Before I finish a story from Tuesday, a quick note.

I mentioned that Elijah was the only person who hadn’t died between Abraham and Paul. And someone asked about Enoch who, according to Genesis 5, “walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.” But Enoch lived, and disappeared, before Abraham. My statement was technically and poetically true, but it wouldn’t have hurt anything for me to be more complete.

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And that’s the invitation from Jesus.

• Abandon our pictures of what it would have to look like if God’s goal was to do your work, your will.
• Accept God’s invitation to live in relationship with him, asking for strength and peace in the really hard times.

But what about the pain and suffering and death in young people?

We watch young people being murdered or dying suddenly or taking their own lives. And it feels like the idea of God’s timing and planning and work is broken. We understand the death of old people. We struggle with the death of young people.

We ache, we weep, we argue.

And when we think about a plan, we think it must be a pretty awful plan. Right?

I understand the grief and questions. And any “answers” we assigned wouldn’t be helpful. There is such deep grief in each of those moments. And in each of the moments that follows.

And yet I am confident that God is present in those moments, too.  And that, when we begin to breathe again, that the invitation is to be with him. To learn to breathe as the spirit gives us breath.

Amen.

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Recently, I had the opportunity to talk with Tanya McGrath on a fifteen-minute radio program she has on Redeemer Radio. We met through Dr Lee Warren’s podcast and have interacted a bit in relation to my writings here.

Our short conversation expanded to three episodes. And she graciously made the links available to share. She prepared and asked thoughtful questions that made me think about my writing and talk about chaplaining. It was a delightful conversation.

In Part one, we talk about where 300wordsaday came from and what I do as a hospital chaplain.

In Part Two, we talk about the background for This is Hard: What I say when loved ones die.

In Part Three, we talk about my book of conversations with Nehemiah, A Great Work.