May this chapter end in tears

statueYou have plunged me to the bottom of hell
To its darkest, deepest place
Weighted down by your anger
Drowned beneath your waves

Yahweh, I invoke you all day,
I stretch out my hands to you
Why do you reject me?
Why do you hide your face from me?

I bore your terrors-now I am exhausted
Like a flood, they were around me, all day long
All together closing on me.
Now darkness is my one companion left.

~excerpts from Psalm 88/87

This Psalm has no happy ending; there is no hope that its writer will ever see God be just or merciful.  The chapter doesn’t end with a hopeful, “It’ll be alright, because God will work it all out.”

The belief that God is just requires even more faith than believing in his existence.  In some situations, there will never be a satisfying answer to our pain or the suffering of others.

The friends of the victims of today’s shooting will not be comforted by solid arguments on mankind’s free will, or by the fact that love cannot exist without risk, or on divine justice making “all things work together for the good of those who love God.”

Let us shed our tears.  Let our hearts be wrenched by this horrible evil.  Let no cliché or well crafted argument try to hide the evil and heartache of the day’s events.  May this chapter end in tears, and may our one hope be that this is not the final chapter for any of us.

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