I don't know. If you ever figure it out, please let me know. Every September 5, I ask myself this question as today is the birthday of my deceased son Jacob.
People ask all the time, "Why does God allow suffering?" That's actually not a very good question. People suffer all the time and never question why. Women go through labor and never question why they are suffering, because they know that their child is coming. Athletes go through the absolute hell of preseason conditioning and never ask God why they are suffering, because they know that their training will pay off during the season.
I guess the question that people are truly asking is, "What's the purpose behind this suffering?" People will go through hard times if they know the purpose. So, I find myself asking, "What's the purpose of going through the death of my infant son?"
I truly don't know. Maybe I will one of these days, but right now, I don't fully know the purpose. However, an obscure passage in the book of Luke helped me immensely.
In Luke 4, we see the baptism of Jesus. Great moment. Voice from heaven, the Holy Spirit descending like a dove, and the Son of God- all in the same moment (the only time in Scripture where we see all three parts of the Trinity at once). Stellar moment. Greatest moment in Scripture.
After His baptism, the Bible says that Jesus was "full of the Holy Spirit."
However, after He was baptized, Jesus was driven into the desert where He fasted for 40 days. He suffered. He questioned. He was tempted by Satan. This was not a great stellar moment. It was probably one of the hardest times in Jesus' life, save for the crucifixion.
After the desert, the Bible says "He returned in the POWER of the Spirit."
Big difference. After the big, great grandiose moment, He was full of the Holy Spirit. After the terrible, suffering moment, He was in the power of the Spirit.
There is a big difference between being full of the Holy Spirit and living life in the power of the Holy Spirit. As Christians, many of us go from high moment to high moment- a great worship service, a mission trip, a great conference, etc- and avoid the desert experiences like the plague. It seems, however, that the powerful Christian life can only be lived after a time of suffering. It seems that suffering leads us to be people we would not be otherwise. It seems that suffering produces character, humility, wisdom, and faith that are essential for being the kind of human beings that God wants us to be.
The great preacher Charles Spurgeon said, "God only uses you powerfully after He hurts you deeply." I see that is true in the heroes of the Bible. Joseph spent 12 years in prison and in slavery before he became ruler of Egypt. Paul was beaten and arrested many times before he became the greatest missionary of all time. King David was on the run for his life for many years before he became king and was labeled "a man after God's own heart." Jesus suffered the cross before conquering death and becoming the Savior of the world.
Does any of this help to allay the grief of the loss of my son? Yes and no. I like knowing that there is a purpose behind what goes on. I know that God has developed many things in me since the death of my son. Does this mean that I miss my son any less? No. Only parents who have lost children know the ache of empty arms that should be holding a child that is no longer there. Only parents who have lost children know the painful reminder of the start of the school year, knowing that your son or daughter should be in the 4th grade, or 5th grade, or graduating high school or college, but they are not.
But I rest assured that Jacob is at my Lord and Savior's side right now, not in a hospital bed with wires and tubes facing multiple surgeries. He will never need another dose of medicine. He will never see the inside of a hospital or feel the cut of a surgeon's knife again. He will never cry, be betrayed, have his heart broken, or feel pain ever again. For this, I am very grateful to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
I guess I could say that his being gone makes me more homesick than ever. I realize that he is the one that is home and I am the one that is away. If Jacob had not died, I doubt I would have ever really been homesick for heaven. I would be in danger of thinking that this world is my home, that I belong here, that this is all there is. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Bible says that we are simply passing through this life, that we will spend 99.9999999999% of our existence somewhere else. On a day like today, I feel my homesickness for heaven more intensely than just about any other day.
People ask all the time, "Why does God allow suffering?" That's actually not a very good question. People suffer all the time and never question why. Women go through labor and never question why they are suffering, because they know that their child is coming. Athletes go through the absolute hell of preseason conditioning and never ask God why they are suffering, because they know that their training will pay off during the season.
I guess the question that people are truly asking is, "What's the purpose behind this suffering?" People will go through hard times if they know the purpose. So, I find myself asking, "What's the purpose of going through the death of my infant son?"
I truly don't know. Maybe I will one of these days, but right now, I don't fully know the purpose. However, an obscure passage in the book of Luke helped me immensely.
In Luke 4, we see the baptism of Jesus. Great moment. Voice from heaven, the Holy Spirit descending like a dove, and the Son of God- all in the same moment (the only time in Scripture where we see all three parts of the Trinity at once). Stellar moment. Greatest moment in Scripture.
After His baptism, the Bible says that Jesus was "full of the Holy Spirit."
However, after He was baptized, Jesus was driven into the desert where He fasted for 40 days. He suffered. He questioned. He was tempted by Satan. This was not a great stellar moment. It was probably one of the hardest times in Jesus' life, save for the crucifixion.
After the desert, the Bible says "He returned in the POWER of the Spirit."
