GONE TOO SOON

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A couple of months ago a lovely young lady named Chelsea D., 27, was driving along a road in central Florida, not more than a quarter mile from my home, when an intoxicated 21 year old semi-truck driver slammed into her vehicle; killing her instantly.

I don't understand such an event. I simply don't. Nor do I understand the loss of several of my high school classmates in vehicular accidents just before, or just after graduation. 

Why are countless young people in our society denied long, successful and fulfilled lives? I didn't know Chelsea. She must have been very special, as family and friends have erected a beautiful make-shift memorial for her at the site of the accident. A couple of hand-crafted sunflowers, a circular wooden cutout with her name and dates. And a solar light.

I didn't know Chelsea, but I knew Beth. Beth was a year behind me in school, was a member of my choral group there, and was a minister's daughter. I don't recall saying a word to her, nor her me, but I realized her potential, and I knew she was surrounded by friends. Beth was taken from us when, after a date, her boyfriend turned into a rain swollen ditch, rather than the entrance to her subdivision. It had apparently been raining, and his vision was obscured.

It is extraordinarily perplexing, disappointing, and devastating. Personally perplexing since I have experienced numerous instances when I was a cat's whisker away from death, only to be saved from what seemed to be a certain fate. Four examples, all involving my personal automobile immediately come to mind. And there were others.

I came across a maxim in the last couple of years which purports to explain such a dynamic.

"When someone dies 'before their time,' it is obvious that God was done with them here. They had completed everything they were designed to do."

Well, while this is as close to a plausible answer as I have heard, it is simply not enough. It leaves us unfulfilled and searching for answers. And it leaves me with only one possible conclusion.

We are going to just have to wait 'til we stand before the Creator, when all the books will be opened, and all the questions will be answered.

by Bill McDonald, PhD