"Come, let us return to the Lord. For He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us. He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day that we may live before Him.
 So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord. His going forth is as certain as the dawn; and He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain watering the earth." (Hosea 6:1-3)

 

Why on earth would God want to ‘tear us’ and ‘wound us’? That has such a sadistic ring to it. This year these verses have become personal and frustrating. This past year has felt like a year of tearing. Losing Chad and Palmer in March. Torn. Losing a couple really close friends and co-workers that I envisioned working with for the rest of my life at the shop. Wounded. Losing feeling and strength in my left leg due to a ruptured disc. This year has been one of profound and deep loss.

 

The ‘Why?’ question has haunted me? And at the risk of sounding completely narcissistic I have wondered what is in all this for me? What possible good can come from all this... Yesterday I remembered a conversation Chad and I had out in California six or so years ago. It was the only time we travelled together out of state as far as I can remember. I remember the conversation vividly. I remember the look and the smell of the street we were walking on. The topic was something close to Chad’s heart and thinking. We were talking about how the physical mimics the spiritual or rather how the physical and spiritual are really just 2 expressions of the same reality. We were talking about the similarities between spiritual formation and lifting weights. We talked about the importance of ‘going to failure,’ pushing muscles to the point where they can do no more in order to make progress in gaining strength. We talked about the little tears and traumas that the muscle tissue undergoes in that process and how in nature when something is broken or torn it tends to heal stronger than it was before the break or tear. Like Nietzsche said, “Whatever does not kill us makes us stronger.” This is true in so many areas. Vaccines are introduced into a body so that it learns to fight the very disease that is introduced.

 

So God tears and God wounds. It is the universal way that we are made stronger. This does not answer all the why questions especially about the deaths. There are mysteries there that we may never understand. What i do know is that what happened was real. The losses of 2006 are not figments of my imagination and they are not going away and I can not change them. I can transcend them however. I am starting to see redemptive value amidst all the suffering. I’m starting to realize that tearing is just the beginning and the healing is going to make me and many others stronger whether we like it or not. It already has.

 

“Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way” (James 1)