Revelations over Caramel Apples on a Cool Autumn Night

These things are harder to stab than they appear!

One is never enough.  Bobbing for caramels seems like a much better idea!

A very good Cambodian friend of mine, Sokha, was killed this week in a traffic accident.  She was a spiritual powerhouse, teaching other women, mothering 22 orphan children, raising her three children in the Lord, teaching Sunday school classes, a spiritual light in a very dark community. Her death left a huge void, not just in my heart, but in the lives of so many.  I've struggled for more than twenty four hours now with "What good can come of this?  How could God allow this to happen?"  I don't usually have that struggle in the wake of death.  I've experience a lot of death too, seen a lot of horrible things in the world: babies that starved to death, landmine victims, held women whose husbands washed away in a cyclone, moms dying of AIDS searching for homes for their children, and on and on and on. Even if it's the death of a child, or a long bout with cancer, I always quickly see God's goodness shining through the tragedy.  Not that God causes the tragedy, necessarily, but that he can make good bloom out of anything.  But with this?  Twice orphaned orphans? Motherless children?  One of the lone spiritual lights in a Buddhist village snuffed out?  For the first time, I thought surely evil would triumph over good in this case, and how could God let that happen?  

Then a good mutual friend of mine and Sokha's emailed me and said, "Who are we but children of God?" That set me back exactly to where I needed to be.  Thanks Marie-Claire.  You see, when I lived in Cambodia with Marie-Claire, before children, I spent hours a day in the Word and in prayer. HOURS a DAY. Somedays all night too.  12-20 HOURS a DAY weeping, praying and meditating over the Word. The spiritual plane that put me on is indescribable-think nuns in secluded monasteries, but also serving the lost and least of these everyday, putting the Word into action with every other breath of the day.  Things are clearer up there, to say the least. That's not the case for all missionaries, I know, but it was for me.

Then I move back to suburban America, have three children, do laundry, go to speech therapy, preschool, Dr. appointments, etc...and I steal a  few MINUTES a day with God.  I didn't realize what this had done to my spiritual health until Marie-Claire emailed me with her perspective, the perspective of one blessed to still be living a life with hours a day in the Word.  

Yes, I know raising children is a mission field, and no I'm not complaining about my life.  I am saying that to get the time with God that I need in this life however takes a carving knife.  It doesn't come easily, but it must be done lest my mind transform further in the wrong direction.  

So, I spent nap time today reading 1 Peter.  The dishes aren't done, the laundry needs to be switched, and J. didn't get his cello lesson, but oh well.  First things first, right? 

 It said [emphasis mine], 

6Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time,

 7casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.

 9But resist him [the devil], firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world.

 10After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.

I repented of my pride, and saw the great HOPE available to Sokha's husband and children through this tragedy. They will be brought up from their humble state by a God who cares for them.  They will then be made perfect, strong, and established. And Sokha gets to live in Heaven in the meantime? Huh. The paralyzing grief is subsiding and hope of a new day is shining through. To be a perfected, strong and established Christian only leads to better things in the spiritual realms than anything I could have imagined yesterday.

Pride is a horrible thing.  

As a result of her death, the whole Cambodian village may hate and mock Jesus even more now than they did before her death. Sokha's daughter's faith may be delayed (she's only 8).  Evangelically, this may appear to be a loss for the good guys, but as long as none of us in the Lord lose our faith over this, we will be brought up stronger than before.  My vision wasn't where God's was, so I was calling Him foolish.  "Don't you see what this will to do the lost?" I asked God. "It'll push them further away from you!  This is BAD strategy!" I told Him as if the strategy is mine to know, or as if I can even see the whole field from where I'm sitting... I spent so much time focused on the likely hampered evangelism to those in darkness now who are effected by her death that I lost sight of discipling those who are in Christ now who are struggling over her death, and it's to them that there is a great promise written in this tragedy.   

We often don't struggle enough here in our custom kitchens with our healthy children making caramel apples.  A great missionary I grew up with, Stanley Shipp, once said that he wished a great calamity would fall upon America so that more people would seek Christ.  Well that's a theological quagmire I don't want to muck around in right now, but certainly when troubles do come, if we hold to God's unchanging Hand, we are stronger in the end.  We're reminded to hold our kids a little tighter, and make one or two more caramel apples, and know that for those suffering here and overseas, there is a greater Hand, an immeasurable Hope of perfection, and an everlasting, sustaining Love that will meet them and establish them on higher ground when bad things sometimes just happen to very, very, very good people.

I love you, Sokha, and I will miss you so much!  Thank you for the lessons you've taught me in life and death.