I HAD LUNCH with my son yesterday.
We talked about the Boston Marathon bombing, of course.
I asked if he had watched the news and looked at the online photos.
He had. He cried.
Like many of us.
He said one brief scene in a video clip tipped him over.
It’s the same image that stood out above all the others I had seen that night.
It’s the scene I thought looked most like God.
A teenage girl carried her mom on her back. That’s what it looked like was going on.
Maybe you saw it, too.
And there was the still photo of someone checking the neck pulse of what I’m fairly certain was the young woman who had died. I can’t find the photo online anymore. Perhaps the photographer took it down, out of compassion for the young lady’s family.
I’ve written a lot of books. Scores, I think. I don’t keep count. I spent some time searching through them, looking for something I’ve written that might encourage me and my son — and everyone else who’s grieving like we are.
Zip.
Nothing I’ve written is good enough.
The best I can do is to quote others.
I did that in a section of Bible Snapshots. I plugged in Bible verses that seem to fit the complaint: “It’s one thing after another and I can’t take it anymore.”
Some of us may be feeling like that right about now.
Words from someone who has been there, and who found the way back:
We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles,
but we’re not demoralized;
we’re not sure what to do,
but we know that God knows what to do;
we’ve been spiritually terrorized,
but God hasn’t left our side;
we’ve been thrown down,
but we haven’t broken.
—Paul, 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, The Message
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