only temporarily. I had no idea catheters, and pressure sores, and UTI’s, and atrophy, and bowel programs, and a hundred other debilitating, embarrassing, painful, pitiful things would be added into the deal. And for a lifetime. These, my friend – these – I have been known to rail against God about, often with choice words. And these I repent of, for reasons we’ll come to in a bit.

My son, my only child, departed this hard sod in a mean, cruel way. We (Sandy and I) did not fake a Job reaction, we lived it. “The Lord has given, the Lord has taken, blessed be the name of the Lord.” Both of us were wont to expect this would be how the story played out (because of Graham’s addiction roulette), had been waiting for the ‘phone call’ for years, not to mention prepared for it with grieving grace. The controversy with God came when we asked if he couldn’t have intervened and overwritten the genetic code with which our Graham came pre-packaged. Why, God? We accepted his death as a mercy to pull him from the self-cannibalism of addiction but wondered often why he couldn’t have been fixed.

I’m less argumentative today with the rabbi who lost a child, was eventually brought to the conclusion that God cannot be both all loving and all powerful at the same time, and wrote a bestseller about it. The rabbi waved a white flag as an acceptance mechanism that God didn’t head the tragedy off at the pass because he couldn’t, not wouldn’t. He and I part ways at his dreadful conclusion, but I do understand the pain that brought him to it.

God is all-loving, all-suffering, all-powerful, all-in, all-active, all-supportive. These truths keep me from falling away. Suffering on the scale that I have known has made me a mixture of both Arminian and Calvinist. I hold tightly to the theological rung of God‘s sovereignty; but my other hand is equally holding on to the rung of prevenient grace, that God is trusting me to hold to him for all he’s worth even when reason tells me to flee.

I had the opportunity to preach at a black church a week ago (pastored by a beloved friend I’m mentoring) and shared with the congregants the prosperity gospel of Paul. It is found in 2 Corinthians 12 and summed up in the word “weakness.” In the message I declared that my paralysis and all that comes with it, and my daily grieving for our son, has been used of God to heal the deeper afflictions of my soul: my self-godship.

When I take up a “self-pity cross” and rage against God and question his love, each and every time – whether immediately or after a season of soulish pouting – I am lovingly brought to repentance by the kindness of God. He implores me in these mercies to lay that one down and take up the cross of his design, the one for which he gives me grace to carry. I know full well when I am carrying the wrong cross, for those are the times I strive to expose him for the despot I think him to be, and all is vanity and meaninglessness.

I think I have a better grasp on why the Preacher of Ecclesiastes said going to the house of mourning is better than going to the house of feasting. Death – and mourning – have to do with resurrection (life to come), while feasting, as good and wonderful as these times can be, does not teach us we are created for something more but rather occupies us with this world.

My body would prefer my legs, and my soul would prefer my son and having some grandkids, but these fit into the category of “temporal“ things (2 Cor 4:18). Ah, but let’s not put too exact a period there – perhaps an ellipsis would do better – for an all-loving God has grace for temporal things too. It’s just that he has his eyes set on what’s after the temporary blessings of life. And so my heart prefers his plan, trusts his ways, and leans hard into his love. His love conquers all (Rom 8:31-39).

I believe these are the things the Father has awakened me to share with you, and I will trust that they might be an encouragement. Bless you, my brother. I have grieved with you … and all affected by this suffocating tragedy, and have done so nonstop.

I pray to God that none of these words sound Christian-ese, but because God woke me up, I believe they are what is on his heart for you. I remain, as ever, available to listen, to wait, and to understand throughout this process of venting and grieving. Believe me, Sandy and I know this familiar place.

All for Jesus,

Scott