12 February 1975 – 7 January 2026
Note: I wrote this in honor and memory of my oldest niece, who died last week. I share it here with the permission of her mother, who is my older sister. Please join me in prayer for the family.
This is such an odd moment. It doesn’t seem right that a 74-year-old uncle should be struggling to find appropriate words to say about his 50-year-old niece, who died so young and with so much of life ahead of her. Certainly, God is more than aware of just how unreasonable it seems that her parents are here and have the same struggle. Her two brothers face the same reality, and perhaps only God can fully understand the brokenness of the hearts of her husband and their three children, who are not yet 30 years old and who deeply loved their mother.
We humans seem to have this incessant need to explain what cannot be explained. We will tell each other a variety of nonsense ideas about this moment that are rooted in our own self-declared need to explain bad stuff in a way that makes it look good, and honestly, preachers can be the most prone to do that.
Over the past four years and five months since my wife, Vicki, died, I have been on the receiving end of many of those kinds of comments. “It was her time.” “She’s in a better place.” “There’s a reason for everything.” “At least she isn’t suffering anymore.” “In my long life, I’ve learned . . .” And the ever-present idea that God was desperate for a new angel and capriciously decided I would just need to suffer when He took my loved one to be His new angel. By the way, the Bible doesn’t remotely suggest we become angels when we die – we are “raised in the likeness of Jesus’ resurrection.” (Romans 6) We will be given immortal, glorified resurrection bodies. (I Corinthians 15) John will tell us, “we will be just like He is, for we will see Him as He is.” (1 John 3:1-3)
Perhaps in each of the sayings I just mentioned, there is an element of truth – followers of Jesus do go to a better place, for example, but that is hardly God’s plan in terms of why He made humans in the first place. The late Fred Craddock, one of the most notable preachers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, once said, “The greatest challenge for preaching today is that there is so much almost Bible out there.”
But in moments like this – why in the world did 50-year old Amy die on Wednesday? – the last thing we need to hear is “almost Bible.” Years ago, one of my preaching heroes, Dr. Myron J. Taylor, was the preacher of University Christian Church in Los Angeles. A 16-year-old girl in that church was killed in a freeway accident on her way home from school. On the front page of their church’s newsletter that week, he wrote a sentence that I have never forgotten. He said, in reference to the death of this young teenager, “The first heart that was broken when she died was God’s own heart.”
If that is true, and I believe that it is, then so much of the “almost Bible” we hear in times like this doesn’t work. Instead of the monster that we sometimes make God out to be in these moments, He becomes our companion, our redeemer, our Comforter. Amy’s last breath Wednesday morning was heartbreaking for God, not a celebration that He now had that “new angel” He desperately needed.
I know what I am saying pushes back on many of our cultural conversations about God and death. But I also know that sometimes our conversations about God reflect our own conclusions about life and death – almost Bible – and not what Scripture actually says.
So I want you to listen carefully to what Paul says in Romans 8, a chapter often called “the heart of Romans.” Romans is often called Paul’s chief epistle. Personally, I like to call Romans 8 “the benefits page of our policy with God.” Here is what God says through Paul right in the middle of this chapter (18-25):
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
“For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.” Creation means what Paul meant when he told the philosophers in Athens that he wanted to talk to them about “the God who made the world and everything in it.” (Acts 17: 24) Genesis 3 reminds us that the entire world was impacted by Adam and Eve’s disobedience. Death was never in God’s plan. Creation did not “choose” to become a world where death and decay would happen, sin brought that. But . . . creation itself eagerly anticipates the day when it “will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”
And notice what else Paul says, “For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” That the whole of creation is not what God made it to be means we can be comforted by the truth that all of the world around us, just as is true for us, groans like a woman in childbirth for the day when the Lord will reappear in glory, the New Jerusalem will come down out of heaven, and God Himself will dwell among His people in a new and redeemed creation. (Revelation 22) To grasp the power of that imagery, we only need to read Genesis 2 where, in the Garden of Eden – where creation was what it was intended to be – Adam and Eve lived in perfect peace, or Shalom as Jewish people would come to call it, and God would be in their midst. That will be a day like that old gospel hymn describes: “and He walks with me and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own, and the joy we share, as we tarry there, none other has ever known.”
