Adult Teachable MomentsBad NewsAug 07
By Crystal Shepherd I rolled over lazily in the early morning hours of August 2nd. My four-month-old gave me her usual gum-filled grin and softly cooed. I returned her smile and reached for my cell phone. Ahh, I thought, this is the perfect birthday. I had hit a milestone in my life-–my thirtieth birthday. All was right with the world. I had a beautiful daughter, a husband, and a comfortable place to sleep. As I watched the light of the rising sun stretch across the walls of my home, I felt content and at peace. I looked at my phone to check the time. 7:30 a.m. My little one had been rising earlier and earlier over the last few days. I noticed a new voicemail, probably Mom wishing me a happy birthday. “Crystal, it’s your neighbor. Honey, you’d better call the police because all our cars were broken into last night.” What? Snap back to reality. The perfect birthday morning disappeared. I spent the better part of an hour talking with police and feeling violated. A stranger had walked into my life bringing bad news and difficulty. Later that day, I read in horror about the tragedy in Minnesota. A bridge had collapsed the day before, killing at least five people and injuring a hundred more. I thought of people who woke up that morning to bad news about a loved one. The headlines reminded me that bad news is a fact of life. Sometimes it’s personal. You find out your mother has cancer. Your friend moves halfway across the globe. You lose someone close to you. Sometimes, however, bad news is more removed from our lives. Another troop or civilian dies in Iraq, a tsunami makes landfall killing many, or AIDS rips through a village in Africa. Bad news comes in many forms. Sometimes it is something small. You showed up late to an appointment or had to pay a fine. Sometimes it is life-changing. You are told you can never have children. The list can go on and on in depressing specificity. Bad news is a threat hanging over our lives. And there are days for all of us when the threat of bad news becomes the real thing. It rips into our lives and changes the landscape. It causes us to question why these things happen. Better still, bad news often raises the question: Where is God in all of this? If I figure out where God is in that bad news, how do I respond? The Bible does tell the story of a man who got a heap of bad news. Job was a decent man who loved God. He seemed like an unlikely target for bad news. After all, he had a lot going for him. He had a family, wealth, friends, and faith. Yet bad news found him. He lost everything—his money, his family, even his good health. Things got so bad for Job that he wished he were dead so he could avoid the pain of living. Job wanted to know where God was and why God was not answering his cries. Job’s friend Elihu poignantly says in Job 33:14, “God always answers, in one way or another, even when people don’t recognize his presence.” God acts in a myriad of ways to help us face bad news. For Job, God called him to the mat to wrestle with difficult questions. In our own lives, God can be found. From Minnesota, we have heard countless stories of rescue workers and passersby helping in the aftermath of the bridge collapse. A bus full of children narrowly missed falling into the water. Good news in the midst of bad. Miracles happen–cancer goes into remission or healing occurs for those who have lost someone. Even when bad news sticks, the Bible says in Psalm 27:1, “The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear?” Maybe we are not always able to answer the whys that come with bad news. Sometimes it might seem like the darkness will always be there, but we are reminded that God is with us. Maybe God’s presence through it all is the miracle and the best news we have. With that knowledge, perhaps we can respond to the bad news with a sense of hope and healing. Questions for Reflection |
|
Caleb's Cafe |
|
