And where was God in Moore?

This blog is called That's Life, because it is, life I mean. But there are times when it succumbs to the pain and suffering that covers us all because that surely is life, too. Today is such a day.

Yesterday I wrote about being worn, worn by life, worn by effort, worn by illness, worn by weight loss (and subsequent great tiring of eating low carbs for two months). I filed the blog in the morning. I had no idea how later in the day that message would become even more impacted.

While watching my two-hour block of sports programming yesterday, hell came to visit in Oklahoma City suburb Moore, Oklahoma.

When the message scrolled onto my I-pad, I turned to the weather channel. The effect on my afternoon was chilling. Such destruction I've seldom seen. Even going through Hurricane Katrina seemed to actually shrink before the storm damage I was watching. Hurricane Sandy? A blip on the radar it seemed. I do not mean to denegrate the suffering caused by these two events, for they were more deadly actually.

But what it brought it all home to me, to my heart, to my eyes, was the two schools hit. I can't, simply can't imagine a more devasting moment than that.

I watched a man and a woman running to grab on to a kid who had seen them and come running through a debris field. I saw other hugs and kisses from the air and wondered their story. I read that "all you could hear was screaming," and I imagined once again what that must be like, and I went back to Newtown, and I went back to Pearl, and I went back to Columbine.

As Marshall Ramsey, a funny commentator and artist who lives in Jackson, Ms., put it: "That (Plaza Towers Elementary) is our worst nightmare when we send our kids out from our doors each morning."

Trying to put it all together, which is something I do quite a bit it seems, I was taken by a comment from an unknown 72-year-old who lived through the chaos. "The Lord took care of us. My security is not in my hands. It is in the Lord's." I ponder this because I wonder if he understands that saying that, as innocent as it might seem, says something horrific to those who lost children this mournful Monday? If God saved him, then why didn't he save their young? What did they do that would cause God to allow this sort of thing to happen to them?

Then I saw the hundreds of well-wishers on Twitter and Facebook, all saying they were sending prayers. I wondered if the day before they were praying for anything at all? The cynic in me, which rises far too often, says probably not.

And I thought of what God actually says about suffering. I teared up thinking that the answers are so very meaningful, but would seem so shallow, I think to someone pulling bricks and mortar and even a car off a school teacher who had three small children under her when she died  the answers might seem so innocuous.

And James said: Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
And Peter said: And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
And Paul said: For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Intellectually, I understand finite versus infinite, short sufferings vs. eternal glory. But in my heart of hearts, I suffer for the lost and the least, seeking answers, not peace, not now, not yet, and certainly I suffer for those people who lost the dearest things in their lives, and I'm not talking homes, cars or even the terrible loss of those horses in the destroyed stalls..

And I sit and I ponder while workers are frantically pulling children out of the wreckage, passing them one adult to another, as if they were some sort of human barricade against fear. I sit and ponder with TV reporters breaking down describing the scene, and I can't help but wonder, God forgive me, "Really. Uh, really? This is what we do? This is what you meant when we fell? This is how you show your soverignty?"

And I think of Jesus lifting his deadly heavy head so he could cry out from a deadly heavy heart, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

And it gets dark in Oklahoma, and I ponder some more.

And I finally remember Job. Ol' Job. Who lost everything. Who would not curse God and die, though that would have been the convenient way out of it all. After everyone around him tries to tell him he, HE, is the reason for the calamity that has befallen him, he keeps asking for justice for himself because he has remained righteous. In other words, I've not done anything and this is my reward?

And finally, God appears to Job in a storm and gives a stunning account of his majestic works and power. Job, humbled and overwhelmed, acknowledges God's right as Creator to do whatever he pleases. God rebukes Job's three friends and orders them to make a sacrifice. Job prays for God's forgiveness of them and God accepts his prayer. At the end of the book, God gives Job twice as much wealth as he had before, along with seven sons and three daughters. After that, Job lived 140 more years.
And it is all neatly wrapped up with a bow on it, right? Well, actually God never answers the question that is before us...why this suffering of the innocent?

So, I do not know why this happens, why it keeps happening, why in a world with so much technology and such, nature can take it all away in a few minutes, leaving holes in lives that will never be filled. Never. Like love, pain can go on forever.

My answer then, as slight and easy as it might seem to anyone who actually is going through the suffering as opposed to someone hundreds of miles away writing in a nicely lit office, is that this too shall pass. And I feel guilty simply thinking that, but I do. It is the only thing I know that gets us through.

God told the Israelites (in captivity, I might add), 'When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.'
God told the early church through the Revelator, "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
And Jesus told his disciples (almost all of whom were killed for their beliefs),  "I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

The fact is you believe those light house beacons of hope or you don't.

In Oklahoma, like maybe in Texas today, like maybe Mississippi a while back, like maybe Missouri last year, or Alabama or the East Coast or the Gulf Coast, the darkness grew Monday by leaps and bounds.

But the light of the world has overcome the world, our world, even this ravaged weather world. Our prayers of comfort will continue long past today. Our help will come. Supplies and water and such will be on the way. We'll pray for and counsel and pray some more.

Till we have to examine suffering again the next time or the time after that. And we will remember that when Jesus was screaming to a darkening sky about being forsaken by God, he was quoting from Psalm 22, which ends like this: "All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before him -- those who cannot keep themselves alive. Prosperity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness -- to a people yet unborn -- for he has done it.:

He has done it. It's just dang tough to remember on days like mournful Monday when the wind came sweeping off the plains.