A time to mourn

I remember when I was first trying to process the death of my father.  There was so much about what had happened that didn’t make any sense.  I had no theological categories to put this in, at least ones that brought any comfort.  In moments of unexplainable pain, words and answers can become very cheap.  What was I supposed to do with this?

This is one way some of my questions were answered for me. 

I saw this wall, with pegs on it. This is what I heard:  These pegs represent places to put questions we have about the things that happen to us in this life.  When things come along that we don’t understand,, we hang that on a peg.  Oh trust me, the questions won’t go away.  They still linger, but it no longer haunts.  I believe that God is infinitely larger than us and any problem we may face, so in a tangible way, we are acknowledging our total dependence and trust in Him by hanging our questions on a peg.  I’ve come to learn that life is never just about answers, because sometimes there are none.  It’s about trusting the One we take our questions to.  It’s about believing we are loved, and learning to trust in the One who love us.

There have been times in my life when I get an answer, and I can go up to one of those pegs and pull one off.  There are some that have been hanging up there for a very long time, and some, if I can be honest with you, I know I’ll never get taken down.  So, there they hang.  And I’m learning to be okay with that, as I continue to learn to trust. 

So, I just put another thing on a peg, this time that “thing” is Miley.  I don’t have an answer, just tears.  I can’t make it go away, but we can hug.  This makes absolutely no sense at all.  But in the middle of the pain, here is what I’m praying:  that the God who is ever present, the one who is close to us today — as close as those notes were in chapel yesterday — that we sense He is walking through this with us, not separate from us; sharing our pain, not removed from it; bringing us comfort, as One who knows what it means to need it.  Because:

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

A time to weep, and a time to laugh;

A time to mourn, and a time to dance!

For us, it’s time to mourn.  But one day, we will dance!

Text for the week:  Ecclesiastes 3:1 & 4