well before their time

Dying is a part of living. It happens to everyone and there really isn't anything wrong with it. Our lives here on Earth are finite and we've been given a relatively short time to leave the world a better place than we found it. Society doesn't like to talk about death - and some cultures have taken it out of their vocabulary entirely for fear that it will bring it on sooner - but truthfully, we would probably be better off if we did. It would take some of the fear away and very likely would help us all to LIVE better - since our death bed is probably the clearest vantage point of our lives lived thus far. We could all learn from that.

However, there is something insiduous and wrong when someone dies before they really even get started living. Our grandparents are supposed to die before us. And so are our parents. As difficult as those things are, it is the natural order of things. But when our children die before we do, there is something very un-right about that. It is hard to feel anything but part of our lives, part of our world has been robbed from us. 'The thief has come to steal and kill and destroy...." and it seems that he has.

These two young UVIC students that died in the house fire early yesterday morning were taken long before their time. Just entering the prime of their lives shouldn't be the time that they die in something as unnoble as a house fire in the middle of the night while they are sleeping. Everyone that knew them commented on how great their potential was and it is not a stretch to say that the world would be a much better place with them in it. That isn't to mention the personal impact - two dads will never walk the aisle to give their daughters away, two boyfriends will never get to see if this relationship will turn into marriage, two communities and families are ripped apart.

There are no answers to this kind of situation. Nothing that we can say to the families and friends that will even begin to answer the deepest questions they have. Only God through His Holy Spirit can do that. It is something unbloggable.

The only thing that I offer here is for us the living that stand arms length to this story but whose hearts are gripped because each time this happens, we relive those past tragedies in our own lives. There is a second part to the 'thief' passage I wrote above. The WHOLE verse reads 'the thief has come to steal and kill and destroy. BUT I HAVE COME THAT YOU MIGHT HAVE LIFE AND HAVE IT ABUNDANTLY."