Two days ago from this writing, our friends lost their firstborn, 16-year-old son, in a car accident on his way to school.  Two younger sons were in the car with him. They weren’t seriously hurt. 
Kind, gentle, serious, good student, good athlete, good to his siblings, genuine Christian, active in his church, loving toward his parents.
He was killed by another young driver who was attempting to pass in a no passing zone and hit him head on.
Why did God allow a good, promising young man to die so young?
Why did the driver who caused the accident escape with only minor injuries?
How will the siblings, aged 10 and 12, move on from here after seeing their brother die?
How will his parents heal when every morning routine, every family meal, every holiday reminds them he’s gone?

Peace and healing come when we acknowledge that God has the right to do as he chooses.  We can trust him to do the best thing for us. He isn’t harsh and heavy-handed.  Jesus tenderly carries us with nail scarred hands because he knows what suffering is like.

God has the right to do as he sees fit because:
  He created us
  He rules the universe
  He has good plans for those who love him
  He bought us

“I, the Lord, made you,
and I will not forget you. 
I have swept away your sins like a cloud.
I have scattered your offenses like the morning mist.

Oh, return to me,
for I have paid the price to set you free.”
This is what the Lord says—
    your Redeemer and Creator:

“I am the Lord, who made all things.
    I alone stretched out the heavens.
Who was with me
when I made the earth?”  Isaiah 44:22,24

“I am the Lord, and there is no other.
I create the light and make the darkness.
I send good times and bad times.
I, the Lord, am the one who does these things.  

What sorrow awaits those who argue with their Creator.
Does a clay pot argue with its maker?
Does the clay dispute with the one who shapes it, saying,
    ‘Stop, you’re doing it wrong!’
Does the pot exclaim,
‘How clumsy can you be?’

How terrible it would be if a newborn baby said …to its mother,
‘Why did you make me this way?’”
 
This is what the Lord says—
the Holy One of Israel and your Creator:
“Do you question what I do for my children?
    Do you give me orders about the work of my hands?
I am the one who made the earth
    and created people to live on it.
With my hands I stretched out the heavens.
    All the stars are at my command.”  Isaiah 45:7, 9-12

Earlier in the week of the fatal accident, a 39-year-old man had sat at our table listening to the conversation his parents were having with Husband and me about him.  His parents were explaining to us the nature of their son’s handicap- a serious brain injury. He had a strong opinion about the topic but when he attempted to express it, his speech was halting.   He searched for each word making his effort hard to watch.  We were embarrassed for him while he stumbled and hesitated.  I wondered if all this effort could be worth what he wanted to say.  And then the words connected and I realized he was teaching us a deep theological and intensely practical lesson.  What he finally managed to say was that we need to see things as God sees them.  This heartfelt message came from a man who had all his dreams taken away by a motorcycle accident in his youth that left him so brain injured that he can barely speak.  His wife left him, and he doesn’t see his two boys often enough. His early ambition of becoming a pilot is now impossible.  Instead, he works as a bagger at a grocery store and lives on his parents’ property.  A once promising young man seriously handicapped since early adulthood tells me that we need to see things as God sees them!  He admits that he sometimes struggles emotionally.  He has times of frustration and anger and discouragement.  But he keeps coming back to trusting that God sees his situation and has purpose in it.  What we see is limited, so we must trust that God sees better than we do.  I’m humbled by his faith.  I picture seeing him in Heaven operating at full capacity and fluently telling me, “I told you so!”

Our vision is limited, but when we look at things from God’s perspective everything is different.  We can’t yet see the outcomes.  But he can.  We can’t see all the good that will happen from our present pain.  But he can.  We can’t yet see the joys that are coming.  But he can.  Still by faith, we can embrace that God sees and is working everything for good.

In contrast to the death of a good, young man and the crippling of another, we wonder why God spared us, two old geezers, from harm in a recent accident.  A large branch was torn out of a tall tree in high winds just as we drove underneath.  The crash was deafening as the heavy branch landed on our car seemingly out of nowhere.  Yet God chose to spare us.  Dear Husband calculated that going at our speed 1/14^th of a second would have made our outcome much different.  If the branch had fallen 1/14^th of a second sooner, it would have landed on the road right in front of us.  We couldn’t have avoided hitting the fallen branch which would likely have thrown us off the road.  If it had fallen 1/14^th of a second later, it would have hit our windshield and possibly have seriously injured both of us.  Instead, the branch landed on our hood damaging non-vital car body parts and allowed us to continue driving the three miles home.  We can’t reconcile God’s choices.  It certainly seems to us that taking us home to heaven makes more sense than taking our high school friend home.  We’ve lived a good life and he was just getting started on his.  But Scripture teaches us that God’s ways are not our ways.  Not only that, his ways are higher than our ways.  His ways are more loving, wiser, more purposeful than anything we could think of.  

“For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”  Isaiah 55:9

P.S.  I spent time with the grieving mom today.  She says through tears that God is good to them.  He is comforting them in so many ways and provides help each step of their journey.  She knows it’ll be a long path, but she and her family are trusting God and praising him.

***  Image of the cosmic glow of the Carina Nebula as seen in a stunning 3D reconstruction. The Carina Nebula contains two of the most massive and luminous stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way. The original image was taken by ESO’s Very Large Telescope.