If The Eyes Had No Tears, The Soul Would Have No Rainbow

I'm sitting in a Panera Bread in Los Angeles, eating my cinnamon scone and preparing to cut my trip here short. I'll have to return home tomorrow and then fly to Omaha, Nebraska for a funeral. A young father in his 30s died there last Friday, leaving behind a wife and three small children. There are always questions in these types of situations: Why? Why someone so young? Why someone who had a wife and kids? The "why" questions can be endless, and there's never a quantifiable answer. 

I don't believe in "it was just his time" or that God called him home. There's too much cruelty to these pat answers and they make God seem like a beast. What purpose could there be behind such imagined acts of God? I see no redeeming purpose to seizing a young man from his young family.

I do believe that life happens. When someone dies and there is no acceptable answer to "why," I believe it's simply the human condition. It's the way we're wired. It's random. God didn't plan it and God didn't decide to call anyone home in the prime of their life.

God is there, though, to help us through the suffering of it all. God is the pillar, the energy boost we need to help us grieve the unexplainable loss we suffer when someone close to us dies. God provides the tears to heal us so that our souls can once again shine and we can move forward in life.

If you are suffering from a great loss, allow yourself to grieve. Feel the pain, taste the tears, experience the love that is forever there for you and allow your soul to regain its rainbow.