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Joyful Mourning
by Charles Pedley
There is an old story about a Christian who got so taken up with zeal for evangelism after special meetings that he went out of the church immediately and hurried up the street looking for someone to witness to.
Seeing a drunk in an alley, with his zeal at full tilt, but his brain perhaps a little behind, he shouted at the drunk, “Are you ready to die?” The drunk jumped up and ran down the street screaming, “NO! NO! NO!”
He thought the Christian was going to kill him!
We are prepared for many things in life.
We spend at least 12 years in school, 3 or 4 years in college for many, just so that we may be prepared for the job market. We are given premarital counselling by our good pastors, so that they can try to prepare us for marriage. But, we receive NO specific training for perhaps the most difficult things that we face in life.
Are you ready for tragedy? Are you prepared to mourn?
What course can anyone give us to help us go through the most difficult experiences in life such as the terminal sickness or the death of a loved one?
If someone tried to, would we listen? WE don’t like thinking or talking about death.
When do we ever turn to our spouse and say, “Dear, if you get very sick, here is my plan!”
We dismiss those possibilities from even the back of our minds. Who but a sadist would want to dwell on them?
So, how can we be prepared for them?
WE DON’T GO TO SCHOOL FOR YEARS TO LEARN HOW.
WE DON’T GET PRE-TRAGEDY TRAINING FROM PASTORS.
We FORGET ABOUT IT and dwell on the good things in life and well we should!.
COULD WE GO ON BEING POSITIVE ABOUT LIFE IF WE THOUGHT CONSTANTLY ABOUT WHAT COULD POSSIBLY HAPPEN?
WHEN IS THE LAST TIME THAT YOU EVER HEARD A SERMON ON GRIEF?
CAN YOU JUST IMAGINE THE BILLBOARD OUTSIDE THE CHURCH. “Come Sunday and hear our Pastor talk about SORROW!”
I’m afraid it would be a SORROWFUL Sunday for attendance!
Many might find it a good week to go away and visit relatives!
Who wants to think about sad things that could happen?
And so, we are often not prepared when they come.
Some harbour roots of bitterness, thinking without ever saying it, when tragedy strikes, “If this is what you are going to do to me, God, then I will not serve you anymore!”
How could there be a God, when a 6-year old son dies of heart problems? Ask my mother-in-law, Katie Noakes. It was her son!
How could God be good when he takes away your young husband, 27 years old after battling Hodgkin’s disease for four years, and leaves you a widow at 26? Ask my daughter, Rebecca Woodworth Laird. She lived it!
If we did not know better, even as a Christian, we could harbour resentment toward God when an accident takes the life of someone we love. Oh we probably would never say it. We know what it says in Romans about all things working together for good to them that are called according to his purpose, but do we really believe that or do we draw back from having faith?
We could ask God, why would you let this happen to me?
We could ever so slightly just change our thinking about God and stop praying for people in faith. “If God did not spare my loved one, why would he spare anyone else’s?”
Oh we don’t usually verbalize those feelings. We know we should not question God.
We know we should be in church, so we keep coming (at least most of us). But perhaps we quit coming to prayer meetings. Why pray when God is going to do what he is going to do?
We know we should love God with all our minds and will and strength but we can lose our edge. Some of our will to do “God things” is gone. Some of our strength is sapped away if we do not face tragedies in our lives head on and come out on God’s side!
WE are used to thinking, “What a bad day this was!” Come on, you’ve said to someone, “What a rotten day I had yesterday!” and then proceeded to tell them how bad it was!
Lately, I have come to a new realization in my life! It all comes out of a scripture that I have known for years but only lately has taken on new meaning.
After my son-in-law, passed away, one day I was having a grieving moment as I was driving my van. I was thinking back on the almost 4 years that Tedd was sick and of the little miracles that kept him alive for that long after being diagnosed with Stage 3 Hodgkin’s disease.
Why did his heart start beating again after stopping for what seemed like minutes during surgery? Why did he bounce back from the round of chemotherapy so that he was pronounced well in July that year?
When he learned that the disease had come back in November, why did he survive the bone marrow transplant process when 25% do not make it?
Why did he tie the record for transplant patients being released from University of Michigan Hospital if he was only going to die 2 years later anyway?
I was asking God these questions. Even though my attitude was right, I was saying, “God I don’t understand! Why did we go through 3.5 years of hopes and healings only to have him pass away in July 1998? Why did you not take him back in 1995 when he was first diagnosed?”
I was saying to God, “I just don’t understand! Why was it so drawn out if you were just going to take him anyway, God?”
And I heard a voice in my head, answering, “So that YOU WOULD BE FOUND FAITHFUL!”
I knew it was a voice straight from God! I had asked and he had answered and it made sense. I had a feeling of awe come over me. Tears of joy streamed down my cheeks. So part of the reason my son-in-law was sick is so that I would learn to do what God wanted me to do! So that I would be there for him when his parents couldn’t. I wish I could have learned that another way, but this was God giving me the answer to my question.
Psalm 139 verse 16 says
Psa 139:16 Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance; And in thy book they were all written, Eventhe days that were ordainedfor me, When as yet there was none of them. (KJV)
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them. (NKJV)
Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them. (NASB)
And when we read this verse, how can we ever say that we are having a bad day again?
How can we ever grow cold toward our Lord when he tells us that HE fashioned, HE ORDAINED, He purposed, He Scheduled EVERY DAY OF OUR LIVES BEFORE THERE WAS ONE OF THEM!
Glenn, that little boy of 6 who died was SCHEDULED to die! When Pastor Tedd died surrounded by the church that grew to love him in that year he was there , IT WAS ORDAINED! It was purposed! It was SCHEDULED!
God I may not understand your SCHEDULES! But I accept them! I know that we are called children and he is called the Father for a reason! Your children will never understand everything you as parents tell them to do! I certainly did not when I was a kid! But an age of understanding comes when you do!
And like tragedies and sorrows in our lives, THEY TOO are scheduled!
God knew before we were ever born that he COULD NOT ONLY TRUST US TO GET THROUGH THESE HARD TIMES but LEARN FROM THEM AND HELP OTHERS who are going to go through them in the future!
“...SCHEDULED EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE BEFORE THERE WAS ONE OF THEM!”
I don’t understand God, but I LOVE YOU !
I hurt God, but I LOVE YOU!
I don’t know how I will get through another day, BUT I LOVE YOU!
You SCHEDULED this and I SURRENDER TO YOUR SCHEDULE!
I GIVE UP MY OWN SCHEDULE AND SURRENDER TO YOURS!
Please forgive me for not understanding!
I love you!
As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!
How about you?
Have you had any bad things happen to you?
How do you feel about them? What reactions occur when you think of them? Do you get upset? Angry? Or have you purposed in your heart to surrender to the purposes of God, even though you don’t understand them?
Your happiness, your joy, for the rest of your life depend on your answer!
I hope and pray that you decide to live FOR God, WITH God, and IN God.
“(Act 17:28) for in him we live, and move, and have our being.....”
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