When faith is hard to hold ...
"The peace of God passes all understanding,'' Scripture tells us. But there other things that pass understanding as well: an insane milkman lining up young girls in an Amish schoolhouse and shooting them dead.
This is one of those stories that can shake your faith. We understand that God gives us all the terrible freedom to get sick, to do evil. And yet we wish, we pray for a miracle somehow. A gun that would not fire, a lightning bolt striking with pinpoint accuracy. And when no miracle happens and the blood of children spatters a blackboard, what do we do? Some of us weep with Jesus, some of us watch our own precious children with a keen eye and some of us do both.
I think of a Bruce Springsteen song, "Souls of the Departed:'' A kid dies in a schoolyard shooting, caught in the crossfire of a gang war. "Tonight, as I tuck my own son in bed,'' the singer calls out, "All I can think of is what if it had been him instead. I want to build me a wall so high nothing can burn it down -- right here on my own piece of dirty ground.''
To keep them safe -- it's all we really want. Now and then it seems like the peace of God is so hard to find.
This is one of those stories that can shake your faith. We understand that God gives us all the terrible freedom to get sick, to do evil. And yet we wish, we pray for a miracle somehow. A gun that would not fire, a lightning bolt striking with pinpoint accuracy. And when no miracle happens and the blood of children spatters a blackboard, what do we do? Some of us weep with Jesus, some of us watch our own precious children with a keen eye and some of us do both.
I think of a Bruce Springsteen song, "Souls of the Departed:'' A kid dies in a schoolyard shooting, caught in the crossfire of a gang war. "Tonight, as I tuck my own son in bed,'' the singer calls out, "All I can think of is what if it had been him instead. I want to build me a wall so high nothing can burn it down -- right here on my own piece of dirty ground.''
To keep them safe -- it's all we really want. Now and then it seems like the peace of God is so hard to find.
posted by Michael Riley at 3:43 PM
4 Comments:
Can only pray for their families - the victims' and the criminal's and hug your own children a little tighter!
In 2 Corinthians 12:10, St. Paul tells us:
Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
I am no fan of yours, Riley. At the same time, and despite what you may think, I don't dislike you either. That said, you are at the top of your game when you, much like a weakened St. Paul, are humble and seemingly without answers.
This last blog of yours was the best writing I've seen from you in months. You had something substantial to say, but at the same time, and in your humility, you readily admit that you have precious little to offer in the way of explanations or answers. Instead, you call upon your readers to have faith, even when it is difficult -- particularly when it is difficult -- to do just that.
No one has any answers for why a loving God would allow those Amish children to be raped and slaughtered by a butcher. Nor do we have any answers when other scenarios that shake our faith present themselves. Walk by the chapel of any children's hospital and you'll likely find a father on his knees, tears streaming down his face while he prays for a miracle, praying that God will take him instead -- instead of his little girl. We'll have precious little to offer him in a few hours when the doctors break the news and when, in his agony, he screams out "WHY?" to the very heavens above. This much I know.
There is no end to number of times we humans will ask God "why?," particularly when bad things happen to the most innocent around us. And for most of us that ask that question, the answers will never come -- at least not in this lifetime. But yet, have faith we must. We must have faith that there is some divine purpose that will make sense of our suffering, even if it is, now, beyond our comprehension.
We need that faith when we are at our weakest and seemingly without answers. Whether we realize it or not, and the inherent contradiction notwithstanding, the irony is that we are never stronger than when we are weak. For inspiration, we need look no further than to Calvary. For it was there where a weakened Christ quoted the Psalmist and, in His agony, cried out: "My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?" In was in that moment of weakness that Christ was His strongest. It was at that moment when He redeemed a world.
Once again, congratulations on a writing a great column.
"It was in that moment of weakness that Christ was his strongest."
I wrote "in" by mistake. Please pardon the typo.
I read that ,ironically, there was a hand-hewn sign in the schoolhouse that read: "visitors bring us joy"...God Rest their souls..
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