You’ll Never Walk Alone

It can be hard, if not impossible, to comprehend some of the tragic news stories that have been dominating the headlines in the past while.

Last Thursday, I woke to news of the death of Liverpool footballer, Diogo Jota, and his brother Andre Silva, in a car accident in Spain. He died just a couple of weeks after his marriage to his long term partner and leaves behind three young children.

Some days before that, Sarah Montgomery, a heavily pregnant mother of two, died at her home in Donaghadee after a violent altercation, and a man has been charged with her murder.

At the weekend, devastating flash floods have swept through Kerr county in Texas, claiming the lives of over 100 people, many of them children. Others are still missing, and a number of those who died were attending a Christian camp at a place called Camp Mystic.

Earlier this month, I attended a harrowing session run by the Christian agency, Open Doors, outlining the scale of the violence , killing and brutality targeted at the Christian Community. Many are losing their lives, having their homes and crops burned and destroyed, and women are particularly targeted for sexual violence. Pastors and Evangelists are living in constant fear as church services and Christian meetings are often the focus of machine gun attacks, and so many families are being torn apart and devastated by these events which don’t always make the global news.

Meanwhile, global wars continue to rage where innocent civilians are losing their lives as they queue for meagre food supplies, or are unfortunate to live close to where terrorist suspects live, and whole neighbourhoods are wiped out in aerial attacks.

As we try to process these difficult and terrible realities, many wonder where God is in the midst of them? Why can’t he intervene if He is all powerful and stop or prevent them from happening?

Is it possible to believe or trust that, somehow, a bigger purpose is being played out in these terrible tragedies?

These are tough questions for people of faith to wrestle with and, as I think about this snapshot of local and international news, I don’t think there are easy or comfortable answers that can be neatly packaged in a blog post, but there are a few things I think which are important to say.

The first is that the appropriate response to all of these events, and many others not mentioned, is lament. We cry out to God and tell him how these things break our hearts and deeply trouble us. No matter how strong our faith or how confident we feel about life after death, it is not good or positive to see such events as anything other than sad and bewildering and tragic.

As we bring to God in prayer our pain and confusion, we don’t always get neat answers, but we value his promise to hear the cries of our hearts.

I think a second response is often to place ourselves in that position of those who are suffering as we see these things. If we are an adult and have involvement with children in our lives as parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, if we have experienced suffering or sickness, either personally or in our friendship and family circles, we are, perhaps, attuned to think of how these difficult events might be affecting the most vulnerable. It’s the most devastating thing to see people struggling and feel powerless to help or assist as the worst of things is visited upon them.

Very often, we try to do practical things and perhaps contribute to a collection, or become better informed, and see if there’s any way we can help. As people of faith, the one resource we do have and believe in its power, is the capacity to pray. We can pray for those directly affected, those indirectly affected as the families of first responders, for aid agencies and medical personnel trying to help with very limited resources at times.

I was touched at a funeral service recently to hear a poem quoted which states our belief that God cares and is deeply involved in those situations of grief and pain that can threaten to destroy us.

It’s called Footprints in the Sand.

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord. Scenes from my life flashed across the sky. In each, I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were two sets of footprints, other times there was only one.

During the low periods of my life I could see only one set of footprints, so I said, “You promised me, Lord, that you would walk with me always. Why, when I have needed you most, have you not been there for me?”

The Lord replied, “The times when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when I carried you.”

The blog and podcast will be taking a couple of weeks break over the next while.

Look forward to speaking again soon.

Much love to everyone,

Jono.

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