Beyond WHY
March 31, 2018
I knew from an early age God had a call on my life. I loved the Bible and the stories in the Bible. David, Samson, Ruth, and Moses were my superheroes. There was something gritty and real about these stories and how God intervened on their behalf. Would God be calling me to that kind of special set-apart life? That was exciting and a little romantic.
Reality hit like a ton of bricks at age 14 when my sister died of cancer. She was a good girl, smart, funny. She deserved better than a deadly disease. I was devastated. In spite of my most earnest prayers to God to intervene, she died. The pastor of my church was a very smart man and loved the people of his congregation, but he was just as disappointed and speechless at the loss as I was. He did not have a good answer for the question: WHY did God let this happen? It would be almost 20 years before I discovered the answer.
The answer was simple: Stop asking WHY! The question ‘WHY’ is a dead end street. It is completely unproductive, and I wasted 20 years of my life spinning my wheels with it. Beyond the scientific reason for her death, the ‘WHY’ does not matter. WHY will never change facts. She died because she had cancer, and there was no cure for that type of cancer in the 1970s.
It took almost 20 years before I studied the Bible enough to see that we have an enemy who is out to destroy us. John 10:10 says the enemy comes only to steal, kill and destroy, but Jesus came that we may have life and have it more abundantly. God did not create evil. He created the Garden of Eden and heaven. But when man, who had dominion on the earth, gave that dominion away to Satan in the Garden of Eden, evil was unleashed in the world. That evil includes sickness and disease.
My sister was a victim of the evil disease of cancer. The enemy not only killed my sister, but also attempted to destroy my life by bombarding me with the endless question of ‘WHY.’ The dead end, I just couldn’t get past. If I blamed God for her death and stayed mad at God, the call on my life stalls out. But, thank God, I found Jesus and rededicated my life to Him. He delivered me from the fear, from the survivor guilt and from the burden of WHY.
This week is the 40th anniversary of my sister’s death. I miss her, but I am living an abundant life beyond ‘WHY.’ This is the life Jesus bought for me on the cross. This is the life my sister would have wanted me to live after she was gone. This Easter, I choose to honor my Savior (and my sister) by walking abundantly in my life's calling. I hope you will too. Happy Easter!
