Ya know what?

It's really hard to work through preparing a Sunday School lesson titled "Hope from Despair" when you know one member of the class has recently lost a son-in-law, and several members are watching a close friend die a slow death from cancer. It's really hard, and really uncomfortable. And I hope what little I can say on the subject doesn't come off as so flip and young (in the sense of not having experienced real tragedy in my life). It's one of those times where I'd like to get up and say, "Well, this is what I'd like to say, but life's harder and more complicated than this and what I was going to say just sounds kind of hollow to me right now." and then sit back down.

but I can't do that.

I'm hoping that the person I filled in for last week (who lost the son-in-law) will be prepared to teach and having had all along as a plan that she was merely swapping weeks with me; otherwise, it's gonna be hard to present my dumb little "Oh, if we could see our lives from God's perspective, things would be much clearer and a lot of the bad things wouldn't seem so bad" homily. I mean, if she's there. If she's not, I might be able to pull it off.

It's a lot harder for me to deal with (in the sense of understanding) death-situations when they're the result of things like car accidents or other sudden events, than when it's the result of old age at the end of a long full life. And I don't think it's solely because the son-in-law killed was close to my age; it's not just that.