“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)
It was a beautiful Friday evening in late August during a time in my life that I now often refer to as the “good years” — the years before my divorce, the years when everything seemed just right in my world. Our oldest son was away at college, and our other two teenaged children were out with their friends. My husband and I had been working in the yard, and I was standing behind our house washing down the driveway before going inside for the evening. And although it’s been 15 years ago, I can still remember that moment as if it were only yesterday. Just as I went to put away the garden hose, the phone rang. It was my daughter, who had just turned 18 years old and who was looking forward to her senior year of high school. She had only left home a couple of hours earlier with two of her friends and her cousin, whom she considered to be her best friend. Her cousin was only one year older and they had everything in common. Her cousin had graduated from high school two months earlier and was planning to go to school to become a veterinarian. The two of them had talked many times about how, once my daughter graduated, they would share an apartment and have such a great time. But those dreams would never be fulfilled because that night everything would change.
One of the most popular things for young people to do in our city at that time was to “cruise,” which meant riding up and down a very popular street and hang out with your friends. My daughter and her friends had been “cruising” many times before. This time they met a nice young man on a motorcycle who offered to take each one of them for a ride on his bike. For whatever reason, my daughter did not want to ride on a motorcycle, but my niece did and she wanted to go first. She climbed on the back of the young man’s motorcycle while my daughter and her other friends followed in her car. And in just a matter of minutes, my daughter watched as a drunk driver pulled out in front of the motorcycle. While the young man would walk away from that accident with only scrapes and bruises, my niece would lose her life to injuries received when her helmet came off and she hit her head on the pavement.
From the moment I received that phone call begging me to come quickly to the hospital, the question of “Why?” began racing through my mind. “Why, God, why?” “Why did this happen?” “Why did they have to meet someone on a motorcycle?” “Why did my niece have to get on that motorcycle?” “Why was it my niece and not my daughter?” “Why did it have to happen to someone so young who was just beginning her life?” And, especially, “Why did it happen to this particular young woman who was the apple of her mother’s eye?”
But no answers came to all my “Why?” questions. Instead, I rushed to the hospital and held my daughter and comforted her friends and did the best I could to answer their “Why?” questions when I had no answers for my own.
Numerous lives were impacted that night, and I’m sure each person in their own way was asking their own list of “Why?” questions of God. The young man driving the motorcycle would bear the burden of guilt for years to come. My sister-in-law would have to endure years of grief and loneliness before she could even begin to pick up the pieces of her life and start over again. My husband’s family would have a huge hole in their family every time they got together and the deep sense of loss would be almost unbearable.
As for my daughter, this one incident would impact her choices and decisions for years and would bring me to my knees more times than I care to acknowledge, asking God the question, “Why, God? Why?”
But God doesn’t have to answer our “Why?” questions. After all, God is God and He can pretty much do what He wants. He is the creator and we are His creation, so He really doesn’t “owe” us any answers. One of the hardest lessons to learn about being a real Christian is to accept what life hands us without expecting God to justify it. In those moments of questioning, He wants instead for us to quietly submit to Him and put our trust in Him, knowing that He knew this day would happen to us and He would be there to comfort us and get us through it. It is so important in those moments to remember that God loves us, He understands our pain, and He knows exactly what we are going through.
As I held my daughter and comforted her friends throughout that night and on into the next day until we received word that her cousin had died, I wanted to make sure that these young, impressionable young women knew that God had not caused this tragedy. Man had done this terrible thing to them and God was just as broken hearted as they were. Their tears were as precious offerings to Him and He would be there to comfort them.
God never did answer my “Why?” question, but instead He swept in and wrapped me in His arms of love and comforted me for days to come. He reassured me that everything would be okay, and He told me that when He looks down from His throne in Heaven upon His creations on this Earth, He sees a much larger picture than we do. He sees and knows the complete picture from beginning to end, and He sees each one of us fitting into whatever small part of that very big picture He has chosen for us. We see our circumstances and the things going on in our lives from our very small and completely “self-absorbed” perspective. Only God has a perspective large enough to see each and every one of us and only God totally understands the complete picture.
The Bible says, “as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are His ways higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.”
One of the reassurances I felt like God eventually gave me concerning my niece’s death was that He would take this tragic situation and work in the lives of many people. Sometimes He allows circumstances to touch one person’s life in order for Him to work in the lives of others. After all, it’s not really about us. It is about God and His kingdom and His desire to bring all of mankind into a relationship with Him.
The most important thing to remember is that when the grief is unbearable and the pain seems too great, God will wrap His arms around us and comfort us. When we don’t think we can go on one more minute, He will give us the strength to endure. Maybe He won’t always answer our “whys,” but neither will He ever leave us or forsake us. We don’t have to have all the answers, because He is our Heavenly Father and He sees and understands and He has everything under control if we will only trust Him and press into Him and draw our strength from Him. Truly, He is a good and kind and loving God.
