Why, Lord?

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. Isaiah 9:2 NIV

I glide down the highway, the taste of Diet Coke and potato chips lingering.  My thoughts are louder than the radio, so I turn the music off.  The darkness is a blanket, covering me.  As I reach across to adjust my seatbelt, the smell of hospital invades my senses.  I turn up my nose wishing I hadn’t used that last squirt of disinfectant foam.  The smell produces a feeling of desperation as I remember the room after room of sick children.

Babies lie in cribs that look like jail cells – trapped.  I’ve just left the room of a child who is just as full of animation as he is uncertainty.  A child who doesn’t know life without daily meds.  One who is an enigma just as much as a miracle. Why, Lord?

Why does God heal some children and not others?  Why do some die and others continue living?  Why are some marriages restored while others wither away? Why do some hard workers lose their jobs while others get raises?  Why, Lord?

In my confusion, I look to God’s Word for answers.  What I found was more of the same.   When King Herod arrested some followers of Christ, he had James, the brother of John, killed by the sword.  He arrested Peter with the intent of execution, as well.  Yet,Peter was led out of the jail by an angel.  Shackles fell off of his wrists and doors opened before him.  Why did Peter live while James died?

I honestly don’t know, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. (Isaiah 55:8 NIV)  But I do know God has a perfect plan – one that I may not understand this side of heaven. And one of the hardest things I may ever have to do is to trust that plan and trust Him. 

That brings me back to the little boy in the hospital bed.  The one hooked to IVs and an EEG.  The one who quotes scripture in his sleep.  The one who professes Christ to anyone who will listen.  The one whose greatest goal in life is to stomp Satan.  Again I ask, why Lord? 

And I think I know. Light belongs in dark places. The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. (Isaiah 9:2 NIV)  It has dawned in the form of a nine-year old boy who walks in the valley holding a candle. 

As I turn onto my street, I can see my destination.  Its light reaches out and draws me home.