Big difference. After the big, great grandiose moment, He was full of the Holy Spirit. After the terrible, suffering moment, He was in the power of the Spirit.
There is a big difference between being full of the Holy Spirit and living life in the power of the Holy Spirit. As Christians, many of us go from high moment to high moment- a great worship service, a mission trip, a great conference, etc- and avoid the desert experiences like the plague. It seems, however, that the powerful Christian life can only be lived after a time of suffering. It seems that suffering leads us to be people we would not be otherwise. It seems that suffering produces character, humility, wisdom, and faith that are essential for being the kind of human beings that God wants us to be.
The great preacher Charles Spurgeon said, "God only uses you powerfully after He hurts you deeply." I see that is true in the heroes of the Bible. Joseph spent 12 years in prison and in slavery before he became ruler of Egypt. Paul was beaten and arrested many times before he became the greatest missionary of all time. King David was on the run for his life for many years before he became king and was labeled "a man after God's own heart." Jesus suffered the cross before conquering death and becoming the Savior of the world.
Does any of this help to allay the grief of the loss of my son? Yes and no. I like knowing that there is a purpose behind what goes on. I know that God has developed many things in me since the death of my son. Does this mean that I miss my son any less? No. Only parents who have lost children know the ache of empty arms that should be holding a child that is no longer there. Only parents who have lost children know the painful reminder of the start of the school year, knowing that your son or daughter should be in the 4th grade, or 5th grade, or graduating high school or college, but they are not.
But I rest assured that Jacob is at my Lord and Savior's side right now, not in a hospital bed with wires and tubes facing multiple surgeries. He will never need another dose of medicine. He will never see the inside of a hospital or feel the cut of a surgeon's knife again. He will never cry, be betrayed, have his heart broken, or feel pain ever again. For this, I am very grateful to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
I guess I could say that his being gone makes me more homesick than ever. I realize that he is the one that is home and I am the one that is away. If Jacob had not died, I doubt I would have ever really been homesick for heaven. I would be in danger of thinking that this world is my home, that I belong here, that this is all there is. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Bible says that we are simply passing through this life, that we will spend 99.9999999999% of our existence somewhere else. On a day like today, I feel my homesickness for heaven more intensely than just about any other day.
Jacob Benjamin Kibler, 9/5/04- 9/15/04
Our little man
I type this through teary eyes. He is a handsome boy.
ReplyDeleteBless you David ... I wish no parent had to know this pain... but we do. Love you.
ReplyDeleteI wrote in my book that I believe death is actually a gift. Sometimes it comes in disguise as a curse or a punishment. It is most definitely tragic on our end, but we are in the temporal and NONE of this will matter when we are in Glory. God, before the creation of the world had decided that He would give us the gift of freewill as he gave the angels. He also knew Adam would choose wrong and had to come up with a Plan B because He knew Plan A would not work. I am assuming that Plan A was to create immortal soul/bodied humans to live in perfect peace with God. Because Adam would not choose obedience, God had to come up with another plan otherwise, we would be alive immortally, but immortally evil. He could not make a liar out of himself, so He had to come up with a plan that would be consistent with His character. The only way to get us back to Him was to separate us from Him, and because He cannot lie, someone was going to die, Jesus volunteered. I lay out a "imagined" scenario of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit planning out the Creation and Mankind. So, death is a gift. He knew He had to get us back to Him and this was the only way it could be done. By making our human bodies mortal, He could get us back.
ReplyDeleteDoes that make sense? Why babies die is another question, but taking my circular reasoning, maybe God was preventing that baby from choosing to be eternally separated from Him Maybe He knew that your son would not choose to follow Him, thus He brought him home to Glory to keep him there safe and sound until you are reunited. I have a quad-squad up there I look forward to meeting. I wrote about them also. God Bless and I hope that helps.
David, you are a good man.
ReplyDeleteThere are many parents who have lost children who are not dead. It's been 5 1/2 years since we've had contact or a relationship with our adult child. She lives 0.4 of a mile away and wants nothing to do with any of us. Who knows if she will ever come back, death is not the only way to lose a child or grieve over one. That grief is just has hard for us, only it's different in nature. Your's is of having missed out, I believe, whereas is as being betrayed, them turning their back on us. Just like we do with God. Being a parent of an estranged child give me a whole understanding of God and how he feels about us as wayward children who do not want to have a relationship with him, or are angry and turn from Him. I'm glad He understands all this better than we and He can see the beginning from the end. We can trust Him in all of that, and only pray that our suffering will alleviate, or encourage another in the throes of it, because they understand that we understand by experience. Unless we experience suffering, our words hold no weight or credence. People will just say, "yeah, right what do you know?" When we suffer and have victory eventually, and we become strong in the Lord, we can say, "Yeah, I do know. Look where I am today, you will be also. Trust, give it over to the One who know how best to help you deal with it.
ReplyDelete