Seems about right to me

I struggle with the notion of suffering. I see so very much of it. I see so much death. I see so much pain. In my struggle, though, I find this relief:
Jesus said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out?" And he said, "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." And he said, "I will be with you till the end of the age."

The Father said, "I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

In our darkest nights, the dark night of a slippage of faith or the dark night of a loss of a loved one when the pain builds like blockage in old arteries, he's there in the room, providing the little light there is.

Seems about right to me.

This weekend a great saint of one of my churches died. He slipped away to that home across the river, away from five years of a failing body, a paralyzed life lived in a bed with his dear, dear wife watching over his every breath. I prayed all last week that God's will be done while with the wife. In private, when God and I do business, I prayed he be taken.

Today I believe he's dancing. No bed. No body that was just a hanger for a soul. No heart pumping blood to a frame that would not respond no matter how he told it to. No large smile on a shrinking face, surely, but also no seemingly endless amount of work for a little woman who couldn't hardly turn him when she needed to clean him or clean his bed.

Seems about right to me.

No, I don't know the reasons he lived so long after a stroke that took who he was away even as much as a bank failure takes away what we believe to be money in the building. I don't know the whys or even the hows. I can't know on this side of the blessed River Jordan.

I know this much, or suspect it (in words from a song called The reason for the world by Matthew West), "Maybe the reason for the pain is so we would pray for the strength and maybe the reason for the strength is so we would have hope, and maybe the reason for the hope is so we would face the world and maybe the reason for the world is to make us long for home."

Seems about right to me.

"Just keep your eyes on heaven and know you are not alone." He promises, promises mind you, that we will walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but he also promises he will walk that dusty, dark valley with us.

Seems about right to me.

The Bible says: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived the things God has prepared for those who love him ..."

Seems about right to me.

This morning that works for me. The suffering? We deal with it. The pain? Wish it weren't, but it is. The loss? It's going to happen to all of us.

But the promise is he will hold us, even hold us up when our legs are too miserable incapable of holding our trembling, crying bodies.

Seems about right, even to me.