I’ve been puzzling over a story in the news last week. It
was of a young woman of 23 who threw herself from the top of a multi-story car
park, killing herself and her unborn child. I began to think about why or how a
person could be so desperate, have so few places to turn to; how must they feel to want to end it all. It grieved me to think of the life lost and how sometimes I
complain about the state of my own when there are others out there with a far
worse situation. Police later found that the woman had also killed her three
other children prior to committing suicide, and had stabbed her former partner.
I tried to comprehend what would drive someone to be so
desperate to carry out these actions as the tragedy evolved. Her parents stated
that their daughter had suffered from mental health issues from a very young
age, and had a particular condition where she became emotionally and
passionately attached to someone close. From social networking sites, it became
clear that she had rowed with her former partner who had stated he was ending
the relationship for someone else. It seems that her inability to deal with the
separation has been cited as the reason for ending the lives of her three
children, that of her own, and that of her unborn child.
Her parents have stated that their daughter’s health
problems were never properly diagnosed or treated. That she was determined to
follow her own path in life, spurning advice, and isolating herself to the
point where it seemed she felt that all she had was lost.
Now this is a very tragic story, that will also encourage
people to make assumptions surrounding the circumstances of her death. There
are some who would make judgements about the lifestyle of the girl having four
children by the age of 23, and in the current economic climate, make links that
both the woman and her partner, lacked employment. Some people may adopt an
attitude towards her mental health issues, misunderstanding the complexity of
emotion and the cascading effect of anxiety, depression, loneliness,
self-esteem. We might consider the longer term analysis of the social impact of
unfrequented love, the sense of abandonment; that her sense of place and the
bonds that tie us to our destiny had been shattered. I’m sure too that the
father of the children will always question what could have been if…?
It is all too easy for the atheists and agnostics who do not
believe in God to use these situations to ask the big question we all sometimes
ask… Where is GOD? If he is all knowing and all powerful, why has he not done
something to stop this terrible tragedy? And what of the children, they hadn’t
done anything wrong… they didn’t deserve this. I have no immediate answers that
might bring comfort except for the knowledge that if we ask God to let his
Kingdom come into our world; we gain the power to do that which is in heaven,
on earth.
Recently, a church leader called #Rick Warren and his wife Kay
have had a similar experience of seeing a loved one caught within the confines
of mental illness. Hoping and praying that God would bring healing. Yet a life
has been lost. Each day is a journey of faith and we live in the hope of the
promises of God. God loves to see our character and our faith mature as we
obediently do his will and give him the honour for all that he has accomplished
through us in this life.
Rick and Kay have modelled a lifestyle of total dedication
to God through the study of scripture, teaching and preaching, caring and
sharing the gospel and in building community by modelling to others, that which
they hold most precious. Their lives have prepared them for such a moment as
this. To reveal to the world that in this time of grief and sorrow, we have a
hope to cling to as God’s grace conquers all; it invades all the darkness of
our soul; we’ll be changed in the twinkling of an eye because God’s love
conquers all.
Faith doesn’t stop the hurt, nor is it a psychological
crutch for a single moment in time… It is a life choice that we can all
exercise. Reading the bible and knowing the promises of God, help us to
understand that our eternal father has made provision for us since the
beginning of time. It helps to soothe our pain knowing that there will be
resolution one day, but for now, we grieve. We can get lost in grief, lingering
too long in a place of desperation which is difficult to move from. Those of us
who have faith in Christ can sing ‘Oh death where is your sting? Where is your
victory?’ because we understand that our fathers kingdom will come and restore
that which is lost.
One of my favourite scriptures is 1 Peter 1: 1-12 where the
author, probably St Peter, explains that… “Through Jesus we have been born
again into a priceless inheritance that is kept in heaven for us. We know that
through this new life, God offers us his protection through filling us with the
Holy Spirit so that we can be guided by his grace.”
Verse 6 talks about being truly glad because of this
provision, even though we may have to endure many trials. Verse 7 for me is the
key… “These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as
fire tests and purifies gold – though your faith is more precious than gold. So
when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much
praise and glory and honour on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the
whole world.” How we choose to live our life, is more important than what we
can get out of it, regardless of circumstance. Do we choose to believe with our
whole self, that God has our best interest at heart? Are we willing to endure
because we know of the great treasure we have within us?
As someone who has cast aluminium and pewter, I have seen
the effect of heat on the raw materials being melted as described in the
passage in 1 Peter. The impurities within the metal gradually rise to the
surface and need to be scraped away with a ladle to avoid contaminating the
batch. Repeated heating will refine the metal further, improving its value.
Within the process of refinement, we can change the properties of the material
to make it harder or softer! Metals can naturally ‘work-harden’ because the
physical beating alters the crystal structure that makes up the material. This
creates problems when trying to complete the final shaping of the product
requiring the craftsman to anneal it in order to restore the working properties
of the metal.
