Long Way Home(117)

Jimmy gave a curt nod and stepped over the guardrail so he could sit down on it. Bill and I did the same. The day was warm, and the broad valley stretched in front of us with row after row of mountains lining up on the distant horizon. The pastures of Blue Fence Farms looked like tiny green squares below us.

“I don’t think you and I ever questioned God very much before we went away to war,” Bill said. “We were a little too certain about what we believed, as if we had God all figured out. But over in France, it became harder and harder to reconcile God’s goodness with what we were experiencing. If He was loving and all-powerful, why did He allow such suffering? Was He powerless to stop it? It was as if those bombs blew up our belief system when it clashed with reality. Of course, the spiritual realm is invisible. God’s actions behind the scenes are invisible. So all we had to rely on was what we were seeing. But our enemy wasn’t just the Nazis. Satan’s ploy is to spread evil throughout the world and let it drive a wedge between us and God. His evil is most painful and most dangerous when it seems purposeless to us. When we can’t see how God can possibly bring anything good from it.”

Bill paused as we watched a hawk soar through the sky below us, its broad wings outstretched as it rode the wind. “It was something Peggy said to me that led me to the book of Job,” he continued. “Job wanted to know why God had made him suffer so horribly. Instead of giving His reasons, God asked Job a series of unanswerable questions, like ‘Where does light come from, and where does darkness go?’ and ‘Does the rain have a father?’ The answers are beyond Job’s understanding. Besides, Job doesn’t need to know because he isn’t in charge of the darkness or the weather—God is. God never did tell Job the reason for his suffering. Job just had to trust that God was at work.”

“But Job was only one man,” Jimmy said. “This time, millions of innocent people suffered!” Again, I heard the anger in his voice. But at least he was listening to Bill and talking to him.

“I know,” Bill replied. “And for now, we are left without answers for what the Nazis did. But Job didn’t turn away from God in spite of not receiving any answers. The only light we’ll ever have in this dark world comes from God. If we turn away from Him, we’re left with darkness and despair.”

“Is it any wonder I turned away? I didn’t see much light on the battlefield, did you? And you weren’t there when Buchenwald’s gates were opened.”

“No. I wasn’t. But can I tell you something, Jim? And forgive me if I sound harsh, but you always tried to handle everything yourself. When we were all offered a week’s leave from the battlefront, you wouldn’t take it. You exhausted yourself as you went about playing God, trying to save as many lives as you could because you didn’t think God was doing a very good job of it. You were angry with Him, so you tried to be a medic on your own strength instead of asking for His help. Is it any wonder you burned out? You kept saying that all of our days are written in His book, but you seemed determined to rewrite that book your own way. If God wasn’t going to act and straighten everything out, then you would do it yourself.” He waited as if expecting an argument. Jimmy was staring down at his feet. “Does anything I’m saying make sense to you?” Bill asked.

“I . . . I’ll have to think about it,” he said softly. I heard a rumble of distant thunder and turned to look behind us. The sky was darkening as an afternoon thunderstorm approached. It wouldn’t be much longer before we got drenched.

Bill pulled a folded piece of paper from his shirt pocket and handed it to Jimmy. “In the meantime,” he said, “I want you to carry this with you and pull it out and read it at least once a day—no, don’t read it now. Wait until you’re by yourself. I watched you put a lot of splints on broken bones so they could heal. You applied tourniquets above deep wounds so the bleeding would stop. Use these verses in the same way, Jim. Apply them to your broken heart and wounded spirit until time and God do their healing work.”

I was curious to know what the verses were but I didn’t ask. We stood and made our way back to the car. The first spitting drops of rain had started to fall. Thunder rumbled and echoed between the mountains, louder now. I loved that majestic sound. “The angels in heaven are rearranging their furniture,” my mama used to say when I was small.

“You know,” Bill said before we climbed into the car, “the cross made no sense to Jesus’ disciples the day after it happened. Jesus’ brutal death seemed senseless. That’s where we are right now. The war is over but we’re living in those days between the cross and the empty tomb. I can’t explain why millions of people suffered and died. But I do know that death never has the final word. Easter Sunday brings life in all its triumph. We just need to trust and wait a little longer, Jim. God is at work. We will see His redemption and restoration one day.”

*

A few days before Labor Day, we were sitting around the supper table when Jimmy’s mother announced that she would like to celebrate that day with a picnic. “We’ll have hamburgers and hot dogs and potato salad,” she said. “And play horseshoes on the lawn like we used to—remember? I think we need to give summer one last hurrah before it comes to an end. Jimmy, maybe you could invite your Army friend—what was his name? The one who lives in Milford?”