When Your Heart is Breaking

Brief Reflections on Faith in the Midst of Tragedy

Photo by Mojtaba Ravanbakhsh on Unsplash

My heart has been breaking.

A week ago I got one of those phone calls you never want to receive.

Kacie, my 23 year-old second cousin had suddenly died. She had a headache, took some Tylenol, and laid down for a nap. She never woke up.

Kacie felt like a niece to me. She was the same age as my sons. When our extended family would get together, she was there in the group with my boys. She was always laughing and full of life. She was a gifted artist with a degree in digital animation. She was a Swiftie. She was marvelously herself.

And now she is no longer with us.

We gathered to remember her and honor her and hug one another on Saturday. It was clear many of us were still reeling. 23 year-olds are not supposed to die. And they are certainly not supposed to die like this. The word “tragedy” doesn’t feel strong enough.

As we hugged and cried and remembered, we could not help but ask, “Why?”

If you have read the Bible, you know that it does not provide easy answers to this question. In our bolder moments we might even say it gives no answers to this question.

When I was younger I did not like this. I wanted more clarity. At times, I likely attempted to make the Scriptures say things they do not actually say. But now that I am older, I appreciate the honesty of the Bible—it does not attempt to sugarcoat the harshness of this world, but neither does it pretend like such harshness does not exist. It tells us very little: Death entered the world through Adam. And it has continued ever since.

From Job to Jesus, the Bible is unflinching: Death and suffering fills this life.

If you read the Bible looking for death, you will see it on almost every page. It enters by way of the serpent in Eden, and it dogs the people of God at every turn.

The question for those of us walking through the minefield of life usually begins with, “Why?” This is reasonable. I have asked this question many times myself. Scripture, however, seems almost entirely uninterested in this question. It tells us simply that death and sin entered the world through one man, Adam, and it moves on. Death and suffering are part of this world, and the Bible does little to explain their presence. Instead it acknowledges their reality in the world. Instead of asking Why? it turns its attention—and ours—another direction.

On Saturday when we gathered to remember Kacie, we hugged one another. We said, “I love you. You are special to me.” We did not think about if we should do them; these things are second nature when you are hurting.

When we are in pain, what we want most is a loving presence.

We want someone to be close. We want someone saying they see us, that they will be with us as long as they can. We want to hug and to be hugged.

If I am honest, I want this even when I am not in pain. I want Joy to sit next to me and rest her hand on my knee, as if to say, “I’m right here.” I want my sons to invite me into whatever they are doing, to consider me a worthy companion. I want my friends to tell me they were thinking of me when they heard a piece of jazz or saw a rare copy of Bonhoeffer, because it reminds me that I am known. I even want my dachshund to curl up and sleep on the floor nearby when I am working, if only to know that being together is better than being alone.

We each believe Qoheleth in our core:

Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up the other, but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help. Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though one might prevail against another, two will withstand one.

This is the direction the Bible turns—towards presence.

Explanations are in short supply, but the presence of God abounds.

This, at its core, is the message of the Bible: No matter what may befall you, nor whatever you may do, God desires to be with you.

In the opening scenes of the Bible, in Eden, God is with humanity. In the final scene, death is destroyed and people live in harmony with God into eternity. In between, terrible and beautiful things happen, but God is present for all of it.

He is a God who never leaves us. He is a God who never forsakes us.

When we gather to celebrate Resurrection Sunday, we will remember a God who became human so that he might endure death and overcome death with one supreme goal—to eternally redeem his creation, especially us.

My heart has been breaking for a week. I’ve wept for Kacie’s parents. Her family. Her friends.

But somehow, in the breaking, God has drawn near. If I am honest, I did not initially want him to do so. But he met me there, anyway. He met me there because he is the God of Presence, Immanuel, God with us.

The Christian faith tells me that a Resurrection is coming one day. On that day, I will see Kacie face to face. And we will join an innumerable throng around the throne of the Lamb. Even then, the goal of my faith is unmediated presence—to be with her, to be with all of the church, to be with Jesus.

If your heart is breaking, I hope you will find comfort in the coming Resurrection reunion, but, in the meantime, I also hope you find comfort in the God who is always with us.