Site
Contents
 |
Imagine Indiana Transition Team Information
General Information about the Area Office
North Indiana Conference Office
South Indiana Conference Office
Area United Methodist
Foundation
Prayer Guides
(Courtesy of the NIC Prayer Team)
For resources to assist your congregation in welcoming guests,
click here
Seashore District Volunteer Center VIM project -- Completed
Hoosier United Methodist News Archives
| Hoosier United Methodist News |
October 2001 |
Heart questions, holy answer
In the book of Romans the question is raised: "What, then, are we to say about these things? … " Rom. 8:31
It is that question that has haunted me since the morning seated at the kitchen table while watching a morning news show, I saw the unbelievable! An airplane going through a building in the city of my birth. Flames, smoke, panic, speechless news commentators, horror and utter disbelief.
But the nightmare grew still more gruesome. A third plane would crash and then a fourth? Fear and uncertainty gripped us all, but surely not like that of those in lower Manhattan. As one weeping, hysterical New Yorker shouted, "It seemed like the end of the world!" And it was for thousands.
"What then are we to say about these things? … " So I began pondering like millions of others. Being alone that morning removed the need to be anything but a crushed and pained human being watching other human beings die a horrific death and others bloodied by glass and steel. It was good not to have to hold back the tears. Alone, I wept.
The writer of Ecclesiastes reasons rather dispassionately and logically, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die;". Eccl. 3:1-2
More than 6,000 human beings lost their lives at the hands of others in a single day! John Donne (1572-1631) was right when he declared that any death diminishes us all. Oh how I feel diminished!
And it matters not if some who perished were of a different race than mine, were racists or sexists, socialists or capitalists, Democrats or Republicans, Liberals or Conservatives, Americans or citizens of some other cherished land. I still feel diminished. And my heart aches.
"What then are we to say about these things? … "
There are those who will answer the geo-political questions. Explanations abound from every quarter. But these explanations and analyses do not satisfy the heart questions -- the hurt questions. Of a mother or father, son or daughter, brother or sister, sweetheart, friend or colleague.
I have seen the faces of anguish as a loved one walks behind a flag covered casket, or sits at a graveside staring into space, or collapses in the arms of a loved one. And I hear the heart questions:
Why did she change her flight?
Why an eight year old?
Why did he go in early that day?
Why when they were to be married next month?
Why when he was to become a member of the church on Sunday?
Why when she was such an advocate for the oppressed everywhere?
Why when he was such a faithful Christian?
Why such a horrific death?
Where was God?
Is there God? And the questions lead to more questions.
Each of us has asked these heart questions. They are the yearnings that go beyond "explanation." Beyond the facts. They are deeper. Ultimately, they are faith questions -- that only faith can answer. We are reminded, " … Now I know only in part;." I Cor.13:12. And there are times when we do not know that much! Charles Albert Tindley made it possible for us to sing, "We'll understand it better by and by."
Seated alone in my kitchen that bright, beautiful, sunny morning, suddenly turned into a day of utter gloom, I began to hum an old hymn and then sing it softly. The heart found it, for I had not sung it in years.
"My times are in Thy hand:
My God I wish them there;
My life, my friends, my soul,
I leave Entirely to Thy care.
My times are in Thy hand,
Whatever they may be;
Pleasing or painful, dark or bright
As best may seem to Thee.
My times are in Thy hand,
I'll always trust in Thee
And after death, at Thy right
hand I shall forever be."
What then are we to say about these things?
The heart responds,
"For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Rom.8:38-39.
And that is sufficient!
Last updated on 01/14/2004