The Heart of Death

Paul asks, "Death, where is your sting?" (1 Cor. 15:55) AND the Biblical theological answer is that death "is swallowed up by victory" in the resurrection of Jesus.
BUT my heart is struggling to live there this week! One of my dearest friends - after a long marriage filled with a lot of betrayal that ended in divorce - finally married the first boy she ever liked as a little girl with whom she reconnected at a class reunion. She married him April 23, 2011. Seven weeks, two days later he "slipped the surly bonds of earth ... and touched the face of God" (John Magee) in his eternal home.
As I emailed her daughter when I got the news Monday:
"I'm having such a hard time with this! I know God knows all, is always good, is good all the time and is the sovereign Lord but my heart screams, "NO! NO! NO!"
This is a huge test of faith for my friend, her children and for me.
Sometimes death and loss seem so overwhelming and inexplicable that we wonder where God got off to. That's the heart of death - fear and despair and desperate loss!
BUT the wonderful good news is that "God is a good God. We must begin there. Though we don't understand His actions, we can trust His heart!" (Max Lucado, Max on Life, Q. 148)
When we get stuck tangled in the heart of death we aren't trusting the heart of God! The heart of God is the place I need to "hang out" especially when death smacks me in the face and the heart!