5-14-12<\/p>\n
Last week my little corner of the country, mid-Michigan, made the news. Actually, after living here for five years, I still cannot describe the geography well. Some news-readers and weathermen describe the area as \u201ccentral mid-Michigan,\u201d or \u201cnorthern southeast Michigan,\u201d or \u201cwest of the \u2018thumb\u2019,\u201d and \u201csouth of the Upper Peninsula.\u201d <\/p>\n
But it wasn\u2019t difficult for a freakish thunderstorm to find it last week. Almost 10 inches of rain fell in a five-hour period. Power was out for 15 hours. Experts called it a \u201cOnce in 500 years storm.\u201d It was five solid hours of lightning and thunder, very strange, like in a cheap horror movie. I suffered a basement flood, damaging some of my archives and collection of thousands of books and hundreds of boxes just down there. This despite a rather comical \u2013 I can say now \u2013 routine of trying to keep the rising water from a dead sump pump, by candlelight, one pot at a time. The Little Dutch Boy I am not. Eventually I lost the race with the rising water and leaking walls.<\/p>\n
What could be worse?<\/p>\n
Well\u2026 my neighbors who lost everything. Nearby basement apartments where water on the ground burst through their windows. A friend whose bedroom had water up to his chin. Dozens of cars in town completely covered by water. A tractor-trailer on the interstate (this is what made national news) that was stuck in a flooded underpass, and the driver had to be rescued after climbing atop the truck\u2019s roof.<\/p>\n
They all had it worse. No matter how bad things get for any of us, we can always find someone who is worse off. Sometimes that truth is a reality-check about our own conditions. We should not always be Whine connoisseurs. Sometimes this truth inspires sympathy toward others, a good thing. It is a reaction common to the human condition that we wonder whether our suffering (or pain or disappointment or betrayal or sickness) is unique to us. My family started a hospital ministry after my wife\u2019s heart transplant, and we frequently were asked the question by patients and members of their families, and survivors after a death: \u201cWhy me?\u201d<\/p>\n
I eventually came to a revelation that the question, as natural as it is, is partially misdirected. We walk through this vale of tears; disease and sickness exist around us; there is sin in this world, and humanity suffers the consequences; and \u201cthe rain falls on the just and unjust.\u201d Sometimes, a lot of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy me?\u201d I suggest the real question should rather ask, \u201cWhy me \u2013 why does God love me so?\u201d or \u201cHow do I deserve His favor?\u201d or \u201cWhile I was yet a sinner\u2026 and despite my continual rebellion\u2026 God sent His Son to die for\u2026 ME?\u201d — Why me?<\/p>\n
This is the real meaning of the real question we should cry out every day. It brings a very humbling perspective. While there are possible reasons for \u201cWhy did my house get flooded?\u201d or plausible factors behind \u201cWhy does someone\u2019s heart fail?\u201d \u2013 there is NO answer to \u201cWhy me, Lord? How do I deserve You?\u201d … except the answer of His loving Grace.<\/p>\n
Let THAT answer flood over us all.<\/p>\n
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A musical treatment of this perspective is expressed in the classic gospel song written by Rusty Goodman, \u201cWho Am I?\u201d <\/p>\n