dealing with death

I don't think man deals with death well.

I guess that's because we were never intended to, God never intended for us to die, but sin entered the world and it's all downhill from there.

I attended a funeral today for a high school friend that died last week.

He was 23.

To be fair, we weren't real close anymore, we'd gone to high school together and lived in the same neighborhood, but I went off to college and he went off to college and our paths very rarely crossed since. But it's still the first person who I've known and have been friends with who has died.

All day my thoughts have been returning to the shootings at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007. But even then, I didn't know any of the victims personally, I mourned the collective loss of life, but i didn't know any of them. The only way I got any connection with some of the victims was that 4 of them had been involved with Campus Crusade for Christ, and I got the chance to go and listen to some of their stories from the people who knew them. So I only slightly began to understand the weight of the lives that were cut short. But I'd never talked in person to any of them, never shared a ride with them, never hung out after school with them...

And that what makes today harder for me. I grew up with this guy, played backyard football with him, shared jokes with him. And while I hadn't done any of these things in years, I knew the kind of person he was, the genuine kindness he had towards people. He was a good guy who loved God. On top of that, his father was killed in a plane crash over Afghanistan 4 years ago. For his mother, younger sister and brother to have to deal with all of this in a 4 year span seems ridiculously unfair.

And there's no other way I can explain that. I sat here for a few minutes re-reading that last line and trying to come up with something else to say about it, but it simply seems unfair. I'm sure God can redeem it, but i can't see it. I guess that's why I'm not God...

How is man supposed to deal with death?

It's easier when it's someone older who's fought illness for years, or when we have no personal connection to it. Which is why we can sit here and hear about 70 people being killed by a suicide bomber in some far off country and hardly bat an eye at it.

I think it's also easier when we can blame someone for it. When it's some horrible crime committed, we can blame the person committing the crime. If it's cancer or some other disease, we can blame the disease. I guess in this case, where my friend collapsed for no reason that's been figured out yet, you could blame God. But blaming God doesn't seem very helpful to me. I think that's why we blame people, we want our anger at their death to feel justified. But what is our anger to God? What is our sense of justification to Him?

I think this post has been fairly long and rambling so far, so I'll tie it up and maybe return to some of the stuff later. Is there a 'right' way to deal with death? Are there ways that our society deals with death that are 'wrong?' I don't know. the only thing I do know, and the thing I've been returning to is the same thing I returned to during the April 16th shootings, and it comes from psalm 34:18

"the LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit."

and I pray that would be true for my friend's family now.