A Senseless Death?

 When speaking to a grieving family after a child’s death, have you ever found yourself uttering the words, “What a senseless death?”  It’s something that might be said without thinking because of the unexpectedness of the death, and without even realizing the impact those words might have on the family. 

 The morning I learned my 22-year-old daughter had died as a result of a car accident, the horror of it took away reality.  After the long night of waiting, those words were unbelievable.  I had such faith that God would heal her after the car accident that I was incredulous at the news. Twenty-two years!  Twenty-two years was all she had, and death took her. 
 
 During the next few weeks I could be realistic at times and face the fact that Jennie was dead, yet other days I couldn’t believe the enormity of it -- an unimaginable situation, difficult to understand, near impossible to live through, and a lurking dark shadow over the future.

 Multiplying the pain and loss we experienced were those four little words: “What a senseless death.”  We heard them from well meaning friends; from church people; from sympathetic relatives.  The word senseless in relation to Jennie’s death seemed to trample into dust any words of comfort we received.  It permeated our memories and magnified our loneliness.   

 People meant to be empathetic, never intending to hurt us, I’m sure.  But they didn’t seem to realize what a devastating effect those words had for us.  Perhaps because of Jennie’s young age at the time of her death people may have thought it to be a senseless happening, but our family could not think of it as that.  Senseless meant meaningless, and I truly believed God to be in control of our lives.  “God, help me to understand.  I need answers, and reassurance of your control and plan for Jennie’s life,” I pleaded. “Show me that her death was not senseless.”

  When crying out to God for answers to life’s pain, I would normally have gone to God’s Word, but this time I couldn’t.  Dealing with the first shock and pain of Jennie’s death, concentration on any one thing for any length of time proved an impossibility.  Any thoughts I had of reading were diminished by the undercurrent of restlessness I felt, and my attention span was minimal at best.
 
 Then miraculously one bright Sunday, God’s hand gently began to push away the fog and dark clouds that had been saturating my mind.  The desire for God’s Word grew once more in my heart, and as I opened my Bible Psalm 139 was there in front of me.  Reading that Psalm made God’s words come alive and true again, and my questions and  prayers were answered.  Jennie’s death could not have been senseless. God, as our creator, knows everything about us. He is with us when we rise and when we sleep -- each moment of our day.  He formed us in our mothers’ wombs.  We are wonderfully made.  God ordained all our days before we were even born, and recorded them in his book. We are precious to him, and we are in his thoughts constantly.

 As I read the Psalm over and over again, I knew those words were not describing a God who would sit back and let his children die senselessly.  Rather, it describes a God of love who minute by minute cares for us; a God who presented his plan of salvation to a hurting world so that believing we could be with him forever in eternity.  Jennie’s days and her death were in God’s control, as he worked out his plans for her life.  The answer lies in the certainty that God will not allow his loved ones to come to a senseless, meaningless end.

 Now, when I am overcome with loneliness for Jennie, I try to view her death from God’s perspective and remember the blessed words of another Psalm, Psalm 116:15,  “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”   Precious, never senseless!