Questioning the Pain

I lost a dear friend this week to a very hellish battle with leukemia. Death won a temorary victory...at least over me. She's home now; I'm not. I have asked God so many questions, and sometimes not with a good attitude (like I tell my children to have all the time.) I've felt a little guilty for the irreverant way that I've been asking God about death, my friend's death, and whether or not I'm supposed to ask Him to heal people with cancer or any kind of "terminal" illness. Quite frankly, I don't have a whole lot of testimonies to share about those kinds of healings. I haven't received any hard, straight answers yet, but I've been given a bit of revelation here and there. I'll share one piece of these bits of revelation with you, my readers.

In 1997, my husband was in a terrible wreck. His life was spared, but his body wasn't. He was hurt "real good." ha He looked like a Picasso painting...body parts in wrong places. ha Anyway, my two boys were only 5 and barely 3 at the time. After two days in a hospital and a few surgeries, a dear friend brought the boys from 2 1/2 hours away to see their dad. Before I took the boys into the room to see dad, I tried to explain that dad didn't look like he did when they saw him last. I tried to explain that it might be scary or even a little funny, but that it was really dad and that he was going to be okay. (I was trying to convince myself of those same things too.) As we boarded the elevator to go to the third floor where dad was resting, my 3 year old asked me some questions. They were serious questions to him. The first one was: "Did his head cut off?"
"No", I answered. "Did his eyes fall out?" "No." Even though I found these questions a little funny, my little boy NEEDED to ask them. He needed me to answer them. I could have sat him down before we went into the room and explained everything he was about to see in physiological terms. I could have described how the broken orbital bone caused a leak in the spinal fluid and how it was pooling behind his dad's eye, thus causing the bulging eye....ect....you get the picture. I could have given truthful, honest, correct explainations; and his three year old mind could not have grasped hardly any of it. However, I would have gladly stood in that elevator for another hour and let him ask me any questions that he could have thought up. I felt total compassion for his little mind trying to understand.

Now, you probably see where I'm going with this. If I sat on God's lap tonight and asked Him why my friend had to die, He could probably tell me all the ways that He is using her illness and death to further His kingdom and carry out plans that he has for each person touched by this tragedy in one way or another, but I would probably be like a three year old and only get the "yes" and "no" explanations. I might not even get those. Yet, if I know how to be compassionate to my child and am patient to answer his questions, how much more is my Heavenly Father patient and compassionate toward me???!!! I feel no guilt for asking "why." I do trust my Father. But I have to try to understand; I must ask. Some people don't have to ask; they just trust. I envy that, in a way. I believe that my Father is okay with my asking though.