Blessings Lost, Blessings Gained

Today is the 2nd anniversary of the death of Sgt. James Michael Nolen.

 I do not understand the irrational.

I try to make sense of things and I try to come up with silver linings and lessons learned and small good coming from great evil.  I believe in our Almighty God and I believe He has a plan and a purpose.

But I do not believe He ever meant for some things to happen the way they do.

I believe in the idea expressed by Joseph when he confronts his brothers who have sold him into slavery and now he, Joseph, is in the position of being pharaoh's right hand man who can help the brothers keep from starving to death in the great famine.

"You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." - Genesis 50:20

God doesn't make the bad things happen.  But He will take the bad and bring good out of it.

Some crazy, evil, desperate, terrible, miserable person or persons across the world, built a bomb with every intention of harming some American soldier.  And that day, November 22, 2009, it was our soldier, Sgt. James Nolen who was the target.

It doesn't make sense.

And so how can God bring any good from that?

And even if He can (surely He can -- surely the God who can move mountains, part the waters of the Red Sea, create man from mud and His own breath, surely that God can find good in this), but even if He can, will it ever be good enough?

The anniversary of James' death comes so close to Thanksgiving that the entire family cannot help but connect the two.

I thought of it during the Turkey Build and it came to me again on the 22nd, how do we count our blessings when the blessing of having James in our lives is gone so soon?


It has so much less to do with me, I know.  It's not my loss that I mourn so much as I grieve for those I care so deeply for.  My heart breaks for my mother-in-law and my father-in-law.  I cannot imagine losing my sweet John Patrick.  How can they go on having lost their little boy?  My heart breaks every time I see Jeremy and Jon together.  The two of them in a room brings this Back to the Future image of the disappearing photograph.... a sort of Highlights "What's Wrong with This Picture"... how can there be a Jeremy and a Jon without a James?  And Rachel and Will and Jamie.... a wife without a husband, children without a father... how is that ever okay?

But I do see the good.  I see Jeremy and his parents closer than they have been since I met him.  I see Jeremy and Jon building a brotherly bond that is on track to be as strong as the bond each of them had with James.  I see Rachel showing a strength that can only come from an unbearable trial.  I see Will and Jamie, siblings bonded so completely, embraced and cared fro by extended family, by friends, by neighbors, and sometimes even by strangers.  I see the family, the Nolens, taking the time to truly count every single solitary blessing.

I see so much good.  But I know deep down that everything there is would be traded in a heartbeat if it would bring James back.

So is it good enough?

I guess, since it is all we have, it will have to do.

We miss you James.