This week marks ten years since my mom was tragically killed by a drunk driver just a few days before my wedding.
Why does God allow tragedies like this to happen?
Why do good, healthy people get snatched out of life way too early?
Why can’t she have just been badly injured?
Mom was such a careful driver, why did she pull out in front of this truck?
Why did it all have to happen just a few days before my wedding?
Why couldn’t God have healed her?
Why couldn’t I have said goodbye when she was still alive? There were so many things left unexpressed.
Facing Despair
Losing Mom was not the first tragedy to happen in my life. It was, however, the first difficult experience that offered no immediate sight of redemption.
Even to this day, some might look at the ways that we are more able to empathize with other people who have lost loved ones as a sort of redemption for the loss of losing mom. I’ve personally heard from several people who were impacted by mom’s death. It caused them to take seriously their own life, leading them back to the faith they once held deeply.
I rejoice that people came to a deeper walk with Jesus through Mom’s death. I’m grateful that Moms life and death drew people into a life of deeper worship and commitment to God. However, those still don’t feel like tangible pieces of redemption.
For one thing, those people could have turned back to Jesus at any time. It was their rebellion or their complacency that led to the state they were in. It wasn’t our family’s fault and it certainly wasn’t Mom’s fault. So their coming back to Christ is merely a side benefit for them as our family walks through a tragedy.
Secondly, redemption gives more of the connotation of being able to heal the wound and go even deeper than before.
For instance, when two people argue and get angry with each other, there is always the possibility of reconciliation. There’s always the hope that they would forgive each other and move toward each other, seeking to understand one another so that they have a deeper relationship than before.
If someone experiences financial tragedy or loses a house in a fire, there is always the hope of restoring finances or replacing the house. Yes, they lost something and there’s grief and sorrow that go into not being able to have that experience they once had. But it could be brought back.
Even in the story of Job, we see that new sons and daughters replaced the sons and daughters he lost.
Mom will never be coming back.
No new person can come and replace who she was to us kids. She is gone forever. I see no redemption in that. So the why questions pile on as we search for answers.
Stop Looking for an Explanation
Any kind of loss is hard to experience. Any time you lose a loved one, it’s an agonizing tragedy.
I don’t mean to diminish other types of loss. Rather, I’m trying to point out how even though we like to say God is going to use this for good, we don’t necessarily always see the good. The problem is that we lost someone someone we loved. I see no solution for that.
And if you’ve gone through an experience similar to this, you probably don’t see any solution for your loss. That’s how it feels. It’s how it looks. That’s why centering on the why questions only leads you into a deep, dark hole of depression.
No explanation for why tragedies like this happen can bring our loved ones back. So stop looking for one. Quit trying to make sense of something that doesn’t necessarily have a redeemable outcome.
Instead, shift your focus to the pieces of hope given us in the middle of this tragic world.
Earlier this year, I began drafting my next book that talks about how my faith has unfolded as life goes on. I don’t mean unfolded in the sense of “unraveled.” Rather, I mean unfolded in the same way a new path “unfolds” in front of you as you walk down it for the first time.
We bring expectations into our daily experiences. We bring expectations into our faith. But as we journey through life, those expectations are confronted with reality and we discover how our expectations were affecting our view of life.
One key area where my faith has unfolded is in the realm of pain and tragedy, and where God is in it all. As I work through the chapters, I am releasing them to the Patreon members of Unfeigned Christianity. They get an early peek and can give me live feedback as I chisel away at this next sculpture I attempt to create of a book.
You just completed reading about a third of the chapter I’m calling, “Goodbye Mom: When Death Kisses You on the Cheek,” where we look at why painful things like this happen and what to do with the miserable things we feel as a result. I invite you to join us on this journey and read the full post by becoming a member today.
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