The Good Do Die Young

Good people pass away;
    the godly often die before their time.
    But no one seems to care or wonder why.
No one seems to understand
    that God is protecting them from the evil to come. Is. 57:1

 

This verse came in a message today to my kid’s ministry, He Lives For Kids.  They got a request for a package because a family in Missouri lost a teenage son unexpectedly.

For the rest of my life I will never hear of a child passing and not be moved. Just hearing the news in a message, from strangers, takes me back to my moment in time when it was me. Just the words, “he died” takes me back to the moment death visited my house too. That moment has given me an innate ability to weep with those who weep.

But as I sit here weep for people I may never meet, that verse stings and brings such hope at the same time. Our children died before their time. Our good children died before they were supposed to.

We weep. We hurt. We cry. We ache. We are mothers who buried our children.

Yet what we don’t always understand is the profound place of safety these children lie in. “No one seems to understand that God is protecting them from the evil to come.” I don’t always understand it.  I don’t always want it even. Some days I just sit with arms empty that want to hold him.

But the truth is that my Azaiah, and all the children who have gone before their time, have been granted peace and protection from the evil of this world and the sorrows of this life. Til we get there too…

 

1. Father,
2. In the pain, in our valley of death,
3. Let each mother and father who weeps today for a child, who has gone too soon, find hope and trust in the words of life.
4. You have protected our children. You have given life in place of death. You have given redemption in place corruption.
5. Help us to see  your ways when our eyes see only loss. Help us look beyond earth. Help us look past our pain. Help us to trust you.
6. And again I declare, Azaiah, my strength is Yahweh.

 

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. Psalm 56:8