Love not the World

Hard to say how that works in practice but I've heard the greatest source of disillusionment is.... illusions. (duh). Losing our only son (24) to cancer recently (5/28/08) caused me to question the value of many things I thought were precious and/or important. "You wouldn't know a diamond if you held it in your hand - The things you think are precious I just can't understand" - Thank Donald Fagen/Michael Becker for that great line (Reeling in the Years)

What doesn't change in value is the hope we have in Jesus Christ - its hard to argue with the experiential reality of suffering, death, resurrection - as opposed to some merely metaphysical constructs. I always said I never liked to ask my staff to do anything I wouldn't do, particularly dangerous or boring things - God has done that in spades through Jesus Christ. Oddly, He both suffered, and lost a Son (nice to be the mystery of 3 in 1 to make that all work)

We were given a wonderful book called "When Life Takes What Matters" by Susan Lenzkes - normally I cringe when I think about giving someone who is grieving a book - but this one was a blessing indeed. As she so potently observed, the question I need to be wrestling with now is not WHY did Jon die (you'll notice Job never got that WHY question answered either - at least not in his earthly life) but rather HOW is God glorified in this - how will this be redeemed to His glory'?

Asking 'why?' ultimately has to lead to despair - and eventually a questioning of God's goodness, purpose, love and even His competence. Asking 'how will this fall out to God's glory and my good?' - contains hope, faith and the exhortation to have the courage to wait for something that will be observable - when is not made clear, but there is still that hope.

In John 11:4 Jesus says "... This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby..."; Martha more or less openly rebukes Jesus for not being there to save her brother Lazarus, then enters into a challenging religious dialog about the future resurrection - yet though she brought up the same accusation, Mary fell at his feet and wept. Both saw the hope of the resurrection as a 'type' in Lazarus - on that day I'd have rather been in Mary's state of mind - but I'm more often like Martha (or the Samaritan woman at the well). Oh, and of course what no one ever mentions - Lazarus did eventually die - old age, or sickness, or something - but he surely must have died or we'd probably have some glorious mention of it preserved - like for Enoch and Elijah.

Losing our son like this hurts like nothing I've ever experienced before - kidney stones included (they have excellent meds for that pain) - so how exactly does one do this 'well' (or at all), and look with hope to God's glory in it all? Granted we've gotten foretastes - brief images of things we could not have imagined; its a mighty hard road right now and those brief insights are like those little shiny markers on a dark and unfamiliar road.