Life can give our hearts a bit of a beating too! We can
become world weary and lose our ability to adjust in order to fit the shape it
demands. Some of our experiences are useful in making us become more aware of
our vulnerabilities, helping us to protect ourselves from certain hardships and
unnecessary pain.
Other experiences harden our hearts to the point that we
become dysfunctional in our attitudes and behaviours. We get hurt, so we
protect ourselves… we build barriers around our emotions to stop getting hurt
in the same way again. We read between the lines of a situation or analyse the
people involved and want to stay at arm’s length. Not wanting to get involved
because we have got too much of our own ‘stuff’ going on. We become pessimistic
of life and our glass becomes half empty; seeing fault everywhere. Some
unfortunately start to believe that they deserve what they get due to their
experience of the past, slipping into a depressed view of ourselves and the
world around us.
Some people’s answer to this emotional pain is to immerse
ourselves into whatever makes us happy. Some of these are healthy and vital to
our humanity, and yet like all things, if we indulge too much in certain areas,
we are in danger of creating more problems with these new outlets, than they
were designed to solve. So many live for the Friday night ‘going-out’ to a club
experience, where the emphasis is on having a good time. However, the drinking
culture in the UK among young people is a growing health problem… pre-loading
with alcohol to reduce the amount of money spent prior to attending a club
where ‘special-offer’ prices of drinks with names made up by marketing people,
appeal to a specific audience.
I enjoy a pint of beer or two, and my experience of drinking
to excess in my youth may give a good story. At one time I have to confess that
I may have revelled in telling the story of the comedy of my self-indulgence!
But as we get older, it is less of a thrill to drink so much, except for those believing
that this is the essence of life. It is their thing… without it; life would be
too dull to contemplate. This is particularly so if this type of lifestyle is
being used as a sticking plaster to the other aspects of our lives that we are
disappointed with. We will soon tire and need to become more adventurous, seeking
to have better experiences; living for the moment.
Alcoholism is a major issue in society, fuelled by the short
term high of the alcohol content, and the ‘loss of control’ when sufficiently
intoxicated. You hear people say they are more social when they have a drink, perhaps
letting go of our anxieties, and forgetting our troubles. The side effect of
alcohol is that it is a depressant; creating an unnatural balance in our natural
physiology. When the pressure of life is really on, we seek ways to deal with the
stress… Turning to alcohol is a cheap and socially acceptable answer, but in
excess, it is life threatening and soul destroying. There are many other ways
that we can seek to conceal our life-wounds. It could be in sex, music,
culture, food, travel, volunteering, charitable acts, knowledge, power,
financial reward, spirituality and religion. All still have the capacity to leave
us with a feeling of being short-changed.
As much as work hardened metal fractures and fails; work
hardened hearts break. Work hardened metal loses its tensile strength; its
ability to take loads and its ability to support structures. Our hardened hearts
can mirror this, losing its ability to feel, reducing our desire to share in people’s
burdens, and in supporting one another. We lose our very humanity; we lose our
souls. In faith we place our hopes and our dreams not in shallow experiences,
but in the hands of Jesus. He fills our hearts and minds with a new eternal
hope so that when we despair of life, we can reach into an inner resolve of
strength.
This is the opposite of religious experiences where we try
to control our behaviours and actions in pursuit of some higher realm. Some see
this behaviour and cannot put their faith in God because it can confuse the
Gospel story. We look for truth in that which is around us, and find that in a
lot of aspects of life, and sometimes in the church, we cannot find the answers
to the question raised at the beginning… Where is God?
When I look at the alternatives, it draws me closer to God,
not further away, because in him I find love. When we look at Jesus, we see the
kingdom come. He came as a servant; he spoke against religious hypocrisy,
championed the poor and needy in society, and challenged every level of society
by turning what was known, upside-down. So how can we have faith in God when we
cannot see him?
I encourage you to read the Gospel story afresh and hear the
words that Jesus spoke… of a future hope, of an eternal life, of a life
reconciled to our creator. Get to know Jesus, the son of God, whose father who has
paid with the blood of his son a ransom far greater than gold. Take up the
offer of salvation and with his counsel, learn to leave your burden at his
feet. He will lift you up, clothe you, and set you on this new journey as a son
or daughter of the living God, who will one day return in his glory to restore
the world. 1 Peter 1: 8 states… ‘You love him (Jesus) even though you have
never seen him. You do not see him now, yet you trust him; and you rejoice with
a glorious and inexpressible joy.’
So when people ask me why God allows suffering, or why
people go hungry, or why that soldier went to war, why those refugees shelter
from the bombing without food aid, or why the young mother so full of sadness,
jumped to her death… I can only ask myself: have I prayed for God to use me in
my small corner of his world? I think of those who I know, in desperate need to
receive God for their salvation; how effective am I in showing God’s love for
them? I pray for my town, its leaders, its educators, for families, for
parents, mum and dads, we need more of your presence Lord in this place. I
invite you all to pray that same prayer…. Our father in heaven, whose name is
holy, let your kingdom come in all the earth… Amen.
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