I never knew Lisa Le Blanc. She was my stepmother-in-law’s sister. Lisa died last Monday after a long struggle with hepatitis. She was only 43. The memorial service was a very painful one, even for someone who had never met her. The most painful part was the slide show shown at the end of pictures from her life. She was simply a beautiful child, a beautiful teenager, a beautiful woman and a beautiful mother. She left behind two beautiful daughters and two beautiful grandchildren, one only 21/2 months old.
The absolute hardest thing about the funeral was the fact that unless Lisa did so unknowingly to her family, she never trusted Christ as her Savior. My stepmother, one of the most godly women I know, prayed for her daily that God would lead her to salvation. Now, my prayers are for Claudia, that her faith will not be shaken in the least by this. That’s a tall order, I know. But Claudia’s faith has shown itself time and again. She has one of the kindest faces and smiles that I have ever seen.
I look back on this week, one that was one of the toughest of my life, and I count myself somewhat lucky. Sure, my car exploded and was wife was diagnosed with colitis, but death tends to really put things in perspective. I have a wife, beautiful and vivacious. I have my health. And most importantly, I have a wonderful relationship with my Savior.
Ironically, yesterday’s Sunday School lesson at my in-law’s Baptist church was on hell. It was very hard to sit there and listen after what I had been through the day before. But my spirit told me that despite the theological issues that I was having with the sermon (very, very dispensational), it was necessary to hear. Hell is a hard pill to swallow, but a very necessary doctrine.
I do believe that a sense of urgency was ignited in my life. I did realize that I am friends with many people that do not know Christ. Not saying anything to them about their soul’s destination is simply not being faithful to my corner of the vineyard. It’s hard reality, but a necessary one.

Early Monday morning, two Detroit police officers were gunned down senselessly and lost their lives. The same day, word came that my wife’s aunt, who was only in her 30’s and had been in a coma for a few months after suffering kidney failure, passed away. She was not a believer. The next day, while on my way to fix a ticket for a headlight out on my car, I blew the engine in that same car. The polite fire chief that drove me to a gas station confessed to me “There are some biorhythms out there today. It started this morning when my dog s---- in my living room floor.”
I spent the next day trying desperately to figure out how to get an auto loan and hearing about an armored car driver that was shot and killed. The next day, after a doctor’s appointment, my wife told me some more bad news. The doctor’s believed that she had colitis, an intestinal bowel disorder that there is no cure for. After applying for a loan with my credit union, I also found out that I was rejected.
That day proved to be too much for me as I finally went to the bathroom at work and cried…and prayed. I confessed to God that I had no idea what was going on. I had never seen such a week of tragedy and pain. I let go of things because I realized that I had no control anyway. That evening, there was more bad news. The brother of a high school friend of my wife’s had been killed in action in Iraq. I finally confessed to my wife, “It’s been a really bad week, hasn’t it?” She agreed.
Shortly thereafter, we received a phone call from my best friend. Steve had a truck, an old S-10 pickup, that he was willing to let me have for only $500, to be paid as I could. After getting off the phone, I told my wife that we had just had an answer to prayer. I then begin to think of what we had seen this week. My wife has been unofficially diagnosed with colitis, to be determined officially by a colonoscopy in a few days. But she probably does not have Crohn’s disease as the doctors originally thought, and that, in itself, is an answer to prayer.
The problem of evil, as it has been called, is something that I cannot explain. I mean, I can give you philosophical arguments to counter it, but I cannot escape the reality of the evil in this world. What I can tell you is that I believe that evil exists in this world because without it, we would never know what joy was. Sometimes, thinly veiled in the background, is that hand of a sovereign God working behind the scenes to draw you closer to Him. Through all the pain, I can still see the faithfulness of my Savior.

“I find through every ounce of pain I feel
That my mind cannot deny that God is real.”

It brings to mind one of my favorite Stephen Curtis Chapman songs:

As I look back on the road I've traveled,
I see so many times He carried me through;
And if there's one thing that I've learned in my life,
My Redeemer is faithful and true.
My Redeemer is faithful and true.

My Redeemer is faithful and true.
Everything He has said He will do,
And every morning His mercies are new.
My Redeemer is faithful and true.

My heart rejoices when I read the promise
'There is a place I am preparing for you.'
I know someday I'll see my Lord face to face,
'Cause my Redeemer is faithful and true.
My Redeemer is faithful and true.

And in every situation He has proved His love to me;
When I lack the understanding, He gives more grace to me.

He is immutable. No matter how much I change, He is the Rock, the Fortress. It is resting in that fact that gives me strength to keep going. It is knowing that he if faithful and true that keeps me trusting and believing. It is the only thing…the only thing…that has kept me trusting and believing.

I guess I feel like Pinky and the Brain lately. “Are you pondering what I’m pondering?” I sometimes do not think that anyone thinks about the stuff that I think about. I have written before that 2003 was a rough year. 2004 isn’t shaping up either at this point. I have just recently found out that my wife may have Crohn’s Disease. I have had my own personal struggles recently too. I pretty much crashed Tuesday night, no will to fight any more. It’s been very hard to cope with life.
There have been many moments when I have had to look at God and simply say “Why?” But, of course, I am given no more answers than I ever have been. I have sought solace into people that have thought like I do now. One of the lyrics to a song that I really have connected with says, “Lost sight of the irony of twisted faith, lost sight of my soul and its void…” “Twisted faith” is two words that I found connecting a lot lately. I find that a lot of people have faith for the wrong reasons and in the wrong thing. I’m very tired of people trying to twist faith into something that it is not. It is so made me think this morning that I found myself typing it into a search engine on the internet. I have found myself with a great deal of doubts lately, wondering what the point even is. I have found that my love for theology has warped my sense of being and to put it in the simplest of terms…I do not want to fight anymore. As I browsed through the different things that that search brought up, I thought about if maybe I had somehow misrepresented God, like maybe the God that I am serving is not the true representation of God. Maybe God wasn’t what I thought. Maybe I had misread Scripture or not seen something in the Word that showed God to be. I thought about all the attributes of God: His holiness, His faithfulness, His omniscience. Maybe God wasn’t what I thought He was.
I was told that I had a phone call so I got up from my desk and walked to the back to take the call. It was my wife. She said, “I was just praying for you and I felt that God wanted me to tell you something very simple. And that is simply this. ‘God is faithful.’” To say that I was quite stunned would be an understatement. I thanked my wife, told her I loved her and hung up the phone. If God is faithful, he can only be faithful if he is holy. And He can only be holy if He is a supernatural being “that which nothing greater can be conceived” (Thank you, Anselm). That would imply his omniscience. God really is faithful.