The Difficult Journeys.

Despite the efforts of those who love us, sometimes our clearest childhood memories are defined by the great tragedies of our time. I distinctly remember the day Ronald Reagan was shot – my family and I were in the car on the way to visit distant family, listening to every word from the radio announcer about what was happening at the scene. My parents tried to be steadfast as we listened, but their fear and grief was obvious.

I was in my 8th grade science class, watching live as the Challenger Shuttle exploded into an arc of white smoke across a clear blue sky. I remember, aside from the total shock, feeling bad for my teacher, who had this grand plan of giving her students an amazing, first-hand lesson in science, and instead gave us tragedy, imprinted forever on our brains.

Not to mention being a child growing up in the Midwest before the Iron Curtain fell, nervous about those nuclear weapons hidden in silos dotted across the peaceful farming landscape. An anxiety brought to the forefront this week, as I listen to the news about nuclear meltdown in Japan.

In the age of Twitter and Facebook, news and images travel at lightening speed. Last week's earthquake and tsunami in Japan are just the most recent images of devastation, and will leave a mark on my children. Generation Y remembers 9-11, Hurricane Katrina, the Thailand Tsunami. It’s earthquakes in Haiti, and political uprisings in Egypt and Libya, with pictures snapped with camera phones and uploaded to the internet within seconds. As a parent it’s hard to keep up. And it's hard to remember to turn off the TV, and not over-expose our children to the images of devastation.

Sometimes, the tragedies are ever so much closer and more personal, than what plays on the news. Kate Braestrup, a mother turned chaplain after the car-accident death of her husband, explains it to her children, in this way, in her book Here if You Need Me:

My children asked me, "Why did dad die?"
I told them, "It was an accident. There are small accidents, like knocking over your milk at the dinner table. And there are large accidents, like the one your dad was in. No one meant for it to happen, it just happened. And his body was too badly damaged in the accident for his soul to stay in it anymore, and so he died.

"God does not spill milk. God did not bash the truck into your father’s car. Nowhere in scripture does it say, ‘God is a car accident’ or ‘God is death.’ God is justice and kindness, mercy, and always - always – love. So if you want to know where God is in this or in anything, look for the love.” 1

God is in the helicopters, dropping bottles of water on the tops of buildings marked with SOS. God is with the 60 year old man found floating on the roof of his house, 9 miles out to sea. God is in the beauty of the smoky white jet streams, zigged-zagged across a sunny, blue sky as planes across America turned around looking for a place to land, almost ten years ago.

God does not cause natural disasters, or terrorists. Sometimes the only thing we need the kids to remember is not to look for God in the tragedy, but to look for God in the love.

Jenny Meade
Walking The Road

Jenny is the Director of Family Life at Asbury. She is married to Trip, and has two young boys. Email  her at jennym@visitasbury.org.

1  Kate Braestrup’s website is http://www.katebraestrup.com/