When Your World Burns Down & How to Answer the Question of Pain & Suffering

There are love stories that survive fire, and rise straight up from the ashes.   

This is a Love Story that begins more than 2 decades ago with a bundle of a baby boy …. our third son, named Levi, because the Farmer dared to believe it was a word from the Almighty: “And Levi got up, left everything and followed Him,” (Luke 5:28), and the Father said that’s exactly the kind of man that we pray our boy will be. 

And that third son of ours, Levi, he grew up and fell in love with Jesus and sunrises and cornfields and cameras, and all the ways light plays and  dances through lenses for just the right photograph and the One who is the Light of the Word keeps shining in the darkness, and he fell in love with a wonder of a girl named Aurora and that’s who she was –  Aurora was all dancing light. 

On their first date, the two shy kids, they didn’t head to the light of some movie screen, but worked on sanding and restoring an old wooden workbench, the handcrafted work of Levi’s granddad, my dad, the two of them finishing it into a table, because Levi and Aurora have always been people of story and restory-ing, and the light of restoration hope is the beat of both their two artist hearts. 

Not quite even two years ago, on a warm day in early June, Levi and Aurora they vowed their lives to each, getting married back in a clearing under old spruce trees, at the back of our home farm. Aurora had found her wedding dress on a local buy and sell page online and Levi found his jacket and vest at a thrift store and his Gram, my mama, she cut and sewed his bowtie out of an old thrifted tweed suit coat ….

And after they said I DO before their Maker, we all sat down under the wild apple trees down  by the river, at a string of wooden tables, handmade by my dad. Aurora had handpicked every table’s wildflowers from the woods and the roadsides the evening before, slipping them into found and borrowed old bottles…. 

And we all had ourselves a very humble, handmade wedding, and square-danced under the stars and when Aurora laughed, Levi’s eyes were all dancing light. 

Sometimes you can want an easier way for your child, when God has ways that will make your child stronger for life that’s not always easy. 

And on the very far edge of our river farm, stood an abandoned 152 year old stone house, built in 1872 but uninhabited – except for a family of racoons – for more than 20 years  – yet Levi and Aurora had a brave imagination for what it could someday be, their own little handcrafted house of dreams…  

I had thought it was too daunting. 

Because when you stood in the basement of the abandoned house, you could look up and see the the sky from the basement, through floorboards and rafters and shingles. I told the Farmer that I thought it was too impossible, too overwhelming, for our son and his new bride – where would they even begin? 

Sometimes you can want an easier way for your child, when God has ways that will make your child stronger for life that’s not always easy. 

Before they were even married, Levi, a farm boy with a camera and an eye for light, and Aurora, an aspiring artist, they began the marathon restoration the way everything impossible begins– one moment at a time, one foot in front of the other, one hand at a time, and trusted that there was enough manna in all the moments to sustain them. They’d pulled on respirators and coveralls and headed into that dilapidated stone house and together  began shoveling it all out with their bare hands, the weather, wear and wreckage of 20 years of abandonment,  wildlife, and deterioration of all the things.

It’s only all the love in the work that makes the work worthy.

The more they persevered and poured out, the more they were fulfilled. 

Their grit sharpened us.  

Their sacrifice moved us. 

Their vision focused us. They saw hope in what seemed too far gone. 

The day we as family worked with them to begin reroofing the dilapidated old stone house with new steel, trying to close it in from the elements, Levi turned and confessed his concerns about the expansive breadth of the undertaking: “Sometimes I wonder, will it all be pointless? But I just keep thinking: What matters is that this restoration work is what brings me real joy.” 

It’s only all the love in the work that makes the work worthy.

For long years of long, long days, Levi and Aurora worked with steady, undaunted determination, and as they worked, they dreamed of morning breakfasts at the workbench they’d made into a table back on their first date, the light flooding in the deep window wells of the old stone house. They dreamed of even maybe someday a baby or two playing out on the lawn in front of that old stone house, and they never stopped dreaming of a durable resurrection from the wreckage… 

Life is never made unbearable by the road itself but by the way we bear the road. 

And  slowly, over the next 3 and a half years, by the kind grace of God, they saw those dreams and prayers begin to rise up into reality. 

Levi and Aurora were interested in working to build more than a house — Levi and Aurora were committed to working toward preserving a piece of history. 

Levi handcrafted their bed frame from reclaimed 400-year-old ash floors beams from the old stone house. They salvaged grainery boards out of an old barn, and  lined the basement walls of the old stone house so they could live in the basement as they continued the renovations of the rest of the house. They rescued an old clawfoot tub from under debris at the back of the house and refinished and restored it to its former glory and gave it a place under the deep windowsills of the old stone house. 

