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Thanks for stopping by, whether you got here by a link or hitting "next blog" -- I am glad you are here. I've also done some writing on homeschooling, and what I learned thinking I was teaching.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Parts of Speech and Suffering


Cheryl Joyner*
He slipped in behind us at the memorial for our friend who lost her battle with cancer.  In the few short years that I had known him, he had changed from a sweet little boy of 8 or 9 into a handsome man in the making of 15. Less than two weeks later Doug and I sat, watching the sanctuary fill up with a thousand hurting hearts – gathering to commemorate the life he took in “a terrible tragic moment.”   

Robert "Tex" Higginbotham, Jr.*

Attending two memorial services in less than one month generates sorrow and bewilderment.

Asking why is not wrong, the pastor said. But from whence we seek the answers is key: conventional wisdom and common sense often aggravate the pain. And when we look inside ourselves, the answers are often a painful dead-end.  What we find there is too often guilt, fear, shame, and humiliation, as well as anger, anguish, and confusion – the fruit of the mankind’s Fall. (Genesis 3) 

Some may say,  “All I can say about Christians: You people will believe anything.” (Randall Dean, Dallas Morning News, Letter, February 4, 2014)  

Did God really say . . .?  I believe God did say many things that bear on our sorrows, and answer our hearts’ deepest cry.  And I believe that seeking Him in the midst of nightmares such as cancer and suicide is the only answer to this anguish. (1 Chronicles 16:11)

Christians believe there is a purpose and hope in every human life that is created – that an infinite and personal God rules and reigns, and one day, death and sorrow will cease. (Psalm 139:13-16; Romans 8:28, 37-39; Revelation 21:1-5) The family whose child -- brother, nephew, grandson – acted impulsively and wrongly, testified nevertheless to the gift this young man’s life was to them and us – and to the gift that God’s Son and Spirit are to them.

And as if by special delivery, I received an e-mail meditation from one who knows a bit about suffering:

Does God ordain? Permit? Plan? Allow? The verb is not so much the important thing as the noun: God. And God is love.   

Your ways are higher than mine, Lord, and Your thoughts are unsearchable. I praise You that one day You will give us the key that will unlock sense out of seemingly senseless suffering. ~ Joni Eareckson Tada

 Who do people say I am, the Lord asked of His disciples – who do you say I am?   (Matthew 16)



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