I lost my GREAT GREAT UNCLE to a devastating accident 139 years ago. His name was Levi. He was only 23 years old when he lost his life.
Levi had his entire life in front of him. Little did he know that on April 22, 1883, he would encounter the worst day of his life.
Sunday. The day the accident happened.
When someone dies, have you ever given much thought to which day of the week they passed away? We often talk about how we want the date of the death of our loved ones to skip over holidays and birthdays because it creates a gloom over such special days. But we don’t get to choose when we die.
We rarely think about how death on a particular day of the week will affect us forever. If someone dies on a Tuesday or a Thursday there is no strong feeling derived from that day. But Sundays are different.
Sundays are for going to church. Eating a big lunch. Taking a nap. Playing outside. Enjoying the family. Resting under the willow trees as the wind spreads out the long branches.
Have you ever stopped doing something indefinitely because you found out about someone’s death as you were enjoying a particular event or activity? Once your heart connects a person’s death with something you love doing, often you lose the desire to continue with that life-giving pursuit.
I have a friend who refused to dine at a particular restaurant because he was eating there when he received the news about the death of his dad. He couldn’t overcome the image of that fateful day when he was in the middle of eating a cheeseburger. He left the juicy piece of beef on the table, rushed out of the building, and raced to the hospital. In his mind, the uneaten meal is still sitting on the table, waiting to be finished.
That Sunday was rainy, overcast, and gloomy. Typical spring Indiana weather. Levi and his eighteen-year-old sister Elizabeth were riding together in a horse and buggy to church. Elizabeth decided to pull out an umbrella and open it to shield them from the huge rain drops falling from the grayish clouds.
The simple act of expanding an umbrella spooked the horse.
The hoofed beast reared its front legs and bolted down the road and into the ditch.
The steep decline flipped the buggy sideways, throwing Levi from the safety of his seat.
A board fence abruptly stopped his motion.
Levi died from internal injuries three days later.
One morning Levi is a young, strong, energetic twenty-something. Later that week he is dead. How could an umbrella, horse, gravity and a fence be the recipe for death?
What a senseless tragedy.
Two individuals were riding the same horse and buggy on a rainy day. Why was Levi thrown from the buggy to his death at the age of 23? Why did Elizabeth receive the privilege of living 68 more years on this planet? She died at the ripe old age of 86. Something does not seem quite right. Life often seems intolerably unfair.
If I could sit down with Elizabeth and ask her about this accident, what would she have said? She carried the burden of this memory for almost seven decades. How many times did she ask “IF ONLY” to herself after this horrible day?
IF ONLY…I hadn’t opened the umbrella.
IF ONLY…the horse remained calm.
IF ONLY…it was me hitting the fence.
IF ONLY…Levi would have struck a soft patch of grass.
IF ONLY…
Have you ever played the game of “IF ONLY”? If you’ve played it, you have always been the loser. Playing this game will only send our mind into a dark place. Resist the temptation to dwell on all the different scenarios that could have changed the outcome of the tragedy
When our minds begin to think “IF ONLY”, combat these worthless thoughts with truth. Not one human is able to turn back the clock of time and change any event. Not one human knows or understands all of the variables that formulate a tragedy. It is harmful for your mind to spend too much time in the confusion of “why” something happened. You might understand a certain percentage of “why” but God knows every situation fully. We must consistently remind ourselves of this truth:
As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven (Isaiah 55:9-10).
God’s ways are higher than our ways. He knew why Levi was thrown out of the buggy and died. That is high level despair. When we try to reach that high with our minds, our souls regress into a pit of misery.
I find it fascinating that the context of this passage in Isaiah includes rain.
Rain caused an umbrella to open,
which caused the horse to bolt,
and caused Levi to fly into a fence,
ultimately causing his death.
What caused Levi’s death? Rain? Umbrella? Fence?
The answer is… ONLY GOD KNOWS.
Fast forward from April 22, 1883 to April 28, 2022. The day my mom died. It has been difficult to make sense out of her death. A virus attacked her body.
A virus that has claimed the lives of 6,330,572 humans worldwide.
The virus is so tiny that we cannot see it with our eyes, but its destructive power has been felt in almost every family throughout our planet.
I’ve played the “IF ONLY” game a few times over the last few months.
IF ONLY…the virus never arrived in 2020.
IF ONLY…the virus didn’t linger for a couple years.
IF ONLY…she didn’t have a compromised immune system.
IF ONLY…the medication worked.
IF ONLY…God healed her lungs.
IF ONLY…
There is no winning this mind game. I must instead fill my mind with “whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable” (Philippians 4:8). During the aftermath of a tragedy, we must train our brains to think about what is excellent and praiseworthy.
When my mind wants to play the “IF ONLY” game, I instead will focus on these two truths:
#1 - The SECRET THINGS belong to the Lord (Deut 29:29).
#2 - The Lord is GOOD, a refuge in times of trouble. He CARES for those who trust in Him (Nahum 1:7).
God is both good and supernaturally powerful. If God is only good, but doesn’t have the intelligence or the strength to perform miracles, then He is not fully divine. If God is only higher than us without any compassion, then He is merely a heavenly dictator. But if God is caring, omnipotent (all-powerful), and omniscient (all-knowing), then we can TRULY TRUST in Him, no matter what tragedy we encounter.
When a man dies from an umbrella, I will trust in God’s goodness and knowledge.
When a woman dies from a virus, I will trust in God’s goodness and knowledge.
When you face a senseless tragedy, will you trust in God’s goodness and knowledge?
pastorjeremyhelmuth 