MAIZEY runs with some of her pack. On the Saturday after Christmas our vet gave us the news. Swollen lymph glands on her neck tested positive for lymphoma.
WHEN WE FACE A TOUGH SITUATION and there’s nothing more we can do, what keeps God from showing mercy?
Why does he seem to sit on this throne in the sky and watch?
This is personal.
As I begin typing this into a new keyboard my wife got me for Christmas, I have no idea where this blog post is going. I’m running on raw emotion. There is no logic now.
I know I want to find a reasonable answer within the next few paragraphs. But I doubt I will. God isn’t famous for answering “why” questions.
One-third of my most loved souls are going or gone
One-third of my most loved souls are going or goneI’m just wondering what I can do as I sit here at my desk with another dying dog at my feet.
In my life, there are 24 humans and dogs I have loved as my most immediate family: parents, siblings, children, grands, and in-laws through marriage of my kids.
A third of them are gone or gravely ill.
One of them, I’ll have to euthanize, I’m afraid—Maizey, our six-year-old black lab mix.
Two years ago, I had to do that for our dog Buddy. I signaled the veterinarian to inject a toxin that put him out of his misery and into mine. Diagnosed with laryngeal paralysis, he was choking for breath.
Now, our beautiful and remarkably smart pup Maizey has developed lymphoma—diagnosed the Saturday after Christmas. The nodes in her throat had swollen. We discovered this early enough that the first tests showed no problem. So we waited and watched. A second test 10 days later showed cancer.
I’m not going to sit here and watch her choke to death.
But God will.
That’s exactly how it feels. As Christians, we talk around calling God out for his apparent failure to show mercy. We excuse him.
Well excuse me, but I’m in no mood to try to excuse him. I want to grill him.
The righteous who grill God
I’m the spiritual descendant of King David who reportedly wrote this poem to God:
For heaven’s sake, wake up, Lord.
Why are you sleeping?
Don’t desert us.
Don’t leave us here forever.
You sure have made yourself scarce.
Why are you hiding from us?
Can’t you see how we’re suffering?
Can’t you see how these people are hurting us.
Here we are, face in the dirt.
Our bodies stretched out on the ground.
Come down and help us.
Show us your love.
Show us your kindness.
Save us.
Psalm 44:23-26, Casual English Bible®
And I’m the soul buddy of Job, the Bible’s nothing-but-trouble character who said:
“God did this to me.
It’s his fault people spit on me.”
Job 17:6, tentative paraphrase for the Casual English Bible®
Death is someone’s bad idea
So pardon me if I complain. It’s a legit complaint. My wife and I did everything we could to give our dogs a full life. For what? A miserable death?
Who thinks up deaths like laryngeal paralysis and lymphoma?
Jesus healed people when he walked on earth? Can’t God heal a dog while ruling creation from heaven?
Don’t tell me he can if he doesn’t. Because he didn’t.
Truly, I want to know. What’s the redemptive value of watching something we love choke to death? Does it make me better?
Hardly. It makes me feel less of everything good. Less blessed. Less loved. And less certain.
I watched Buddy’s brown eyes flip back in death. He was looking to me for help when I told the vet “Okay.” That single moment pushed me into what I suspect is a post-traumatic stress disorder. I live with that scene, see it in my head far too often, and raise my “Why?” to Silent God.
Where’s Waldo, and God?
Where’s Waldo, and God?Bible writers talk a lot about the living God, someone real. I’ve had God Moments, which I’ve reported in some of my videos and blogs. But this isn’t one of them. This is the spiritual version of Where’s Waldo.
Was he in the gift of Maizey just as Buddy was becoming ill? Was he in the minister who sat with me for two hours, listening and counseling? Or was he in my children who intervened and convinced me to get that grief counseling in the first place?
Likely all the above I’d say. For all those scenes sound like something Jesus would have directed.
This is where I’ll begin to quit writing this note.
No resolution to my wondering. Just questions and a resolve to hang onto God and trust him.
Yet I don’t know how much it’s a matter of trust when you’ve got no alternative but to call the Ghostbusters. Clearly, it’s a matter of faith because we do believe that Creation has a Creator. But when it comes to what he will and won’t do to sustain, heal, or save the earth with its creatures great and small, we can only hope and pray.
We’ll beat lymphoma someday. No doubt. When that happens, I’ll call that another God Moment. For it will save others from what I’m experiencing with Maizey and with what I saw in my dad who died of lymphoma.
I love God for what I believe I know about him. I trust God for what I can’t understand. Yet I question him when it feels like he’s sitting in a Roman theater with a fist of figs, watching me fight a gladiator.
Pain comes before theology
The only canine oncologists near my town told us they couldn’t see Maizey for a month. So we’re going long distance to K-State for help in two weeks. It’s the beginning of a longer journey, I’m told.
Meanwhile, I play on my harmonica melancholy songs like “Chasing Cars,” interpret the lyrics toward Maizey, and let myself feel the injury. It’s as real as God. And I give myself permission to take it all in. There’s nothing of theory or theology in the pain. Those come later, when reason takes the mic and emotion takes a chair.
So what’s the last word?
In the end, I’ll do what David said he would do:
In spite of all this misery,
We haven’t forgotten you,
And we’re keeping our promise
To obey the laws you’ve made.
We haven’t turned our backs on you.
We haven’t stopped traveling the path you told us to walk.
(Psalm 44:17-18, Casual English Bible.®)
It makes no sense to do that.
We do it because of our faith, in my case, built on a lifetime of connection to the Spirit of God within me. Though he feels far away sometimes, I know better and I remind ourselves of that.
But the former news reporter guy, who’s still a part of me, asks the hard questions even when there’s no answer and when readers will drop their subscription because tough questions don’t sound like worship.
That’s wrong, of course. If we want answers we need to ask the questions and express the emotion. God will answer in his time and in his way. He has no choice. He loves me.
Maizey playing, the video
You can’t tell by watching 6-year-old Maizey playing with little Kutta that she had just been diagnosed with lymphoma. It happened over the Christmas holiday season. My friend Keith came over to console us, and he brought Kutta to meet Maizey. What you see on the video is what we saw for 2 1/2 hours. Those 2 dogs played themselves into an afternoon stupor of a nap.
Signup to the new Casual English Bible® blog
Steve’s Bible-background YouTube Channel
Steve’s song from the words of prophet Habakkuk
Bible map search engine
Help support The Casual English Bible®
Become a Patron
Bible Gateway
Silent Night