Things I don’t understand

A four year old boy was at a church Friday night celebrating the New Year with his momma and his church family. They were bringing in the New Year with prayer and worship of the the great and wonderful God we adore.  They were not ringing in the New Year with booze, drugs, and mindless revelry. Outside the church, people in the neighborhood are ringing in the New Year as well, celebrating by firing a few pistols up in the air.  A shell from one of the guns flies up into space, loses its steam and then descends back to earth.  On its way back, it pierces the roof of the church goes through the ceiling and lodges in the skull of a 4 year old.  The mother hears a ‘plink’ and a little cry, hands her son his game assuming that is why he yelped, and moments later he dies in a pool of blood.  I cannot help but think of the incredible random ‘chance’ that this could happen.  I mean, of all the places for the bullet to fall.  Why couldn’t it fall unnoticed into a wooden beam in the roof?  Yet it finds a home in the brain of a child at church.  I know that I do not worship a God who is surprised, nor do I believe in accidents (things that happen without cause).  But I am challenged to think of how one could comfort this woman, I mean a church of all places!  How will she make sense of all of this?  Will she fall victim into thinking this is punishment for her sin?  WIll she fall victim into thinking this is punishment for the boy’s sin?  Will others assume there is some terrible secret issue in her life and God is getting her attention?  Will she fall victim to a view of God where He was standing by with His hands tied unable to do anything?

I cannot help but to think of that bullet shooting upwards into space and that brief moment in time when it stopped ascending and stood still overlooking the neigborhood right before it began its descent.  Right before the 4 year old and the mother’s lives were to be permanently altered.  That small still moment before everything was shattered.  The only person who knew what was about to occur was the great God of the universe foreknowing exactly where the bullet would land.  The great God of the universe who could but chose not to alter the course of the bullet, allowing it to fall into the child.  I cannot help but to think of Jesus after Lazarus died and the shortest memory verse I know of John 11:35 “Jesus wept”.   I cannot help but to think that these are things I don’t understand.   I cannot help but to think of the cross where God as a Father lost a Son also, on the earth that He created of all places, at the hands of humans his most treasured creation.

Leave a Reply