Monday Morning Music Ministry

8-27-11

Life happens. As they say. So does death, which merely is to repeat oneself: “Both life and death are parts of the same Great Adventure,” Theodore Roosevelt said, after his son Quentin was shot down over France.

How do we respond to death? Or to the mystery of life? Ironically: how to cope with death’s certainty and to life’s fragility? Sometimes we “lose it.” Sometimes we see through a glass darkly. Sometimes those of us left behind proceed headlong into the business of life. Sometimes we pray to discern God’s will. Sometimes we meditate upon His Word.

My idea is that God does not always hand us multiple-choice quizzes. Sometimes we can do all these things together. They are not mutually exclusive responses.

But always we should trust in His mercy. This is HARD sometimes, fighting the tendency to lean to our own understanding. “His wisdom, yes,” we want to cry; “but where is the mercy?”

Almost exactly a year ago our family was saddened by a miscarriage my daughter Emily suffered, and I wrote a message that attempted to collect my thoughts. This week my other daughter, Heather, lost her baby. Emily and Norman’s came early in her pregnancy; Heather and Patrick’s daughter Sarah, however, was born and died after nine days. The challenges of a 24-week-term birth eventually overwhelmed Sarah’s wracked little body. And I am thinking of a friend this week whose nephew drowned, was recovered but was unconscious, and died after several days .

Our natural minds tend to take over when we try to understand the ways of God.

It is a natural idea that, say, God wants the little baby in Heaven more than He wants her down here. But if that were the entire story, we should wonder why a few days of life, which ultimately adds grief to parents’ joy, can be part of His plan. Yet it is. That we cannot understand it all means, basically, that we are not God, and His mysteries are just that: mysteries. There is sin in the world, so there is death in the world. But after our questions and cries and withdrawal, the mysterious ways of God are to be accepted, embraced, and trusted.

One thing is certain. We shall be united with the living God, and re-united with the healed Sarah, in Heaven some day. We will look around for her, and when we see her, we will have to wait one more brief moment to embrace her, because she will be in Jesus’ lap and in His arms, and then He will pass her to us.

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Some of my meditations on these subjects are well reflected in the lyrics of a gospel song from a few years ago. It is not a line-for-line representation of anyone’s actual thoughts over a baby’s death; not anyone I know. But surely many people, from casual Christians to devoted believers, entertain some of these thoughts. Please listen to the moving performance, and watch the tender pictures. And meditate.

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Click: The Mystery Of the Wonders You Perform

8-8-11

Life happens. As they say. How do we respond? Sometimes we see through a glass darkly. Sometimes we proceed in blind faith. Sometimes we pray to discern God’s will. Sometimes we meditate upon His Word.

My idea is that God does not always hand us multiple-choice quizzes. Sometimes we can do all these things together. They are not mutually exclusive.

Some of my recent meditations are perfectly reflected in the lyrics of a country song from a few years ago:

The Mystery of the Wonders You Perform

Oh Lord, you know that I’m not one to bother you with little things,
And you and I have never been too close.
But we’ve always been on speaking terms, I’ve watched your way of doing things,
And tried to understand you more than most.

No, I haven’t gone to church the way I ought to,
But I always thought you knew in my own way I worshipped you.
While even your own children doubt, and fail to understand
The simple way you go about the things you do.

I’ve seen the doubt upon the face
Of loved ones, as they sadly placed a wreath of flowers on a tiny grave,
And wondered why a child is brought into the world
To only live a little while and die, you could have saved.

But I believe that in your eyes this little child was something special
And you wanted it to be with you, no doubt;
So with outstretched arms you beckoned, so simple, that I reckoned
They can’t understand the way you worked it out.

Once I saw a young man growing till he neared the age of knowing,
Then I watched as something happened to his mind.
No doctor could correct it, it was just as I suspected,
And I marveled at your way of being kind.

They tried everything in vain, and I was there when they explained
To the family, how he slipped into a trance.
I guess you looked into the future, watched him turn his back upon you,
Loving him so much you couldn’t take the chance!

It took a lot of love to die for sinners such as I,
And I guess that’s why you’ve never given up on me.
You understood when some denied you, even when they crucified you,
Knowing all these things were meant to be.

The stable’s such a simple thing, no wonder there were few who came
To see a king the night that you were born.
And I’d ask one favor if I can, help me to better understand
The mystery of the wonders You perform,

The mystery of the wonders You perform.

Writer: Jerry Chesnut, copyright 1970.

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Please listen to the moving performance, and watch the tender pictures. And meditate.

Click: The Mystery of the Wonders You Perform