When I think about this reality – Bible, not “almost Bible” – I can’t help but remember that Simeon, the ancient prophet who spent his life anticipating the coming of Messiah, when he saw Mary and Joseph bringing baby Jesus into the Temple for the time of Mary’s purification, grabbed the baby and declared, “Lord, let your servant now depart in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation, the glory of your people Israel and a light of revelation to the Gentiles.” (Luke 2) And then I remember that on that first Easter Sunday, when Jesus showed up in the room where the disciples were hiding out of fear that what had happened to Jesus could very well happen to them, the very first words He said were “Peace be with you.” And before he left that night, He said again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me (to Israel), I am sending you (to all the world).”
Jesus told us, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” (Matthew 5:9) Paul describes peace, God’s peace, as “passing all understanding.” (Phil. 4:7) Paul prays in 1 Thessalonians that “the God of peace himself sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (5: 23)
But if we listen to the “almost Bible” and don’t allow God to speak for Himself in Scripture, then it becomes increasingly difficult to allow God to do His peace-making work in our lives. This doesn’t mean we can’t cry out to God in our own anger and frustration. Simply read through the Book of Psalms. There you discover godly people who felt comfortable expressing their anger at God. They questioned why sometimes bad things happen to good people. But never is God afraid of their questions or unwilling to listen to their hurt.
Remember, God came to earth in human flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. When His good friend Lazarus died, even knowing that He would raise Him back to life, the Bible tells us, “Jesus wept.” (John 11:35) When Jesus – again, God in flesh – was facing His own impending death, He prayed “let this cup pass.” (Luke 22:42)
In the mysteries of God’s plans to redeem creation from death and decay, the one thing that had to happen was the very thing Jesus prayed could be lifted off His shoulders. But it wasn’t, and He obeyed His Father. As John describes it, He went to the cross where “He prepared a place for us,” that through our faith in the redeeming work of Jesus, we know that when this moment comes to those who love Him and obey Him, “where He is, we also shall be.” (John 14:1-6) He’s not in some otherworldly place building lean-tos and mansions for us – what He did on the cross prepared eternity for us. Think about Psalm 90: “from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”
No wonder John 14 begins with, “let not your hearts be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.”
What I hope you can remember from this is simple: the first heart broken when Amy breathed her last breath on Wednesday was the heart of God.
In my own personal life of faith, I have plenty of questions for God. Why didn’t I have pancreatic cancer and not Vicki? It doesn’t seem fair to me, God, that lots of people who seemingly make no real contribution to the world are still living, and Vicki, who was such a positive force on so many, and Amy, who was loved by all who knew her, are no longer here.
Amy was just enough older than my girls to be a kind of “big sister” to Sarah and Bethany, along with their cousins Amanda and Ashley. She likely kept the four of them out of more trouble than we know while spending time at their aunts’ houses. Amy often checked with Sarah and Bethany about Vicki while she was sick. It seemed like every time you turned around, there was some new little person calling Amy “MayMay.” She desperately loved her three children and their friends. Lots of comments I’ve seen on social media speak of the safe place all kinds of people found in Amy’s presence.
I still have more questions.
I think God is fine with those questions – and I’m guessing I will die myself with a desire to have them fully answered.
But not one of those questions has kept me away from God. I don’t believe the “almost Bible” stuff, but I deeply believe the Bible stuff. Creation itself – God’s creation – groans anticipating the day of the revelation of the Children of God.
It is right at the very place in Romans 8 that Paul declares “God works together for the good of those who love Him.” (Romans 8:28) How can that be? Am I suggesting that there is something “good” in the fact that Amy left this world so young? Absolutely not. Paul describes in the verses that follow that, through Jesus, God has put a plan in place that no matter what might happen in this world, we will be called to Christ. He will deliver us – either at our own death or His reappearing in glory – to be “glorified with Him.” I need not make an effort to come up with an “almost Bible” explanation to suggest there is something good in the fact that Amy died. The “good” is that through faith in Christ, she is now seated at the table of the wedding feast of the Lamb of God and saving a seat beside her for those who follow Jesus in faith and obedience.
Thus, “we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
I love reading these words from a hymn written by Natalie Sleeth.
In our end is our beginning;
In our time, infinity;
In our doubt there is believing;
In our life, eternity.
In our death, a resurrection;
at the last, a victory,
Unrevealed until its season,
Something God alone can see.
By the way, that Jewish word, shalom, that describes the kind of peace Adam and Eve enjoyed in Eden and that you and I anticipate being ours one day – is also used to say “goodbye.” In peace, Amy said “goodbye” to this life on Wednesday, and in peace, she will one day welcome us into the presence of God.
Wye Huxford 