A Grief Observed

Just a few days ago an ambulance came up our hill one evening only to stop at the house next door to us.  Our landlord Roger lives there while the main house is full and he gave us the news that his tenant had died. We never met her (a couple of our teammates had seen her), but she kept to herself and she had struggled with alcohol and even drunk driving. The effects were evident with beer cans all over her apartment and a totaled car practically sitting on her doorstep.

At the time it did not hit me that someone had died or at least it was not painful since I did not know this lady at all. However, the next morning Roger came over to explain that he was completely gutting and cleaning the apartment. He was the one who found the body and he was intent on transforming the area before the tenant’s son came by to pick up her things. Her son was around our age, maybe a little older. As for the tenant everyone had given up on her a long time ago, even Roger. She had gone to rehab only to fall back into her old habits of alcoholism.

By this point I was moved. How could I not be? If only this lady had known the God of second chances who opens up His arms even when we turn away again and again. Humans can only forgive so much but His grace and compassion are never ending.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:2 it says:

“Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.”

This wonderful news for believers but then oh so quickly my heart begs the question, “What about those with “no hope” and those who are not “in him?”

Roger’s tenant, I can only imagine was not a believer, like Roger himself is not a believer. It pains my heart and soul to think of it and to wrestle with this reality. There is a sense of helplessness and guilt that I could have reached this woman. Our team could have reached this woman if only we had known. However, now she is no longer with us and there is nothing we can do. We our powerless against the grave, only Christ can conquer it.

That right now is my only hope in this moment, that God is a just God. He is good and right and he wants all His creation to be brought back to himself.

It says in 2 Thessalonians 1 that:

“All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well.”

I do not have all the answers and I will continue to struggle with this issue of the unsaved.

Please pray that this experience will increase my urgency for reaching non-believers and also our drive as a team to continue ministering to Roger in this time. All the glory be His.

"It is hard to have patience with people who say, 'There is no death' or 'Death doesn't matter.' There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn't matter."

~ C.S. Lewis A Grief Observed