Grief

In February, Grady Burke was killed in the line of duty. He was a Houston firefighter. Frank Cordua is on trial for manslaughter because he was cooking drugs in an abandoned house. His drug cooking ignited the house and station 46 responded to the blaze. Captain Burke was on the hose leading the charge into the fire. The house collapsed on him. I have been called to testify at the trial this week. My job is to describe the impact of Grady’s death on his family. His wife Cindy is a courageous woman. She is a firefighter’s wife. Their three children are exceptional people. Hannah, Hailey and Hunter have suffered an irreplaceable loss, however. Their lives have been redefined by the death of their father.

I was listening to a song by Natalie Grant this morning that I thought was an appropriate prayerful response to their grief. The song is about the loss of a child. But the lyric is so well written for godly grief that it effectively speaks a word of suffering and comfort.

Two months is too little, they let him go, they had no sudden healing
To think that Providence would take a child from his mother while she prays is appalling.
Who told us we’d be rescued?
What is changed and why should we be saved from nightmares?
We’re asking why this happens to us who have died to live? It’s unfair!

This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life, and you survive.
This is what it is to be loved.
And to know that the promise was when everything failed, we’d be held.

This hand is bitterness.
We want to taste it, let the hatred know our sorrow
The wise hand opens slowly to lilies of the valley and tomorrow.

If hope is born of suffering…
If this is only the beginning…
Can we not wait? For what? Our watching for our Savior?

What I appreciate about this is the honesty. This is not a message that says that if we were only faithful, we would not suffer. God does not deliver the blows on our hearts, either. We live in a fallen world where people are given the freedom to act. With that freedom comes also the responsibility for our choices. Who told us we’d be rescued? God does not spare us from living in this world of choice. The world is full of pain, and God loves the world.
Yes, the wise hand opens slowly to the lilies of the valley and tomorrow.