Death stinks.
It’s the odor of nothingness, the smell of loss, the end of what might have been. And there’s nothing pleasant about it.
Our sweet puppy went to sleep in the night and didn’t wake up this morning.
We just brought her home yesterday, full of excited anticipation. Our hearts were primed to love her. How quickly our house of joy has become a house of mourning! Our grief is the sharp pain of a sudden, unexpected cut. And it doesn’t make sense to us, but what I know is this – there’s no shortage of sorrow in the world. I’m so very grateful for the moments of joy because they are no small thing.
This first real encounter with death has prompted a lot of tear-filled questions. Do all dogs go to heaven? I don’t know the answer to this, but why not? Why shouldn’t they? It seems to me that people are the ones who are always trying to make up rules about who gets in and who’s left out. God always seems to be going out of His way, doing the extraordinary, to redeem His creation so it can share in His heaven.
What if I had…? There’s no blame here. No man can stop death. God ordains all our days, even this one. He has a time and purpose for every season. He’s redeeming all things, buying back the pain and the sorrow and the loss, as well as weaving the joy and laughter into His good plan. And it is a good plan. Our plans are focused on our circumstances. God’s plans are focused on our hearts. He allows what He allows, He does what He does, in order to bring us into a restored relationship with Him.
If God is just, why did He let this happen? I don’t know the answer to this, either. Death is the immovable reminder we all run up against eventually that God’s ways aren’t the ways of man. What I do know, and am completely convinced of, is that God is good. He understands what most of us forget – this world isn’t the end of all things.
Sorrow is better than laughter, for sadness has a refining influence in our lives. The heart of the wise learns when it is in the house of mourning. Ecclesiastes 7:3-4
And as I’m comforting my kids and crying my own tears, I’m struck all over again by what an incredible hope we have. Because here we are faced with a circumstance that we’re powerless over, that we can do nothing to change, and God says, I promise there’s still hope. It’s a hope that isn’t only for this day, or for this life – it’s so much stronger than that. It’s a hope stronger even than death.
So today we’re sitting with our sorrow and learning hard lessons. Today we’re being refined in the cold fire of grief. There are tears, but there will be gladness. There is mourning, but there will be joy.
In that day, he will remove the cloud of gloom, the shadow of death that hangs over the earth. He will swallow up death forever! The Sovereign Lord will wipe away all tears… In that day the people will proclaim, “This is our God. We trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord, in whom we trusted. Let us rejoice in the salvation he brings!” Isaiah 25:7-9