There are unanswerable questions. Most of us don’t like this fact. We don’t want to accept it. We spend our time and resources and energy trying to figure it out. We wear ourselves out spiritually and mentally, replaying the steps and wondering what could have gone differently. We want to know why. We want to understand what happened and why it happened and how it happened. And for so much of our lives, there just are no answers. That can be frustrating.
We live in the age of Google and nearly every other search engine you can think. If someone is talking to you, you can fact check what they are telling you. And there is a chance you could actually stumble on some facts searching this way. We want to know how to make something, so we look it up. We want to know how to repair something, we play a YouTube video of it. If we want to hear something in a different language, there is an app for that. There seems to always be an answer for every question. There is this thirst to know in a moment, so we search for the fastest network to get us the answer. We want to know, we want to know it now, and we do not want to take not knowing as an answer. There must be an answer. Except, sometimes, there isn’t.
When we grieve, we can replay events or situations over and over. We want to know what would have happened if we tried something else. We want to know why our loved one was in that situation on that particular day. We want to know why he got cancer or she had her cancer return after fighting so long. We want to understand how one day he was doing fine and the next day, no longer here. We have this desire to know and to not know can really hurt us as we seek to grieve our loss.
Since there are not answers to everything, how do we come to a place of peace? How do we begin to heal when the wound is still exposed? How do we accept we will just not know all the answers? It begins with understanding there are some things we were not meant to understand. This world is filled with the unknown. So we begin to focus on what we do know. We do know that we loved the one we are missing. We do understand we did the best we knew to do with the resources we were given. We do know God was with us on the journey and continues to be with us through it all. We can know that although God has many mysteries, his love is not one of them. We can sense his love. We can experience his love. We can see it and share it and become completely overwhelmed by it. His love is bigger and wider and more vast than our minds would ever begin to comprehend. We may be suffering here and now, but that does not mean God does not understand. It does not mean he does not love us. It does not mean we are abandoned. It means there are mysteries we cannot know and we cling to the One that does understand. We cling to God and his love when all else seems to be collapsing around us. We hold tight to the promise that God is always with us, no matter where we may find ourselves in the journey. The greatest mystery is also the greatest comfort – you are not alone, you are loved.
You do not need to have all the answers. It is okay to not understand the process. It is acceptable to feel lost and confused. Just hear that God is with you. God loves you. And God will not leave you.
SEEING THE EXTRAORDINARY 