Mercy

When I was a child I thought like a child.
I didn't have reference points to interpret loss, tragedy, and deep disappointment.  I viewed my mom, other women, men, towering above with great tears rolling out over things--no, over words I didn't know.  Ignorance and innocence were on my side.
I am older now.  I am a wife, a mother, a friend.  I do have reference points for pain, sadness, and disappointment. I have been loved so much and learned to love more truly.  To love truly is to risk everything.  The world that once made me dream of greatness now grieves my spirit.  My heart aches.
You know, I think I might be able to imagine what it would feel like to lose my 8-year-old daughter.  Might.  Because the instant my mind begins to grasp just one millisecond of what has to be the worst pain and torture on Earth, a planetary vacuum of the soul shuts down all systems.  I'm physically reeling, crying for others, "I can't even imagine!"  It is so crushing, our minds will not even allow us to imagine it.
When the Tsumani hit the coast of the Indian Ocean in 2004, I had only been a mom for 4 months.  I had hardly begun to grasp the gravity of life given and life lost.  My husband and I listened to an NPR interview with John Piper. He was calling on God's mercy, and exhorting all human beings to do the same.  I respected his perspective, but I couldn't quite connect the dots between mass destruction and repentance.
I understand now.
The answer is in the imagination.  That moment when your soul dry heaves at the picture of your worst possible grief?  It's the moment right after that. In that moment I feel the weight of what I've been given, Who has given it, and Who can take it away.  In that moment I am weeping, repenting, and pleading for mercy.  Because I believe He is sovereign, all knowing, and all powerful, I am literally at His mercy.  He owes me nothing.  I owe Him my life.  He is always good and just, whether His plans make me happy or turn my life into a black hole.  I am at His mercy, and what a wretched sinner am I!
Oh, but in His mercy...In His mercy is where we find ourselves.  He has sealed me in His love for all eternity.  He has promised that nothing can separate me from His love.  I cry thank you, thank you, thank you, and plead daily that He protect our family and not allow tragedy in.  But the hardest truth of all is that I believe He is my all loving Father, no matter how much pain He might allow me to feel.  That is a statement of faith I weakly hope can be refined by lesser fires than we have discussed here.