Death

I have a friend who is so close to me that I call her my cousin. Her sister died a few days ago – she was 35. She was in good health, the single mom of a three-year-old boy. She had just started seeing a man that she really liked.

People say that life is fragile. After helping dozens of babies into this world, watching how hard it is to make that big transition from mommy’s perfect world to our polluted, loud, angry world where they actually have to breathe, and watching the babies do it successfully and well (sometimes against all odds), I realize that life is not fragile. There are people who even wish that life were not so un-fragile. Life is not fragile, it is capricious.

Just when we think we have it all figured out, we have a neat and orderly plan for our lives, something changes and all of our dominoes topple. Sometimes the change is good, like news of a new baby; sometimes the change is bad, like a cancer diagnosis or a sudden death. No matter what it is, it completely changes our lives. Sometimes, it can even be one thing that somebody says to us that changes everything.

After a sudden change in my life, I received the sage tongue-in-cheek advice: “Man plans and God laughs.” Is this truly the case? Is God looking down on us, throwing things at us like He allows in the story of Job, then laughing? Are we here for His entertainment? I have read books that say that our purpose on this earth is to bring people to God. As a good little Christian girl, I have really tried to follow this. But even I have to question. Our entire purpose on this earth is to create worshippers of God? Is our God so needy? So lonesome? I'm not questioning the existence of God. Using all of my mere human arrogance, I am questioning His motives.

If God really wants people to come to Him, He ought to give Christians great lives. It would be simple – if I follow God, I will have a simply good life. I’m not saying that we would be all rich and never have things like death (after long, full lives) in our lives. I’m just saying that little three-year-olds would not end up without moms, and Christians would not get their luggage lost in the airport.

I do believe that my friend’s sister is in heaven, and that I will be in heaven as well some day. But after watching my friend and her family suffer, and her sister’s little son tell my friend, “I don’t have a mommy anymore,” I do have to stop and ask, “Why?” And I want to know where my God is that loves us so much that he gave His only son.