My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God. -1 John 4:7-10 (MSG)
Late in the darkness of our quiet house, I sat outside the bathroom while my son lay on the floor, lamenting a tummy bug.
“Do you need anything, buddy?”
“No. It just helps to know you’re right there.”
It does, indeed.
And yet it’s hard to be the helpless friend, sitting on the outside of the place all the painful things are happening. At one point he asked why he had to be so sick.
But there is never a good answer to the question of why. There is only ever a good answer to this question: Who?
Who can help me? Who will hold my hand? Who will make all the sad things come untrue?
The world seems to be full of sad things these days.
Hurricanes, poverty, wild fires, broken families, abused children, illnesses that seem unfair and cruel.
This week marks ten years since husband’s best friend went ahead of us to glory.
Many joys have come to us since we lost Tennyson. But all the joys in the world haven’t been able to swallow up the tragic loss of such a dear friend.
Christians are offered a hope beyond this tragic world, an eternal home where all the sad things will one day be made untrue. All the violations, all the injustice, all the pain will be burned up in eternal love, turned from ashes to beauty.
In an unlikely fairy tale, Jesus is the prince who dressed Himself like one of the poor and outcast, then came to live among us. He opened His arms to all our suffering and He became our Immanuel, the God who is ever with us.
It helps to know that God is right here with us, and that he’s more powerful than a mom who rubs your back while you wait for the sickness to pass. He overcame death and sin, standing in our place so that we could become His righteous and holy brothers and sisters. God has come to rescue us from the sad things and carry us to safety. Knowing this helps to bolster our endurance, but it doesn’t immediately take away the pain.
The day after the sickness, my son stayed home from school and indulged in a much-anticipated new book. He drank Gatorade and ate buttered slices of toast while he waited for His body to fully recover.
It’s tempting to find a comfort to distract us from what we are enduring. Our souls sometimes need the blessing of a hot bath, a good meal, or sharing some laughter with a dear friend. But our flesh will always try to turn our comforts into our salvation, and if we allow a good comfort to become our only comfort, we will lose our grip on the gospel as the only truly good thing that we can carry all the way home with us.
I am not taking my favorite sick day movie, You’ve Got Mail, home to heaven with me. My favorite sad day book, Jane Eyre, isn’t coming with me, either. My hot fudge sundaes, bottles of Topo Chico, and coziest sweat pants will not be in my hands when I arrive at God’s throne. Their power to soothe my soul is limited, and once I see God face to face, they will no longer be of any help to me.
I will carry all my faith and love with me, though. One day I will offer God all the nights I sat beside the hurting and prayed for them. I will give Him all the moments He allowed me to hold the pain while only His hope could hold me together. I will see all the mercies that I received, and all the ways I was given a life of which I was not worthy simply because God is love, and He chose to pour Himself out for me.
Someday love will swallow up all the sad things. All because Jesus was right there. I pray you feel Him right here, with you in this moment. And I pray you feel carried and held. Because the truest thing that will ever be true is that you are loved.
Forever and always. You are loved.
