Eternal Promise Amid Tragedy

Lately I’ve been to more visitations and funeral services than I care to attend. It can take the wind out of your sails.

There was the friend who battled cancer for a year before a brain tumor claimed him. A former pastor felled by a stroke last November eventually died of colon cancer.

A young man whose mother suffered from multiple health issues found her lifeless one day and is struggling with questions about what he could have done to save her.

Then there was the friend I had lunch with last October. Six weeks later he told me had been diagnosed with stage four cancer. I prayed for him nearly every day for nine months, but he died in early August.

As I write this, a woman at our church had just asked for prayer for her 30-something niece. The young woman’s cancer appears to be terminal; the niece has arranged for her sister to raise the niece’s young daughter.

Things like this can leave us asking, “Why, Lord? Don’t You care? Couldn’t You have done something?”

Painful Questions about Tragedy

Earlier this year I wrote a story about trauma in the pews and how church members can address painful questions.

My interviews included one with Martha Tennison. She’s the wife of the pastor of the Kentucky church that lost 27 members to a drunk driver who smashed head-on into the church bus in 1988. It remains the nation’s worst-ever DUI tragedy.

I also interviewed her son, Allen, one of the survivors and now theological counsel for the Assemblies of God.

I appreciated his observation that to prepare people for tragedy, one has to teach them that God doesn’t always miraculously heal. Or, at least doesn’t answer in the way we hoped.

Allen mentioned someone close to him who had a sister with cancer. All she heard at church for months were promises of miraculous healing. When her sister died, it proved devastating.
Allen said Pentecostals have appropriately emphasized God’s miracle-working power. But without proper balance, people can be left with the impression that bad things won’t happen to them.

Picture for illustration purposes

“It can be devastating when something occurs and they’ve had no preparation for this pain and the reality that we live in a fallen world,” Allen said.

His mother had to answer difficult questions in the weeks and months that followed the crash. Especially the one: “Why did your son live and ours didn’t?”

When Martha says that Christians should never pretend to have all the answers, she speaks with authority.

She simply told grieving parents that God’s ways are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:11) and there are no answers for some things.

“We have to understand that God didn’t save us from trouble; He saved us from sin,” she says. “But when trouble comes, there’s Someone who can go through that trouble with us.”

Suffering is Real

I think one reason for fading church attendance in recent years is too many went looking for the Church of the Easy Answers. Finding none exists, they gave up their search.

During His time on earth, Jesus told His disciples: “In the world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33). I take that as an ironclad promise. No matter who we are, where we live, or how much we own, life can bring disappointment, suffering, and loss.

That’s why the last two sentences in that verse are so vital: “But be of good cheer. I have overcome the world” (emphasis added).

We were never promised a rose garden. But we can rest assured that He lives.