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Where is God When Young Boys Are Murdered?

TRIGGER WARNING This article or section, or pages it links to, contains information about sexual assault and/or violence which may be triggering to survivors.

In 1989, Jacob Wetterling was 11 years old when he was kidnapped while riding bikes with his brother and best friend. He had been missing ever since. This week the horrific account of his abduction, sexual assault, and murder were finally revealed to an absolutely devastated family who has spent the past 27 years waiting and praying for a miracle. Over the past few days they realized they weren’t getting one.

Reading the story today of Jacob’s final moments made me sick to my stomach. I audibly groaned, and I became visibly angry, unable to shake off the initial flood of disbelief at what I was reading.

My son Noah is 11 years old. He has the same sweet, hopeful smile that Jacob had; the same slight gap in that smile where one of his last baby teeth recently fell out. He has the same kind eyes, Jacob had. He too spends his evenings riding bikes with his friends. He has a life with as much promise and goodness as Jacob’s surely did.

I can’t fathom my son enduring the terror Jacob did in his final hours on this planet, or having to hear about in such excruciating detail, as his family did in the courtroom yesterday. It’s all simply beyond what any words can wrap themselves around, too much sadness for what the heart can contain. 

And as a person of faith, I confess that I’m having a really difficult time with a God who would allow any of it.

As a pastor I’ve sat with people in the most brutal of moments; in the face of profound tragedy and unthinkable grief. And in those times I’ve had to be a reassuring presence, a steadying force that affirmed God’s goodness in the middle of it all. I’m struggling to do any of it in my own mind tonight.

You see, I know how I’m supposed to spin moments like this as a Christian:

I’m supposed to blame this on Sin; on the sickening acts of one twisted, heartless, Godless animal.

I’m supposed to look at the way Jacob’s young life made so many beautiful ripples in his 11 years.

I’m supposed to choose to see how much good Jacob’s family has done in the wake of their son’s disappearance, and the way that so many people have extended love and support to them for the past two and a half decades.

And above all, I’m supposed to trust that God is still present and good, and to blame a sin-afflicted, fallen world for an 11-year old being murdered. I’m supposed to affirm that God is in those who searched for this boy, in groups who do the work of finding missing and exploited children, and even in the grief I and others feel at Jacob’s passing.

I’m trying really hard to do all of those things right now, but none of them can mask the tremors it’s causing me in the very foundations of my faith. I don’t know which is the better option right now, believing that God isn’t there at all, or that God was present on Jacob’s final night and did nothing.

People die every die, I know. These questions aren’t new. You’ve likely asked them before:

If God is as all-powerful and fully loving as we claim God is, shouldn’t there be a better end to this boy’s story?
What is the point of giving a family a beloved son, and allowing him to be taken away like that, to make him suffer that greatly, to make them wait so long?
What good are infinite power and love, if not to rescue sweet young boys from such brutality?

I don’t now what answers I’m looking for, because I’m pretty sure there aren’t any that will suffice, but I have to keep asking for my sanity and because my faith demands it.

Maybe I want God to show up more. Maybe I really want a Savior who saves children from Hell on earth—not just from a Hell beyond it. As God moved in the Scriptures to part the sea and heal the blind and raise the dead, I want God to move to rescue boys on bicycles from sick men they drive past at night. It doesn’t seem like too much to ask.   

Jacob’s parents are people of deep and abiding faith, and their strength has been beyond comprehension. His family has been so filled with dignity and grace in these days. It would be an insult to imagine I could ever step into their shoes. I’d never dream to speculate on how they’re reconciling these things, or if they need reconciling at all—but I need more than I have right now to make sense of this.

The Book of Psalms in the Bible is a series of songs illustrating the full spectrum of the faith experience. It is a raw, unflinching record of belief and unbelief, and how closely they are often intertwined. Sometimes the writer is fully confident of God’s presence and provision, other times desperate and asking for rescue, and other times wondering out loud if God is going to show up at all and questioning the whole system.

Right now I only have psalms of outrage and doubt and anger.

I’m not proud to admit this. I wish my faith was steadier. I wish the platitudes of “God’s plan” and “bad things happening for a reason” were enough to placate or console me—but they aren’t. I wish my mind could work out some tidy little theological answer that wrapped it all up in a way that could let me keep going with the plan as written, but that doesn’t seem to be coming. I wish I could sleep tonight, but I don’t think I’m going to.

In the morning, I’m surely going to do all the life-affirming things that Jacob’s parents asked that people do to support them and honor their beautiful boy: Say a prayer. Light a candle. Be with friends. Play with my children. Giggle. Hold hands. Eat ice cream. Create joy. Help my neighbor.

I’m know I’m going to treasure my 11-year old like I never have before.

But I also know that I have more to do, in addition to those things when I wake up. God and I have work to do together. 

For now, I guess this is just a very angry psalm.

 

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