New World, Old Soul

I’ve spent too much time today looking at the photos of the girls from Camp Mystic, and thinking about how we just recently sent our 9 year old daughter to an overnight camp for the first time. I see those pictures and I see my kids. It hurts my heart. I can’t understand it.

Days like today remind me that no matter what this earth and this life has to offer, the perfect eternity that awaits God’s children is our true home. We as Christians long for a reality with no more tears, no more sadness, no more pain, no more fear, no more sickness, no more sin, no more death.

But that time has not yet come. Tragic events can produce one of two outcomes: those who will curse God or deny His existence, and those who turn to Him. “When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the Rock that is higher than I.” Psalm 61:2

The eternity we long for is yet to come. Until then, Ecclesiastes 3 tells us there is a time for everything. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to uproot. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance.

This is a time to mourn, to weep for these children and their families. Jesus told us in Matthew 5 that “Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted”. Those words can seem flippant, ill-timed, or apathetic to families whose world has just been flipped upside down. But I know that my Savior is a Comforter, a Provider, a Promise Keeper. I know my Savior has those children in His arms and that they have entered the eternity that is still awaiting other followers of Jesus.

It doesn’t make today hurt less. Their pain is gone, but ours remains. Our inability to understand how this could happen remains. Our fear of this same thing happening to our own children remains. Our desire to find someone or something to blame remains. The ticking clock of our own death remains.

When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the Rock that is higher than I. When I don’t understand, lead me to the Rock of wisdom. When I hurt, lead me to the Rock of comfort. When I cry out, lead me to the Rock who hears me. In 1834, Edward Mote wrote, “On Christ the solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.”

In 1871, Horatio Spafford, a real estate investor, lost his fortune in the great Chicago Fire. His four year old son died of scarlet fever around the same time. Shortly after, his wife and four daughters set sail for England, and after a collision with another ship on the Atlantic Ocean, 200 people lost their lives, including Horatio’s four daughters.

Shortly thereafter, Spafford wrote this hymn:

“When peace like a river attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll—

Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to know,

It is well, it is well with my soul.”

When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the Rock that is higher than I.