It’s hard to believe that is has really been two years since my friend Mallory Jones passed away. That day brings a knot to my stomach every time I recount its sheer horror. She was my wife’s best friend in the world, and held quite a fond place in my heart as well. God has taught me a lot about His heart concerning death, tragedy and evil in the past few years, although He had to wait until I finished screaming at Him in the middle of our Suffering & Evil class at school to do so. Today I read my wife’s beautiful poem about Mallory and cried, and then I found myself thinking about all He has taught me in the midst of it.
*That Jesus is the Healer. Scripture says that He binds up the broken-hearted, and I’ve never been more convinced of that.
*That Jesus conquered the grave. Its beautiful that Scripture calls death the last enemy to be defeated, and that because of Jesus we don’t have to live in slavery to the fear of death.
*That as final as death seems, there is One who has the last word over it.
*That God restores. He is in the business of finding things that are lost, fixing things that are broken, and making crooked places straight.
*That Jesus knows and He cares. One of my favorite plotlines of redemption in Scripture is that Jesus experiences the grief of death with His friend Lazarus, weeps in despair, then he rises from the dead and asks a hopeless Mary why she is weeping. Its as if He knew that what He had just done provided the cause for the end of all tears. And if thats not enough, in Revelation we see a picture of God’s realized Kingdom as He personally wipes away every tear from the eyes of His children.
*That the Resurrection brings hope to the most despairing of places.
*That I can’t wait for the the day when Mallory will grab me by the hand and we will together sing the victory of Jesus and dance on the grave of death. Also, I’m glad that she does not wait to do so.
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