Sometimes on a Saturday morning, which is when I usually write my blog, I have a difficult time coming up with a topic. Today is not one of those days. The exact opposite is true: I have too many possible ideas to choose from. So this blog is going to sound rather disjointed and scattered and maybe even a bit incoherent–which is exactly how the week has been!

It has been one of “those” weeks; you know the kind! Where you feel as if you’re being hurled through the cosmos at an uncontrollable rate. Like when the Star Ship Enterprise hits warp speed. All you can do is fasten your seat belt and hang on for the ride. You’ve had them, right?

Mine began with that phone call from my former colleague that I wrote about last week. Sunday I wandered into a Lutheran Church perhaps in an unwitting desire to return to my roots. It wasn’t helpful. Too many reasons to share here. Let’s just say it confirmed for me, yet again, some of the reasons I left. Monday was a Monday on steroids. I don’t like Mondays anyway. This one was especially challenging. Tuesday was another Monday. It felt like I was living a scene from the movie “Groundhog Day”. That’s the one where he has to keep reliving the same day until he gets it “right”. What WAS different on Tuesday was the news that the father of the next door neighbor at work died over Christmas! He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on Dec. 23rd and died ten days later. Rick is experiencing the shocking form of grief. The sudden numbness that makes one feel immobilized or like they’re walking underwater. The kind that makes simple tasks like eating and sleeping and even breathing seem overwhelming.

On Thursday I got word of another shocking event; Jayme Closs, the young woman whose parents were murdered last fall and who had been missing since then was found! Alive! She had been abducted and miraculously escaped after 87 days in captivity! I knew Jayme’s dad Jim. We grew up in the same small town in Northern Wisconsin. Combined with the unbelievable news that Jayme was alive came the horrific reality not only of what she must’ve experienced, but also what she’ll have to live with the rest of her life.

And then last night I got word that the wife of my former colleague died suddenly. He was the one with whom I had the lengthy conversation and wrote about last week.

So . . . what does one say about all of this? I guess a person could revert to pious platitudes and try to explain God’s purposes in all of this. Or maybe say that being reminded of others suffering puts a different perspective on our own. Or of course quote a bible verse that says God is working in everything and will make it work for His own purposes. None of that works. It just doesn’t help. The best I can do is say that life is hard, and God is a mystery and I hope beyond all hope that somehow he provides comfort in the midst of all this suffering.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s the main point of the crucifixion—that in the senseless suffering of Christ we see someone who can truly empathize with us—and the world– in all the seemingly senseless suffering. And maybe He can be with us. Inexplicably embracing us. Somehow.