As I witness friends and relatives losing loved ones to death’s inevitable victory, I struggle to find the words or the means to offer comfort and hope in life’s most tragic moments. Dark times occur in everyone’s life, and coping with the death of a loved one tops the list. When logic and emotion are in conflict, emotion almost always wins. This is especially true when it comes to grief. The intense emotion of those moments overwhelms logic’s feeble effort to provide comfort with reason.
“Please God, no!”
No doubt this phrase, this plea, has been uttered countless times, in countless languages over the centuries. Equally likely, few have received a positive answer to this desperate prayer.
We can only imagine how many have felt betrayed and abandoned by the God they have worshipped. How many have uttered the follow-up question, “Why did You take … (fill in the blank) …from me?”
Perhaps it is in those very questions that we find the answers. Perhaps it is in that moment when faith seems to have failed us that we find comfort in logic. This is the one time when logic can win over emotion if we embrace that solution.
Just as the cycle of the seasons and the recycling of nutritional materials provides for new growth in our garden, the grief we feel at the loss of a loved one provides us with the means to experience the love and caring that others provide at such a moment. It gives us the opportunity to grow in love and get closer to others. And most importantly, it gives us the compassion we need to be there for others when it is their time to experience such a loss.
It is logic that allows us to accept the inevitable, no matter how unpleasant. We all know that we are mortal and that each of us must ultimately take that last breath on earth. We know that physical death is irreversible but continued existence in the spiritual realm provides the hope of being reunited with our loved ones.
Yet, somehow, it is the timing and the choice of who that we struggle to accept.
Why him or her, and why now?
Ultimately, it is logic that allows us to embrace and be strengthened by our faith. It is logic that opens our minds to the reality that we are incapable of fully grasping God’s plan for us. It is logic that helps us realize that, handicapped as we are by the limitations of our earthly experiences, our best option is to choose to trust God and His plan to give us the tools we need to embrace love and use those tools to help others. And we can trust His plan for our existence beyond death.
While we can mourn the loss of the companionship of our lost loved one, we can find hope in that trust. And that is when faith’s greatest challenge becomes faith’s greatest opportunity.
Ultimately, it is that trust that will give us peace.