On the Death of a Child

Two months ago, Orion was the picture of a normal, healthy four-year-old boy, when he suddenly took ill and was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. Two days ago, Orion passed away. While my wife and I only knew Orion through his relatives, we still followed the last days of his young life, praying for him and his family to the very end.

Orion was not the first child of whose passing we had been keenly aware. He will probably not be the last. In 2002, friends of ours lost their daughter, Kirsten, age 3 weeks. She had made it through a difficult, premature delivery only to contract an infection later. In 2004, a couple who would have been Kirsten's aunt and uncle lost their boy, Henry, in utero. Henry was one of a pair of fraternal twins. His sister was born alive and healthy. Between these two events, my wife and I happily discovered that we were two weeks pregnant, only to miscarry four weeks later. While I would never directly equate our experience to the others mentioned above, it gave us a more intimate experience with the loss of a child than we ever wanted to have.

These events, among others, have caused me to think long and hard about the nature of life, death, God and man. How can a good and all-powerful God let these kinds of things happen? Closer to home, how can He let these things happen to me, my family and my friends?

I'll confess right now that I don't have the answers. What I have are thoughts that may be of some help to others who are facing the dark void of an innocent, precious life cut short.

WHY?

Why me? Why did You do this to me? Why did You do this to someone who brought so much joy to me and my family? How could You?

It's a natural question to ask. When faced with trial and loss, it's often the first question I ask. It's also a completely useless question.

When my wife miscarried, this is the question I pursued. I had loved the Lord for many years, especially since coming back to Him as an adult in June of 1991. In all the years since, He had never done, or permitted to be done, something like this to me. I had been untouchable, and by extension, so was my family ... until now.

The Lord directed me to the book of Job. I hated the book of Job. Up to that point, I would have summarized the book as:

"God lets Satan kill Job's kids and take everything he has. After alot of pointless talk from Job's false friends, God shows up and scares everybody straight. The end."

Don't mess with God. He took your baby, and one day He'll take you too, so choke back those tears and suck it up. At least, that's how I perceived the book to be.

I decided to look first to see if Job really had felt the same kind of righteous-yet-impotent outrage that I felt, or if his so-called "feelings" were just a logical straw man meant to advance some ancient theological construct. I found this:

I cry out to you, O God, but you do not answer;

I stand up, but you merely look at me.

You turn on me ruthlessly;

with the might of your hand you attack me.

Job 30:20-21, NIV

and this:

Oh, that I had someone to hear me!

I sign now my defense -- let the Almighty answer me;

let my accuser put his indictment in writing.

Surely I would wear it on my shoulder,

I would put it on like a crown.

I would give him an account of my every step;

like a prince I would approach him.

Job 31:35-37, NIV

Sounds pretty angry to me. He sounds like a man outraged, and rightly so, for being made to endure pain that he didn't deserve. Put another way, he's asking "Why me? What did I do to deserve this?"

We know from the story that Job didn't deserve what happened to him. God comes to Job and says some things that are profound and frightening, but not comforting in the least. And God never answers Job's question. God even goes so far as to point out that the answers Job's friends came up with were wrong:

"... My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has."

Job 42:8b, NIV

Despite this, Job comes around:

You [God] said, 'Listen now, and I will speak;

I will question you,

and you shall answer me.'

My ears had heard of you

but now my eyes have seen you.

Therefore I despise myself

and repent in dust and ashes.

Job 42:4-6, NIV

So how does Job get from "... like a prince I would approach him." to "... repent in dust and ashes." ? Did God just scare the daylights out of him? Or is there more to it than that?

In my experience, fear overwhelms outrage only for a short time. Look at any totalitarian government there has ever been. Dissenters can be quelled for a while, but they always raise their voices again, sooner or later. Yet we see Job acting as God's priest on his friends' behalf, offering up their sacrifices and praying for them. We also see that "The Lord blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the first." Why would God do that if He knew that Job's anger and outrage were merely capped, left to boil slowly away beneath the surface?

The Spirit kept directing me to look again at this part:

My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you.

Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes.

This is the key. Job had heard of God, and obeyed Him all his life. Job already had a healthy respect (fear) for the Lord before his trials began. That fear did not keep him from feeling and expressing his righteous indignation and outrage in the face of loss. The fact that God said "You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has." tells me that He (God) even anticipated this reaction from Job and didn't view it as a sin.

If Job did not "despise myself" and "repent in dust and ashes" out of fear, then it had to be because his sense of outrage and indignation was laid to rest. In other words, Job was comforted. And what comforted him? "... but now my eyes have seen you." Job was comforted not by what God said, but by the fact that God showed up in the first place. Job was comforted by God's presence.

