The lock button on the door of my Explorer hasn’t been working lately. Last week, I didn’t think very much about it, but this morning I found myself anxiously pushing and pressing and mashing the button as the palpable tension mounted against every invisible fear. Why? Because of the phone call I received last night.
This week, two teenagers with whom I worked in Virginia were gunned down in a “brutal double homicide.” David and Heidi. Nineteen and eighteen years old. Brilliant and humble and kind and in love. Beautiful, innocent children who were shining lights of hope that the emerging generation could do great things. Yet suddenly that light has been snuffed out. The details seem horrific; the reality feels, well, surreal.
I am suddenly very aware of a heart that feels swollen and numb inside my chest. My throat has a nagging tightness that pulls and swallows at my words, leaving only breathless gasps in the place of answers. I selfishly wish I had not found out until morning. For the thick cloak of darkness beckons fear and I laid awake for hours last night fighting my imagination for fragile ground of hope. Hope in goodness. Hope in justice. Hope in a God that can still prove to be love in the face of extremely difficult questions.
Beyond all of the immediate, screaming why’s, I find myself swimming against some deeper currents as well. Why we as humans can be so disrupted by one tragedy and so immune to another? We callously watch movies and news reports of death and war and violence across the seas, but are outraged and devastated by attacks within our own world, like September 11th. What makes me flip through channel after channel, story after story, tragedy upon tragedy in the evening news (while my mind wanders to dinner and weekend plans and laundry cycles) and yet these two murdered kids bring my life to a paralyzed silence? Why? I’ll tell you why. Because there are lives behind the faces. Lives that intersect mine. Both the ones taken too early and the ones left behind to pick up the pieces. And that one phone call was reality barging into my picket-fence life and reminding me that I am not immortal. Not invincible. Not in control.
As the wee hours ticked off bridging yesterday and today, I battled a series of emotions. From a weak vulnerability that begs me to hide under the covers for the rest of my life to a fiery anger that beckons me to shake a raging fist at God. (and shake I did) I wept for the two fathers that surely tossed upon tear-stained pillows as they reflected on the very worst of days, both before and ahead. I ached for the two mothers (friends of mine!) who must soon awaken all over to a terrible new reality, where flowers will be chosen for a funeral instead of a wedding. And today I am numb. I suppose that is the safe distance from where we choose to watch the inevitable, so that we can try to survive it unscathed. (and by that, I mean both the services and life in general.)
But is this how it was supposed to be? Life lived from a safe distance? There are so many fundamental questions at play, that there clearly can be no quick-release solution. I do believe that, as Christians, we are to live above and beyond the tangling talons of fear. Whether that be fear of death or fear of life, come what may. But I was the one frantically wrestling my lock button, remember? It is so easy to feel afraid and small and preyed upon.
For a long time, I had a really hard time wrapping my mind around 1 John 4:8:
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.”
It was as though I was trying to concoct a fear antidote out of this passage, but I couldn’t quite get the formula right. Only recently, as I have plunged deep into the unconditional, incomprehensible love of God, did it come together. The missing variable is hidden in Matthew 7:11:
“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!”
And also James 1:17:
“Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.”
If we believe that God is love – perfect love – and that He will – as Father – do what is loving and good and best, then we can overcome fear and find rest. I love that the passage in James identifies God as the ‘Father of lights’ as though he is specifically speaking to those of us who hide under the covers from the shifting shadows of night.
In the midst of so great a sorrow and tragedy, I do not claim to have answers. (although I believe healing and forgiveness and closure and many other noble things can come to be completely outside of the realm of answers. Is there really going to be any satisfactory answer for our fragile human souls?) I do not even claim to have a strong and enduring faith at this moment. I am the Chief of Questioners and Fist Shakers. But I want to believe that God is Father. That He is sovereign. That He is in control.
That is my only hope. Our only hope. If we can summon faith in His goodness towards us, then we can be drawn out of our corners and talked off of our ledges. We can live in the space beyond fear that allows us to love and forgive and heal. Not immediately, but in time. When pillow stains have faded and the flowers have dried. When the beauty of their lives and the legacy of their faith have outrun the tragedy of their passing.
Between now and then, we will deliver meals and say prayers. We will give our own children an extra scoop of ice cream and an extra bedtime hug. And we will choose to think of David and Heidi, not in headlines and crime reports, but playing guitar together and singing for their Savior who loves them dearly and is glad to have them home.
My goodness! I am so sorry, Sailor. I did hear the news of this and stopped for a moment, thinking how horrifying for all…now I’m praying…for all.