Related article: Pregnant woman among 3 killed in Eagle Rock crash; street racing blamed.

It’s like a movie that should never have been made. A family lost their three children and an unborn grandchild in a car crash. This is a family that our family knows since we were kids. I don’t know this family at a personal level. But when tragedy strikes, human nature bonds. Pain is universal. And like love, pain ties us together with a bond that you can’t see or express with words. Even actions seem like a feeble and flimsy way of expressing what you feel. But you yourself don’t know what you feel.

I am reminded of Job and the tremendous tragedies that struck him and his family. No wonder his friends were groping in the dark trying to “help” make sense of things. Feeling a need to “explain” God during a tragedy, they misrepresented God entirely! But, if you go back and read what they said, don’t you find yourself agreeing with them? Don’t you feel you’d say the exact same things? What are we to say or do?

Today I was reminded of the fine art of being present and just shutting the &%$# up when tragedy strikes our world. We don’t have the explanations and God does not need us to help explain His actions or apparent lack of action.

The art of being present and just mourning alongside those who are suffering is not natural to us. But God can teach us how to just mourn with those who suffer and acknowledge: we have nothing to say, there is nothing we can do, that we have no clue of what the answer might be, the results of sin entering our world can not be explained…

In addition to that, God’s counter attack on sin, love, during a tragedy, does not feel real. His love seems more painful to bear than the tragedy itself.

Tears are all we have to offer. Having the courage just to be present and crying is a difficult thing. But one that we must do!

One question that I’ve asked myself lately is this: Who comforts God?