On March 12, 2009, four members of one family were brutally murdered in our county.  I have reflected three times about this tragedy.

• The first reflection was a Q&A to a young woman in our congregation who was friends with one of the victims.
• The second reflection (below) was a draft of a newspaper article several days after the murder - an attempt to offer a pastoral response to the question, “Where is God?”  I publish this article here because it addresses the common human problem of grief from a Christian perspective.
• The third reflection was a revision of the newspaper column after the news break that the members of the murdered family were part of an international drug trade.

Four Tragic Deaths

Four members of one family brutally murdered.  News of a Catawba County quadruple homicide ten days ago shattered a peaceful neighborhood and a peace-loving community.

Yes, the victims were all Asian, but they are part of us.  We are all immigrants from somewhere along our family tree.  They are who we all are, and their lives and deaths will forever be part of our collective story.

This particular family has lived in the U. S. for decades, and in our county for years.  Members of the congregation I serve were their neighbors just around the corner.  One of the victims was also a high school classmate and close friend to a Corinth member.

Where is God in all this? That’s the question pastors are often asked, as I have been asked this week.  There are no answers that will lessen the loss, deaden the pain, or erase the fear.  There are, however, responses that are both compassionate and biblical.

First, God is in our questions.  We want to know “Why?” and so did Jesus on the cross (Mark 15:34).  We want to know “How long?” and so do the martyrs who wait for justice in heaven (Revelation 6:10).  We want to know, “Where is God?” and so did Job (23:3).

God is in our questions because our questions presuppose God.  Atheists don’t struggle with “Why?” because their universe is random and meaningless.  When we ask the hard questions about how a God who is loving, wise, and all-powerful could let this happen, we show we do believe.

God also shows himself in our memories.  Through her tears, the young lady in my congregation shared about good times and fun times with her friend who’s no longer here.  Our ability to love and be loved is a gift from God.  The reason we hurt is because we love.  A life without the pain of loss would be a life without relationships.  Would any of us make that trade?

One of the results of facing loss, no matter how close the person was or how he or she died, should be simply to cherish the loves that remain.  Spend extra time this weekend with your family members and friends.  If walls have built up between you, now is the time to break them down and cherish the time you have together.  No one is guaranteed another day.

God comforts us through our friends.  Even in the darkest days, God sends some kind of light – and it’s usually in the form of someone who cares.  God rarely shows up as an angel of light, but he often shows up in a casserole or in a hug or in a phone call or in tears flowing down a caring friend’s face.  We can’t afford to miss him when he shows up.

God even touches us in our grief.  Because we bear the image of God as human beings, our ability to feel reflects something of his likeness.  To be sure, we don’t always act like God with our emotions.  But the fact that we are sad, hurting, and even angry – these feelings look a lot like God.  When his friend Lazarus died (John 11), Jesus revealed these same human responses.

Finally, God comes to us in our hope, however flickering the light may be.  We get up the next day, put one foot in front of the other, and keep going.  Whether or not we feel like it.  We may not understand, we may not feel like it, but we choose life, we choose love, and we choose hope.

Ezekiel 34 is a wonderful passage of Scripture written at a terrible time in history.  Due both to external and internal factors, there is every reason for God’s people to choose despair.  Instead, God sends a promise that he will restore and care for his people personally.  “Then they will know that I, the LORD their God, am with them and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, declares the Sovereign LORD. You my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, are people, and I am your God, declares the Sovereign LORD.”

When we choose to believe that God showed himself to us personally in Jesus Christ, and when we open our eyes and hearts to look for him, we will realize even in our pain that God is there.