The hopelessness that stared out from her eyes seemed to mock the beauty marks of the kohl and tribal scarification around them. She sat as if frozen in the heat of that African bush while I carefully unfolded the colorful fabric in her arms. I held my breath as the cloth released a stench that startled me. Tucked within those bright folds of fabric a young body lay. It seemed to contain more skull, bones, and leathery skin than actual life. I held my hand before the child’s nose and caught the very slightest air movement. With intense hope, I prayed. I prayed with an earnestness that my three-year-old belief had not before experienced. Every bit of the faith that had brought me to work in that isolated hospital seemed to funnel into my request. With audible words that this woman could not understand, and with what I was sure was the Holy Spirit’s power, I pled for God’s glory to be made known. I pled and I prayed, I prayed and I pled. 

Then I heard it; it was not the cry of that young child, however. Instead, it was the cry of his mother. Her death wail had begun. 

Broken and confused, I had no checklist for how to understand God’s ways with physical life and death back then. Today, even though He’s taught me much, His choices still bring a tension into my faith. 

During an uneasy night as I grieve death in this life, doubts and trust seem to wrestle on top of my soul. I long for the sun to appear but I can’t give orders to the morning, nor show the dawn its place (Job 38:12). In fact, as I read through all the questions God posed to Job, I can’t answer one of them; and it is this very lack of understanding that halts the wrestling match within me. I see a wider view of God and my knees bow deeply before Him. The Rock under me feels scratchy, but His peace sits heavily upon my shoulders. No, I can’t understand why He let that African child die, but I can trust my mighty God whose understanding of life and death is beyond any wonder I know.