The music group Mercy Me put out a song several years ago titled Even If. A friend posted the YouTube video of it on his Facebook page recently. I clicked on the link and listened to the song. Tears of course ensued. Here are some of the lyrics from the song.
They say sometimes you win some
Sometimes you lose some
And right now, right now I’m losing bad
I’ve stood on this stage night after night
Reminding the broken it’ll be alright
But right now, oh right now I just can’t
It’s easy to sing
When there’s nothing to bring me down
But what will I say
When I’m held to the flame
Like I am right now
I know You’re able and I know You can
Save through the fire with Your mighty hand
But even if You don’t
My hope is You alone
They say it only takes a little faith
To move a mountain
Well good thing
A little faith is all I have, right now
But God, when You choose
To leave mountains unmovable
Oh give me the strength to be able to sing
It is well with my soul
Living in the Even If is hard. As the song says it is easy to say that everything will be okay when life is going well. It is hard to believe that it will be okay and to trust God when He doesn’t move the mountain or provide healing or a miracle. How do you live with the fact that God could have done something and didn’t? How do you go on living knowing that things could/should have been different? All the prayers said for Ben’s healing here on earth seem to have gone unanswered. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God could have healed Ben. But He didn’t. And that is hard.
Is God who He says He is? Can He be trusted? Do I still trust Him? Is my faith misplaced? I know there are people that would look at me and scoff that I would place my faith in a God that didn’t answer my prayer for healing for Ben. Why continue believing in and serving a God that allows so much pain in my life? If this life is all there is then why even continue? But without God, none of this makes any sense and there is no reason to anything that happens in life except good or bad luck.
Thankfully there is more than just this life. Our time here on earth is but a flash in light of the length of eternity. That is why Paul can call it “light and momentary troubles” in II Corinthians 4:17. No matter what our troubles here on earth are, they are brief when compared to eternity. Even the worst troubles cannot compare to the glory of eternity. Whether it is months and months of chemo to fight cancer, chronic pain or health issues, the death of a parent, spouse or child. All of those things and so many more seem so horrible now. And often they seem pointless. However the second half of II Corinthians 4:17 goes on to say that the light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that outweighs them all. Wow! If what I am walking through feels so horrible, how wonderful will eternity be?
One of the things that we talked about in the GriefShare group I attended was lament. The Psalms are full of lament psalms. Many of them were written by King David. David poured out his heart to God. He was honest with God about his struggles. David knew that God was big enough to handle what he felt. God is big enough to handle what I feel as well. I can tell him how much I don’t like that Ben is gone. I can be honest and tell Him that it isn’t fair that despicable people are still here and Ben is not. I can vent my anger and frustration that the life I planned is not the life that I will live now. God is big enough for all of that and so much more. Through it all “My hope is You alone” as the song says. God is my only hope to get through the hard times.
For the Love of Ben 