Tensions

You may remember, five years ago, a plea for prayer being sent out for a set of twins born in the village near us, to a family dear to us here. These premature twins had a fight on their hands with the boy weighing less than a kilo, and the girl not much more. Many of you wrote that you were praying. Thank you! Nurses who received my email sent suggestions that might help these babies. Thank you! Amazingly, these twins received the help they needed and today we celebrate their fifth birthday. It is a joy to see these two thriving and happy. It truly is a miracle. The family continue to thank God for His goodness and His mercy, for the way He saved these children. 

Yesterday morning the twins neighbour (who is a good friend of ours) let us know that his daughter had just had her baby, a new beautiful baby boy. She had gone into labour on Monday and we had been visiting at the hospital and waiting for the news. It was special to visit the new mother and her son at her parents’ home and pray together for this new life. He was so small, also premature, but the family had good plans and ways to care for him. 

It was a shock that, very sadly, he passed away last night. This baby was surrounded by a loving family who had been celebrating his birth only hours before. 

This morning I sat with the grieving mother, her sisters, their mother and several others as the men took the baby to bury in the cemetery. The twin’s mother and her family were there too, crying with this family, sharing the pain of loss.

A loss indescribable. Too sad for words. 

While in one house we were singing that God is good to give life to these twins, just next door, a life had been lost. 

Life and death. Joy and grief. 

And God is somewhere in both. 

I can’t understand it, the tension of this is too much for me to comprehend, and yet. I choose to believe that God is still good. I know His love is there for both families. Why some live and some die doesn’t make sense to me, and yet as I get older, day by day I am learning that life seems to hold joy and suffering in tension constantly. And while it looks like joy and suffering will continue all my days, so much more can I rely on God’s constant love to continue. He is near the broken-hearted (Psalm 34:18). He weeps with those who weep (John 11:35). He delights in us (Psalm 147:11), and rejoices with us (Zephaniah 3:17). We can trust that He will not leave us alone in any of this. 

So often in this culture, and in the ones many of us sit in, we try to explain why bad things happen. But blame and condemnation can’t take away the pain that is felt from the loss of a loved one. Only love can comfort, only love can heal. If God is love, then we can look to Him, lean in to Him, to receive his care and tending.

Author Sally Pim is an Intercultural worker for Baptist Mission Australia. Since early 2017, Sally has been serving in Mozambique, among the Yawo people group. Sally lives in Massangulo, a rural town in northern Mozambique.

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