Yesterday I made a sad trip to Charlotte’s Presbyterian Hospital. As I pulled into the parking garage I could feel the weight in my heart growing. Walking down the hallway to the hospice unit, I prayed that God would help to keep my emotions in check and that He would give me the words to share. I was getting ready to say goodbye to one of the sweetest souls I have ever known. Susan Bailey Law was in my youth group at First Baptist in Charlotte. Mary and I loved her and her family. Her parents, Martha and Bill worked in the youth ministry; her brother Brian is one of the smartest guys I have every known; and her sister Dana always made us laugh. Susan was one of those special individuals whom everyone easily loved. She was one of a kind. Susan and her husband Jerel served the Lord together. For the past several years they have served as church planters north of Charlotte. God blessed them with three wonderful children.
I had the honor of praying for Susan and with the family yesterday afternoon. This morning at 5:30, Susan looked directly into the eyes of her Lord and Savior. I envy her.
But what about Jerel who has lost his best friend? What about the three children who will face life without their mother? What about Martha and Bill who will now bury a second child. Their first born died when he was just a year old. What about Brian and Dana? What about a church family who is grieving? What about a host of friends – all of whom were praying for a healing? Holding on to your faith when God does not make sense is a challenge. The death of such a young wife with three young children in such a loving marriage is one of the greatest challenges a husband could ever face. The death of a child is one of the greatest if not the greatest challenge a parent could ever face. The death of one with so much life ahead, is like putting the period in the middle of a sentence, it does not make any sense. It does not belong.
When I conducted the funeral service for my wife’s grandmother, she was 101 years old. We celebrated her life. Her death was a natural next step as she moved into God’s heaven. It made sense.
Through 35 years of ministry, I have walked with many people through experiences and sorrows that were not easily understood. Examples of inexplicable sorrows and difficulties could fill the shelves of the world’s largest library. Almost every person could contribute illustrations of his or her own. In a world were innocent people suffer, we are challenged in our faith.
I have watched individuals deal with cancer, kidney failure, heart disease, cerebral palsy, down’s syndrome, divorce, rape, loneliness, rejection, depression, failure, death, these and thousands of other sources of human suffering produce inevitable questions of the soul. “Why would God permit this to happen?” “If God is so loving, why did He not stop this?” It has been my observation that the Lord does not typically rush in to explain everything to us.
The Lord says in Isaiah 55:8-9 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the LORD. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”
The simple truth is we lack the capacity to grasp God’s infinite mind or the way He intervenes in our lives. It is okay to say, “I don’t know or I don’t understand… this makes no sense.” But we can also say, “I am willing to trust God in spite of my lack of knowledge and understanding. In spite of my pain, I am willing to trust God.”
In spite of the pain, we can celebrate Susan’s life… celebrate a life that was fully lived.
We read in Romans 11:33–36, “Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways! For who can know the LORD’s thoughts? Who knows enough to give him advice? And who has given him so much that he needs to pay it back? For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. All glory to him forever! Amen.”
We see in the Bible that there are times when God brought healing, such as the blind man, the cripple, the lepers; He even raised Lazarus from the dead. We also read in scripture when he does not heal, or rather heals in a different way, such as Paul’s thorn in the flesh. God saved Daniel from the lion’s den, but did not save Paul from the executioner’s ax. God saved Noah and his family from the flood, but did not save Steven from the stones of his enemy’s. God saved David from King Saul’s attempts to kill David, but did not heal David’s new born son.
We read in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” The truth of this passage is that we will not have the total picture until we meet God in his kingdom. We must learn to accept partial understanding now, knowing we will have full understanding in his kingdom. I have always thought that my first word in heaven would probably something like, “Oh.”
So, let us then focus on what we do know and what we can understand. The Bible tells us that each person has an appointed time… to be born, to die.
Psalm 139:16 says, “You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.”
Not many people know their time, but Susan did. She fought hard, prayed long and increased her faith. She was prepared for God to answer her prayer in a different way. There were many promises in scripture for her to hold to…
Romans 8:38–39, “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
God used Susan among her friends and family. She showed us how to live while facing death. Did she want to live? Absolutely. Did she want to leave her husband and three precious children? No way. Was she ready to face death? Without a doubt!
The Bible tells us in Proverbs 3:5, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.” We are not prohibited from trying to understand. We are specifically told not to lean on our ability to make the pieces fit. “Leaning” refers to the panicky demand for answers, throwing faith to the wind if a satisfactory response cannot be produced. It is pressing God to explain himself or else. That is when everything starts to unravel.
I cannot explain why such a deplorable disease such as cancer even exists. I do not have tidy answers that will satisfy. I have no airtight explanations. I reject simplistic theology that suggest, “God must have needed Susan in heaven.” Nonsense! A loving Father does not tear the heart out of a loving husband for selfish purposes. God does not remove a loving mother from her three children because he needs her in heaven. We must acknowledge that we have been given too few facts to explain all the heartache in this imperfect, fallen world. The understanding will have to await the coming of the sovereign Lord who promises to set straight all accounts and end all injustice.
Jesus said, in John 10:10, “The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.”
Satan hates us because we are the crowning achievement of God’s creation. Satan hates anything God loves. He is out to destroy us. He hates marriages, because God invented them. He hates families because they are God’s design. But Jesus’ purpose is to give us a full and abundant life. He is not talking about material possession. He is talking about purpose and meaning… a reason to get out of bed in the morning… a reason to live this one life we have to the fullest.
God desires a personal relationship with you. You can have that full and meaningful life through Jesus Christ and only through Jesus Christ. If Susan could speak to us, she would tell us, “It is all true… everything the Bible says about God, Jesus, heaven… it is all true.”
“If anyone calls on the name of the Lord and believes that he was raised from the dead they shall be saved.” Christ’s resurrection is what sealed the deal for me. Just last year I was standing in the Garden Tomb area in Jerusalem… where Jesus was buried. I looked inside the tomb… it was still empty.
God’s proclamation is true; God’s presence is real; God’s purpose is pure. You can live your life to survive. You can live your life for success. Or you can choose to live your life at the highest level - significance. Susan chose to be significant.
To those of us left behind, God can mend our broken hearts… but we have to give him all the pieces.
