Years ago my friend Marge’s teenage son was killed while skiing with friends and classmates at Bogus Basin Ski Resort. He ran into a tree and was killed instantly.
That night after my friend received the news in her home I witnessed astounding faith.

“Tommy is with God,” she said through her tears. “He is now praying for us.”

She was suffering all the feelings of shock and unbelief that Tom could be taken from their home so suddenly, but the overriding theme flowing from Marge that night was one of trust and assurance that God would bring meaning to Tom’s death.

A Mass was scheduled the following morning at Bishop Kelly High School for a grieving student body, along with the family. Marge said, “Jim and I cannot go. But it would make me happy if you would go. ”

The gymnasium was filled with students, friends and faculty. Tom had been designated “Outstanding Sophomore of the year.” He was a treasured person. That fact of his distinctive acumen was born out by more than words.

Words. Many were said and surely they comforted. No doubt each came away with some nugget of truth. For me it was Father William Dodgson’s words: “Tom’s life is changed. But it is life . . . it is the Father’s life. This is a time when Tom would want you to make your faith work.”

I was reminded of words said by another man of God, C. S. Lewis, as he grieved the death of his wife, after their marriage of only four years. He wrote:

“Bridge players tell me that there must be some money on the game ‘or else people won’t take it seriously. ’ Apparently it’s like that. Your bid – for God or no God, for a good God or the Cosmic Sadist, for eternal life or nonentity – will not be serious if nothing much is staked on it. And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high; until you find that you are playing not for counters or for sixpences but for every penny you have in the world. Nothing less will shake a man – or at any rate a man like me – out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself.” Sources reveal Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia and many other famous titles, “became an atheist at age 15, though he later described his young self as being paradoxically ‘very angry with God for not existing and equally angry with him for creating a world.’” The “how” and “why” of that can be discovered in, The Conversion Story of C.S. Lewis.

Grief is torture. It strikes us cruelly, ripping away the peripherals, giving us a long look at our nakedness. It is human life that is at stake. We grapple with the meaning of life and death, coming away like Jacob of the Old Testament, injured but blessed with new appreciation for life’s essence. Blessed in the realization that each one of us is mortal, and a reminder not to take people for granted.

Time seems to stand still while we grieve. It is a time for “verbal thinking” and “notional beliefs” to make that long journey from head to heart. Often faith is weighed in the balance and found wanting as we cry out, “Lord I believe . . . help my unbelief!”

While caught in the throes of grief sometimes we cling to God for our strength and solace and other times we throw our anger like feet into His face, attempting to empty ourselves of the burden. But if we refrain from turning our backs on God – if we wait, watch and listen instead of running – we will encounter His response, the long loving gaze of a Father who also has suffered. A Father who understands.

The funeral of a friend of Gary’s and mine was held last night. We were unable to make the trip to our home town to attend. Today, through tears my sister related things about the service for this wonderful, friend who lived an exemplary, Christian life. Loved by many of us, for sure.

His wife Letty is very close with my sister, Mary and her husband, Dave. She related much to them within Jim’s final days and his last words.

Letty said, “Jim was very sick until he quit treatment and entered hospice. But, he could not take morphine. We prayed he would not suffer – and, after that he had no pain. She told of his last day being at rest in bed when suddenly a very big smile came over his face. He exclaimed, “Letty, bring some chairs in here! There are so many angels and they are all standing.” Immediately thereafter, Jim passed over from this realm to Heaven’s.

John 14:1-2, tells us, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know. ”

How wonderful are the truths of Scripture.