A month ago I awakened especially early to the news that one of my closest friends’ son had been in a horrific car accident just after midnight.  The picture she sent from the accident scene and the news that he was being transferred to a local trauma unit painted a dismal picture.  I hurriedly prepared to go to the hospital, fully expecting to give solace for the unthinkable nightmare every mother fears.

The next few hours revealed miracle after miracle as news of what could only be supernatural intervention in that airborne vehicle emerged.  His breathing tube came out, and his CT scan revealed no brain bleed, no internal injuries, and no broken bones.  He knew his name and responded to some commands as he drifted in and out of consciousness.  He was not unscathed—he suffered a traumatic brain injury much like an adult-version of shaken baby syndrome.  But he was miraculously alive and that superseded everything else at the moment.

Tragedies and miracles produce extreme emotions of grief and joy, but they can also bring guilt and bitterness to those on the either end of the two extremes.  Often they are accompanied by the question, “Why?”  For those on the receiving end of an unexplainable miracle, it is “Why me?” and the joy and gratitude are laced with a tinge of guilt.  For those facing tragedy, it is just a solitary “WHY!?!” shouted into the void and when no explanation is received, seeds of bitterness can be planted.

“Why?” must be the most commonly prayed question of all-time.  We ask so many variations of it, depending on the circumstance.  432 times it appears in Scripture.

Moses to the Lord:  “O Lord, why have you done evil to this people?  Why did you ever send me?” (Exodus 5:22)

The people to Moses:  “Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?” (Numbers 21:5)

Job to the Lord:  “Why did I not die at birth, come out from the womb and expire? (Job 3:11) and “Why do the wicked live, reach old age, and grow mighty in power?” (Job 21:7)

Gideon to the Lord:  “Please, my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.” (Judges 6:13)

Even the Lord Himself asks the question: 

The Lord to Moses:  “Why do you cry to me?  Tell the people of Israel to go forward.” (Exodus 14:15)

Jesus to the crowd: “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46)

Jesus to the disciples:  “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?” (Luke 24:38)

Whatever the context, “Why” is a search for understanding. It is typically one of the last interrogatives that children learn because it is so abstract.  “Where” and “Who” are usually first.  “How” and “Why” come much later, and then they are asked with a vengeance.  Because of her delays, Tess, though six-years-old, has only recently acquired basic understanding of the “Why” question, and so she asks it frequently and repeatedly. This means she not only asks it often, but also over and over and over again—even after receiving a response.  This is how children learn.  They overgeneralize concepts, practice them, and conduct their own subconscious experiments in an attempt to nail down the true meaning and use of the concept they are acquiring.

In the case of miracles and tragedies, asking “Why?” makes complete sense.  In his moment of greatest despair, it was the question Jesus asked of His heavenly Father: “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” (Matthew 27:46).

The danger isn’t in asking the question; it is in dwelling on it.  When I faced separation from my spouse, it felt like the ultimate failure in light of what I had chosen to center my life upon.  Only after our marriage counselor suggested that separation could make space for reconciliation did I finally take concrete steps in that direction.  Around the same time, a Christian author I have respected over the years announced that she and her husband who had also been married for over twenty-five years were separating.  Even though I did not personally know her, the news made me feel somehow less alone—less of an anomaly in a community where separation is frowned upon.  But as the months unfolded, my story went much further south than even I could have imagined and hers became a story of repentance, reconciliation, and restoration.  She made it very clear that it was a brutally difficult process that required two incredibly committed people, a great deal of outside support, and miraculous grace.  But as I watched her story go one direction and experienced mine going the opposite direction, I posed the WHY NOT ME question—on more than one occasion with varying levels of disrespect and even the occasional expletive for punctuation.  And truthfully, it never helped.

Our perfect Father patiently entertains our “Why” questions, no matter how frequent, how often repeated, or how out of context we pose them in our attempts to make meaning of the events of our lives.  But like our little children who struggle to understand abstract concepts, there are some things our minds are just not capable of grasping in the temporal world. It isn’t that God doesn’t hear the question we shout into the void or that He hears it but ignores us.  It is that we cannot fathom the answer to the question.  Because children dying, marriages failing, innocent people being violated, natural disasters, and acts of evil will never make sense.  They weren’t part of the world God created; they are part of the broken world that exists.  But that world is temporary and the God who rules it is eternal, so He sees everything from an eternal perspective that our finite, earth-bound minds are just not capable of fully grasping.  So after we cry out our Why? because we can’t NOT cry it out, the question we need to ask most is WHO?  Who do we trust to bring good of this?  Who will carry us through it?  Who has never left our side even when it feels like the bottom has dropped out and all the walls have come crashing down around us?  WHO?

Then we need to remember all the answers He has given us to that question:

“Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.” (Genesis 28:15a)

“I am the Lord, your healer.” (Exodus 15:26b)

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” (Exodus 20:2)

“Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 1:8)

“I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:29)

“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”  (John 6:35)

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”  (John 8:12)

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep…I know my own and my own know me.” (John 10:11. 14b)

“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.” (John 11:25)

“I Am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.” (John 14:11)

“I am in the Father and the Father is in me. The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.” (John 14:10)

“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.’ (John 15:5)

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.” (Revelation 21:6)

I am grateful for the miracles I have witnessed in my own life and the lives of friends and acquaintances.  I am sorry for the tragedies that I and others have experienced.  I don’t pretend to understand how or why they occur in the way that they do.  But I am certain that God is present in every miracle and every tragedy with whatever is needed and that He is weaving a beautiful masterpiece out of every mysterious thread.