The Death Report: God’s Peace in the Midst of Chaos
My family is from the Mississippi river roads of Louisiana, a very tight-knit and loyal-to-our-culture community. It’s the type of place where everyone (I’m speaking in multi-generational terms) has graduated from the same high school since the high school was built and no-one uses their government name.
One of the by-products of a little country community like that is a commitment to keeping up with deaths. It’s just what they do.
I can hardly explain it, but if someone dies, everyone will make it their priority to know as many details as possible to share with everyone they end up talking to over the next few days.
As the odd sheep out who didn’t graduate from the same high school as the rest of my family, it has taken some getting used. In fact, I’m not sure if I am used to it. We have a family group message and like breaking news, a death gets reported. Right in front of my salad, every other week.
With the pandemic and our community being comprised of so many high-risk individuals — low-income, poor access to health care, elderly, pre-existing conditions — you can imagine the frequency “Death Hour” has gained.
The unfortunate reality is that not every death is health related. A lot of them are violent, orchestrated by the descendants of Cain (even though that’s not possible because Cain’s descendants got wiped out with the flood, whoops). We’re easily desensitized from violence, so we don’t really recognize the rise or fall of it. Yet, there has definitely been an almost unheard-of rise in gun-violence in my hometown community since the pandemic, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I pulled the data and saw that was true across the board for a couple of communities across the country.
The death report for today got to me. A young man shot his mother in the face,” for some court money.”
Maybe it was that, combined with the couple of minutes I watched armed domestic terrorist storm the capital, plus my work call that somehow ended up about the multi-foot high noose at the capital, and the look on my neighbor’s face when I dropped off condolence flowers for her departed mother.
Either way, the death report got me.
3,000 square feet of my soul ago, I wrote two blogs about peace in God. I re-read them today and, to my incredulousness, they’re both still true.
Glory to God, the Highest, for being of Faithful Love and Consistent of Character.
My disbelief in the longevity of my peace blogs has nothing to do with God’s character and everything to do with mine. I wrote those blogs while I was living out parts of my life that I’ve now repented.
Yet, God is so pure, so holy, so truthful that the accuracy of my depictions of His peace are still true.
It’s true that in the midst of chaos, He is the bringer of everything that is good and organized (Genesis 1–2). It’s true that when my mind is hijacked by the realities of sin (sickness, injustice, murder, racism, instability) that He is faithful to fill me with the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Today, the death report got to me, and I literally ended up on the ground.
Yet, more importantly, that’s when my God got to me. Hallelujah.
He met me where I was at (so the ground), listened to me, wiped my tears, and just held me in the Spirit. I felt so comforted.
That is a miracle. Sure, it’s not water into wine or the blind seeing again, but it’s just as beautiful, unmerited, and significant.
It is a miracle to be given a spirit of comfort and peace in a world where evil disgraces sacred relationships and actively orchestrates confusion and misery. It is a miracle when God expends us, humans, the grace to create an abundance of good, to organize blessings in His Perfect Will.
It is a miracle to have the Ruler of the Universe meet you on the ground.
Thank You, God!
Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for Your Love and Attention. Thank You for Your faithful, everlasting, and unchanging character. I pray for this world, Father God, and for the chaos that we’ve created as imperfect beings. God, redeem us as only You can. Thank You, for sending Yourself in flesh and dying blamelessly so that we could have hope. Thank you for your dedication to your fallen creation since the beginning of time. Only You, God, can stare into chaos and create everything that is good, everything that is holy. You’ve done it since the garden, and I pray for Your continued grace, mercy, and peace. Amen.
I love you, God loves us, and until next time.
-MJ
