I read yesterday that country singer Joey of "Joey and Rory," is going on hospice. She is dying of cancer that she has fought for over a year. I read her story. She has a sweet little girl, I believe 18 months old with downs syndrome. I thought of Joey all night. I thought of her today. I thought of how God said no again to someone deserving of healing. God did not give them a miracle. Joeys husband writes about how they trust the Lord. They believe in miracles. They speak of Gods love and goodness. Goodness I know so well. Goodness I never questioned until I watched my only brother take his last breath. Now I read about Joey and I think about God and his ways. Ways I cant understand. Why God says no. Why God allows this beautiful, young woman with a precious family, with a heart of faith, die a slow and hideous death. Her mind tormented with the idea that she will not see her daughter grow up. My anger, my bitterness my hopelessness all mingled in with my thoughts. My questions unanswered and my heart heavy again with fear of the unexpected. Life is so fragile it is terrifying. The day my brother died, I drove to the hospital pounding on the steering wheel and all I could do was try to breathe, I repeated to God please, don't let this be the last time I see his face. Please God don't let him die. God did let him die. Life ends and we have no control. Now I look at my children and my heart aches, my soul feels literally faint at the thought that one day I could get the same call. One day I may be faced with losing one of them. I wonder could I survive? I would live on because I have no choice to continue breathing but I would be dead inside as I know it. This pain of losing my brother has changed me. I will never be the same. I will never see life, or the world or even God quite the same. Life is torturous at times. The pain is beyond what we should have to endure. I think of Christ on the cross, his father turning from him, the rejection he felt, the pain, the way he took the sin of the world on his shoulders. I think to myself he understands pain. God understands loss, he gave his only son. Yet I also think, he knew he would be resurrected. My brother will not return. He is gone. Even if I see him again, the time I had with him here is over. I hate my thoughts, I talk to God, I tell him I am angry at him, I am growing bitter. I don't try to hide what God already knows. I don't pretend to believe it was my brothers time and God numbers our days. I believe we live in a fallen, sinful world and while God has the ability to intervene, he doesn't. We are exercising free will, apart from God original intentions for creation and in doing so we have death. Tragedy. Atrocities. I don't believe it is God's will that my brothers life was cut short. Or that poor Joey will die at 40 years old of Cancer, or that so many suffer and die before their time. I find no comfort in such thoughts. No comfort in reality either. I went to church this Sunday and I took time with God. I told him again I am so angry, so broken. I spoke to my brother, I told him how I miss him, how I wish I would dream of him, see his face..... I stood alone in church and deep in my spirit as I worshiped through my pain and bitterness I felt Gods love. I said to him, My God why do you still show up? Why do you still meet me where I am, in my bitterness? Why do you still love me when I question you and doubt you? Those moments with God tell me he is love. That he loves us despite ourselves. I can't answer why we suffer as we do. Why we lose people we love before their time. I only know that God is here with me in my darkest moments. Sometimes quietly. Sometimes more pronounced. I have to believe in my heart that this loving God will one day do as he said and wipe these tears from our eyes. That we will be with our loved ones for eternity never again to be in fear of hideous death.