Does it Matter?

A dear friend of mine recently lost his father unexpectedly. He went in for a routine surgery and was gone within 2 days. He was 63 years old.

In situations like that, the first thing that comes to mind is why?

Why did that have to happen? Why him? Why now?

Photo courtesy: Brice Reul on Flickr (Creative Commons)

A lesson learned

I can remember when I learned something about this for the first time. I was sitting in the passenger seat of my dad’s car. He was behind the wheel. We sat still on a bridge dangling over the interstate, waiting for the green so we could roll forward. You could feel the rumble and sway of the bridge as the cars to the right passed by.

I was rambling on, as teenagers often do, about a story I heard about a guy who was struck in the head by a flying bird while he was out fishing on a boat. He fell over, knocked unconscious, and drowned. All because a bird wasn’t watching where he was going.

What I said next revealed my true heart at the time.

“That sucks. I mean, there’s no one to blame.”

My father, gazing out his window, slowly turned his head my way. He looked me square in the eye, his voice steady as a train, and said,

“Does it matter?”

I don’t know what I said next, though I can guarantee it was something sarcastic. I was a smarta — well, you know what.

But it never left me. In fact, I’ve thought about it a lot since that day, mostly later after graduating college.

Does it matter if there’s someone to blame for death?

See, my Dad meant more than just pointing out it doesn’t matter if there’s someone to blame for death. He was saying I missed the point. It’s so easy to do when we look at death from a human perspective.

At the funeral for my friend’s father, I experienced first hand that it doesn’t matter who’s to blame in the end. If anyone had a right to be upset and blame someone else for the grief they were experiencing, it was this family.

But that’s not how it went down.

There were worship songs like you would hear at a megachurch, with full-on drums, guitar, and bass. I mean praise music. There were stories and some sadness, but there was also celebration of life. Not just the celebration of the earthly father we were remembering, but for the heavenly Father we can all call our own.

My friend gave a short eulogy I’ll never forget. He handled it with much grace, infusing it with his signature humor I’m sure his father smiled down on.

He said we all know life’s not fair. We don’t always get what we deserve. But that’s the point. Because of God’s amazing grace, none of us has to get what we deserve, which is good news because all we deserve is to be nailed to a cross. But we don’t have to be because Jesus bore that burden for us.

Then, speaking for his family, he said we know it’s not fair. But we also know that God loves us. That he cares about us. So we’re not mad. We’re not angry like we know we could be.

Friends, in the end it doesn’t matter if there’s anyone to blame. All that matters is if you’ve accepted Jesus as your savior and lived in a way that pursued him each and every day.

Have you experienced similar feelings when losing someone? 

  • Kelly

    Beautiful! 

    • http://aparchedsoul.com/ Grayson R. Pope

      Thanks Kelly!

  • InciteFaith

    Grayson,

    This is such a raw and ‘hit the mark’ post. So, I’m going to be a little transparent here because this post opened the door for it.

    My grandmother committed suicide and it was the first real loss I experienced in my life and I was young. Her death hit our family hard. More so with my Dad.  I think my Dad’s side of the family has experienced all the emotions over the last 20 years. 

    For me I wrestled with blaming her for taking her own life when she had a relationship with the Lord. I wrestled with blaming God for it at the age of 17 an later in my mid 20′s. 

    Truth is, it really doesn’t matter. Only God knows a person’s heart and can judge. I don’t blame my grandmother for taking her own life because I will never understand or know her reason(s). 

    The path to healing for me has been accepting the areas in life I can’t change, learn from it, grow from it, and move on with a better sense of perspective and clarity. More importantly to trust God through all of it.

    Because He’s the only one who knows and understands.

    Thank you for this post today.

    • http://aparchedsoul.com/ Grayson R. Pope

      Julie,

      Thank you for sharing your story. That’s an incredibly powerful example of the ideas above played out in real life. It sounds like you and your family went through the whole range of emotions after your grandmother’s death.

      I’m glad you learned to let go and trust in God. That’s so hard to do in those situations sometimes.

      I hope your father’s family experiences healing and closure to this in God’s timing.

      Thank you again for your honesty.

  • ChildofGod013

    I wanted to cry during this. My aunt passed away 2 months away in a tragic car crash. She was burned to death. And I can never forget my first few thoughts after I grabbed the laptop from my father and read the email myself. 

    I wanted to scream at the whole coffee shop, asking them why. Why was it my aunt. Why was it now, that my cousins needed her most? Why was it during such an important time in her life? Why did death have to happen?

    But I realize that God has a reason for everything. He know what is deepest in our hearts, and knows the path that will lead us into eternal happiness. But sometimes we forget that, and delusional, we start to believe that we know what is best for us. 

    I cried, and cried. But what struck me most, was that because of my aunts death, I realized the gaping hole in my relationship with God. I didn’t turn to him immediately and I was completely off the path to His arms. I wasn’t praying, wasn’t thinking anymore. I was the impulsive teenager I really am. I had to blame it on someone, because that is how my mind reasoned.

    But your article really made me think. Does it matter? Does Lady Gaga’s new outfit matter? Does what Kim Kardashian do matter? Does the new song by Katy Perry matter?

    And before, I would have yelled yes. But no. It DOESN’T matter. My waist size is irrelevant to the fact that God is waiting patiently for me to see my wrongheadedness. And that DOES matter.

    • http://aparchedsoul.com/ Grayson Pope (A Parched Soul)

      I’m glad this post was able to serve you. It seems like you’ve come to the right conclusion. Just remember that you’re a beautiful child of God, and He wants nothing more than to call you to Himself.