Written by Micheal Wollman. Allan Sask. CA. Posted with permission.
Chanda We got to know Chanda 6 years ago when my wife Miriam started therapy at Daniels Kimber in Saskatoon. She was one of the many therapists that helped Miriam rehab from a highway accident. An accident eerily identical to the one that claimed Chanda and her family.
Chanda was a friendly compassionate person with a big heart, big smile and kind words. We remember her care and patience. We remember her joy in her children, evident when she brought Kamryn and Miguire to therapy to show off. But today we were gathered with many others at Elim Church to remember her life. Funerals are hard but this one was harder. A father, a mother and two young children…gone. All their hope and dreams and potentials snuffed out like so many candles in the night. So many questions, so many why’s, so many if only’s. Why did they have to die? Why that night? Why so young? Why the whole family? Why them? Why not the impaired driver that hit them? As humans we demand answers, we demand logic, we demand things that make sense, but this makes no sense. If only they had stayed home that night. If only they had been a few moments earlier, or a few moments later. If only the impaired driver had called a cab. But this thinking cannot help here. This is the end. This is final. There is no sense to be found in this. There is no rhyme or reason. There is no forgiveness for the act of the impaired driver through the lens of which we view the world.
So we look for answers and the only answers to be found are in Scripture. The Scripture tells us something different. It offers us hope: that this is not the end, that this is not final. It tells us that God will wipe the tears away from our eyes. We are assured that this is only a transition we must go through to turn into the beings that God designed us to be. But this is a hard concept for us to comprehend. It is only when we imagine a different lens to view through, a lens that sees life after death, a lens that shows eternity, a lens that shows us God’s love and heaven that we can even begin to make sense of what doesn’t make sense.
The Scriptures offer us a view from the other side of life where we can look at death as merely a bridge or chasm we have crossed to get there. A life where joy and fullness will be so complete that it won’t matter how and when we got there. It will only matter that we are there. It’s only when we look through these lens of Christianity that that we can even think about forgiveness for the drunken driver that took the lives of this young family.
Death has never been easy to except. We only find comfort in knowing that our loved ones are in a much happier place. Also knowing in Christ there are no goodbyes and that it is in death that we have eternal life makes things a bit easier. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34”18)
Revelations 21:4 “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away.”
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