So back to "Why me?"

If the Lord explained to me the "why's" behind His decision to let me suffer, I would most likely not understand it. If He then expanded my mind so that it held all of the information that He used to make His decision, and if he explained His decision-making process to me step by step, I might finally understand, but I still wouldn't like it. I would want to find a "better" way ... a way that didn't cause me pain.

That's because I don't have God's character. Not entirely. Not yet. As a Christian I am embarked on a journey of transforming my mind, my values, my world view to be like Christ's (a process the Bible calls "sanctification"). But I'm not entirely transformed yet. I don't entirely value things the way that God does. God is a better Person than I am, so His choices are better than mine. Because we are different, I will disagree with Him, even if I know the "why's".

So in the end, the "why's" don't matter. And they don't really help. We are in pain. We don't need answers. We need comfort. And comfort comes from God's presence.

Those Who Are Dead Are Not Dead ...

It sometimes comforts me to consider the state of those we've lost. People talk about the dead as being "asleep" or "in a better place" or simply "gone". Those are useful analogies, or even truths, in some circumstances, but I think there is more to it than that. First, I would like to present some biblical context.

Samuel said to Saul, "Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?"

1 Samuel 28:15a, NIV

In 1 Samuel 28, king Saul asks the witch of Endor to raise the spirit of Samuel so Saul may consult him. Much to the witch's surprise, her efforts meet with success. It's interesting to watch the exchange between Saul and Samuel at this point.

The first thing I notice is that Samuel is not happy about being "disturbed". Whatever state he was in prior to being brought up, he was quite happy with it. So much so that he seems to chafe at being back among the earthly living again.

Saul briefly explains his predicament to Samuel, and Samuel doesn't miss a beat. In fact, he displays a greater knowledge of the situation than Saul does. Samuel knows what God has done and is going to do to Saul, his family, and all Israel.

Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.

Matthew 17:3, NIV

Notice that the disciples are surprised to see Moses, Elijah and Jesus' transfigured form. On the other hand, no mention is made of either Moses or Elijah being surprised at any of this. They seem to have ignored the disciples, focusing instead on their conversation with Jesus.

Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders.

Revelation 4:4, NIV

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, "How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?" Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed.

Revelation 6:9-11, NIV

After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb ... And he said, "These are they who have come out of the great tribulation ..."

Revelation 7:9 & 14, NIV

Note that in all these verses from Revelation, we see people, or rather their spirits, abiding in the presence of God, communicating with Him, aware of what He's doing, and to some extent aware of what's going on in the earth as well. All of this happens before Christ's return. It happens "now", during the same time continuum that we ourselves live in. Note also that God takes care of them, meeting multiple needs, including emotional ones (example: He tells the martyrs to wait for their blood to be avenged, implying that this vengeance is forthcoming, and will meet their need to have injustices righted).

So what does this imply for the children we've lost?

First, that they are happier than we are. After the miscarriage, I had a waking vision in which I talked to the child we had just lost. I don't know if this was a real vision in the true sense of the word, or I just imagined it. I mention it here by way of illustration.

In my vision, the child (who I thought of as a little girl), was seated in Jesus' lap. He Himself was seated on a field of green grass.

"Why are you crying?", she asked.

"Because you're not here.", I said.

"But I am here.", she replied in all sincerity.

"Yes," I explained, "but you're not here in the world, like I am."

She looked up at Jesus, then back at me with wide-eyed innocence. "Why would I want to do that?"

Why indeed.

We also learn from these passages that our lost ones are not alone. Not really lost, in fact. They are in the presence of God and of each other. They are in good company.

Our loved ones seem to be aware of us still living on this side of the veil. I don't know to what extent they keep up with our lives or current events, but those few spirits of men who appear in scripture know alot more about us than we do about them. I suspect that they look in on us from time to time, so that we end up missing them more than they miss us.

Our loved ones are also very intimately familiar with what God has been up to and what His plans for the world are. Apparently, God lets us in on a little more information once we cross into the next life.

So Orion is happy. He plays on a field of green grass with Kirsten and Henry and my little girl. Grandmother Ruth, and my wife's mother, Julia play with them. Grandmother Louise bakes them one of her famous seven-layer chocolate cakes (which I have on good account are non-fattening in heaven). Grandfather Norman takes them fishing (catch and release). Grandmother Mary can't stop hugging them. Grandfather Charles tells them funny stories. Aunt Helena teaches them how to dance. Jesus takes the first steps in the dance, and the rest follow. They are well loved and well cared for.

When the time comes for us to follow them, we will find them all there, waiting for us.