In our Thanksgiving Day group of seventeen, there was a friend's father-in-law who joined us. In our post-supper sharing time, it came to light that he was a pastor in the midwest and that his first wife had died in a car accident over a decade ago, in a car driven by her own 16 year old son. When I later asked him how he managed that event in his life, he told me that it "took him apart". He said he couldn't sleep, he couldn't eat, he couldn't function. He was left with four grieving boys to raise on his own. When the boys grew up and left home, he hated to come home at night to an empty house. He eventually found our friend's widowed mother and they happily married each other.
Since he was a pastor, I asked him if God ever "spoke" to him, did he ever get any light on such a devastating event? He said, "No, nothing." He then added this explanation, which I am paraphrasing here. I found it to be both wise and consistent with my own experience. He said, "The Bible says this broken world is sentenced to decay. The decay comes randomly. God doesn't choose one to live and one to die. It is the process of decay that affects us all in some way". That's exactly what it feels like to me. Silence from God and random decay.
Then he added, " We trust Him anyway. There are no answers here. We just trust Him anyway, with all we know and all we don't know".
So I am doing that today, and every day, and missing my son terribly all the while.
I love you and miss you, Joey. It isn't the same without you. Your absence is profound...
Isn't she beautiful? All pink and sweet and precious? 
Visiting Maui in 2025
4 weeks ago
