More random thoughts on my journey following the death of my wife, Renee.

So now, I am mad.

Or maybe I'm perplexed.

Or maybe I'm just exhausted. Maybe I'm just overwhelmed. Maybe I'm starting to wonder if the world is just too broken to ever be fixed.

How can it be that my younger brother, Mack - a better man than I in every possible way - has left this life, left this Earth, and left me, and his family, and so many others in the strange land in which I've been walking for the last seven months - a land in which we stumble around in the darkness, trying to understand the contradiction of grieving for our loss while rejoicing in their gain at the same time? How can I bear this, to quote the Apostle Paul: "sorrow upon sorrow" - [see Philippians 2:27]?

Here's why I'm mad. When you read that verse, in context, you will see that Paul was actually spared from having to endure the burden of "sorrow upon sorrow". His friend, Epaphroditus, recovered from a deathly illness. Paul says that God had "mercy" on both of them. The deadly illness was in God's hands, and God spared him. God saved his life. And God spared Paul from having to bear the burden of "sorrow upon sorrow". Great.

When the word went out Saturday night that Mack was in the hospital with a heart attack, prayers and petitions for his life went up from many places, from many voices, including my own [or was it The Holy Spirit speaking directly to God for me, interpreting my groans of pain and fear, articulating my pleas for "mercy" - Romans 8:26?]. But Mack's life was not saved. I was not spared from the burden of "sorrow upon sorrow".

And, like Job, I want to know why.

Look, I get it. It's probably better to have Paul praying for you than me. But we absolutely had more people praying for Mack than Epaphroditus had praying for him. That's just a scientific fact of modern communication. And I would wager that some of those praying for Mack measure up pretty well against Paul as "pray-ers". So we win big on quantity praying, and we get pretty close on quality praying too. How then is it that we didn't get the same results?

And, while we're at it, I dare Epaphroditus, up there in Heaven right now - that's right, E., I dare you! Go find Mack - yes, find him, drag him away from his reunions with Mom and Dad and Renee - and then compare your crowns with Mack's crowns! There is just no way you win that battle, Epaphroditus - no way! And so, there is no way you deserved saving more than Mack. "No way! No how!" - to quote the gatekeeper of the wizard's castle in "The Wizard of Oz".

Crazy stuff, huh? Crazy and stupid. Yeah, I know. But I confess that my mind went exactly there at some point during the last 48 hours since I got the call saying simply, "He's gone." And maybe crazier still is this: even while my mind was there, in that angry, confrontational space, I could not help but think that both Epaphroditus and Mack, and everybody else up there too, were chuckling over my ignorance, and saying to each other - "Doesn't he know that God's wisdom and plans are far beyond his ability to see or understand? Doesn't he know that these crowns aren't for bragging rights in Heaven? All we do with them is throw them down before the throne of Jesus, because He is the only one worthy of honor here" - Revelation 4:10.

Yes. I know. I know all of that. And I can even laugh at myself for thinking such silly thoughts.

Yet I am still here - exhausted, overwhelmed, and wondering. I'm not really mad anymore. But I am now carrying that burden of "sorrow upon sorrow" - a burden that Paul was so thankful wasn't placed on his shoulders.

And I, and all of us, are now living in a world that's just a little bit more broken, in a world that has just grown a little bit darker. How could it not be more broken without Renee's and Mack's gifts at work everywhere they went? How could it not be darker when Renee's light, and now Mack's light - lights which burned so brightly - have gone out far too soon?

Ambrose Ramsey | Pastor and Shepherd