The Unthinkable

Unthinkable things happen.  The unthinkable things are the things which come suddenly with no option of preparation.  The only option is enduring and getting through to tomorrow.  My first encounter with the unthinkable came when I was seven years old.  In the midst of that year there came a day when my father did not come home, but instead people came to tell my mother, my sister, and myself that he had been killed in a fiery explosion when two Air Force planes collided.  There have been other unthinkable moments through the years.  Some have come to me and some have come to the people entrusted to my care as their pastor.      

I remember some of those unthinkable moments of pastoral care.  I remember thinking that such things were not the things for which I signed up when called.  But, not going was not an option and so I went.  I think about some of those folks in days of reflection.  I wonder how life has unfolded for them since the unthinkable days we shared.  And in those moments of remembering and reflecting, I often offer simple prayers for souls I do not expect to see again midst the unfolding of this life.    There is much about our living, our suffering, and our dying that we cannot understand.  

A very real part of the unthinkable moments are the questions that have no answers and the anger that such must be endured.   In the present part of such experiences such things are about all which can be seen, but as we begin to find some space between then and later and the horrible darkness and the impending light, there does come to us a strange awareness that we do not go through such moments alone.  Even in the midst of the unthinkable, the Spirit of God is near to take hold of those who need a hand to take them, to speak of love that cannot be overcome, and to give grace and mercy which stretches from here to the heavenly shores.  The questions we will never answer, the suffering we will never understand, but the God who proclaimed Himself long ago to be the great "I Am" still is and for this ever present presence I am most grateful in those unthinkable moments which come to all of us in some measure at one time or another.