27 years ago when my younger brother (who was just 21 at the time) died of cancer I found myself turning to Job for some kind of explanation. David was fit and healthy and once diagnosed was only ill for six weeks. Recently we have said goodbye to several Officers in the UK who were all promoted to glory considerably earlier than expected – the most recent two being Jo Norton and Christine Budding (who went to heaven yesterday evening). Like my Brother Christine's demise was sudden and unexpected – 11 weeks ago she didn't even know that she was poorly! Jo leaves a husband and a young family, Christine leaves behind her a brother, her close friends, especially the Dare family who looked after her at home up until the day before her promotion to Glory, the Corps she led so well at Carshalton and the Horsham Corps who were so excited that she was due to take command in a few weeks time.
Yesterday a hawk caught a starling in my garden! I couldn't believe it – I know that the Thames isn't that far away and the heath is just up the road but this is urban Dartford and I didn't expect to see a Hawk with its prey in my garden! The Hawk patiently perched on top of the starling with its talons wrapped around the condemned bird's body. It sat like that for ten minutes patiently waiting for its quarry to stop wriggling. Then once dinner was dead it began to rip the carcass apart. Not the most pleasant sight yet strangely awe-inspiring as I watched the strength and majesty of this perfectly designed killing machine. A later inspection of the garden confirmed that everything had been eaten apart from a few feathers and the starling's beak!
In Job 39:26-27 we read "Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom and spread his wings toward the south? Does the eagle soar at your command and build his nest on high?"
Will we ever understand the inexplicable sorrow of premature death – or indeed any kind of apparently unjust suffering? No, I don't suppose we will but what we can say – not with the resigned sorrow of Job - but with a confidence born of Christ and his resurrection "Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him" for "I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God;"
Christine is with God of that there can be no doubt, the Hawk will probably not hunt for a day or two and as life rolls on so death will inevitably put in the occasional untimely appearance – let us make sure that we who are left do our absolute most to squeeze every possible opportunity out of our lives and never take our friends, family and ministry for granted.
May God bless and comfort the bereaved and may God keep us faithful unto death!
Grace and peace, A
3 comments:
Andrew - thank you for this thoughtful and beautifully-worded post.
Ian
Thank you Andrew for these words. I pray Gods blessing on you.
Luanne Gibbons (Pill Corps)
And thank you from me also. In the last 2 weeks I too have suffered the loss of two friends whom I dearly loved in Christ's Name. One of them was not a Christian although witnessed to on many occasions and that is sad, but the other is and I am sure of where she is now - in the place where there is no more pain or suffering but the joy of the presence of God.
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