The consummate craftsman, Levi learned how to expertly do everything himself, from electrical, to plumbing, to framing, to refinishing floors, to routing trim, to insulating, to drywall, even learning how to drywall all the stone house’s wonderfully deep, complicatedly angled, windowsills.

Levi passed electrical inspections. He passed plumbing inspection. He and Aurora celebrated with stargazing together out on the front lawn of that old stonehouse.

Together, they were going above and beyond to build something that was more than just strong and warm between those old stone walls; they were investing in a re-storying of a piece of history, a beautiful restoration work of art, where light could dance across the floors again… 

“We were getting so, so, so painfully close,” Aurora scrawled late one night this week in her journal when she couldn’t sleep.

And then last Tuesday, during a wildly strong northwest wind, as Levi worked on sanding the walls in the kitchen, Levi heard a roaring… 

A fire in the chimney. 

Grabbing a ladder, Levi flung himself up to the edge of the roof, to the top of the chimney, but that strong northwest wind blew Levi and the ladder to the ground, and with a bruised side and twisted ankle, Levi called 911 and the volunteer fire department to come, just come.

And then he stood stunned in the snow and the whipping wind, watching the raging flames devour years of sacrifice and history and dreams.  

That strong northwest wind engulfed that 152-year-old stone house, and all the restoration into flames within minutes, burning all of Levi’s woodworking tools, Aurora’s art studio, a lifetime of Aurora’s paintings and artwork, Levi’s camera lenses and gear, all of their wedding gifts and personal belongings, and devastatingly, in less than an hour, completely incinerated their beloved, nearly restored piece of history.

And we don’t so much need to pray to see the way through -– as much as we need to just pray to see more of the One Who is the Way Himself. 

On the second week of Lent, we stood in the lane under the century old maple trees, and held on to each other in that cold north-east wind and watched all  their earthly belongings.. all their life-savings… all their years and years and years of restoration work… all of everything from their life before… become a heap of ash… 

And don’t we all know it, how strong north winds can whip with that question for every single one of us:

WHY YOU? Why us?

Why your family? Why your story?

Why would a good God let this happen, or that story unfold? Why would He allow some storm or accident or event snuff out that one fledgling dream? Why would He let that accident shatter your whole world, with no way to put any of the pieces back together again? 

It’s the question that whispers at the back of the chamber of every heart:

 Why in the world did this heartbreak happen?

It’s a question that is an echo not really unlike what we hear from those who were following Jesus: “Why was this man born blind?”

And Jesus stands with us facing every strong north wind and He says: “This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” 

Jesus says two words that need to follow every iota of suffering. 

So that. 

Those very same two words are the ones that Jesus spoke when He heard Lazarus, whom He loved, was sick…..  “It is for God’s glory SO THAT…. God’s Son may be glorified through it.”

Loss does not mean that Jesus doesn’t love you and this suffering happened . . . so that. 

This fire happened . . . so that: God’s Son may be glorified through it.

This sickness happened . . . so that: God’s Son may be glorified through it.

This heartbreak happened . . . so that: God’s Son may be glorified through it.

This FILL IN THE BLANK happened . . . so that: God’s Son may be glorified through it.

Suffering is never meaningless, pointless, purposeless. Suffering is always about SO THAT: “so that the works of God might be displayed, so that God might be glorified.” 

Erasing God doesn’t solve or erase any suffering. All it does is erase any and all hope. 

“God did not make the world so that there is pain, but when a broken world breaks our hearts, God works through that pain so that there is purpose even in all the tender mystery. The problem of excruciating pain is perhaps best answered by entering into the mystery of it all — the mystery that makes it all about the glory of God on display.” — excerpt from “Loved to Life“

And, true, for some folks, in the midst of real pain and suffering– it can be tempting to let some strong north wind to blow away any belief in God, but: 

Erasing God doesn’t solve or erase any suffering. All it does is erase any and all hope. 

It’s really only when we expect life to be easy that it becomes hard. But life holds suffering, life in a broken world promises us suffering and heartbreak. Suffering doesn’t mean you’re cursed; suffering means you’re human in a broken world. Life is really hard, because that is the reality of being alive. And it’s not the hard roads that slay us; what actually slays us is the expectation that this road isn’t what we hoped it to be.

Life is never made unbearable by the road itself but by the way we bear the road. 

So maybe the question isn’t ever “Why is there suffering in my life?” … 

Maybe every time there is a temptation to ask WHY – there are better questions to ask that bring a deeper and better healing… 

Maybe instead of asking Why did this happen – the better questions actually are Who, What, Where, and How…. 

Instead of asking Why did this happen – ask: “Who is sovereign over all that happens, and isn’t He always good, and isn’t He always, always, always for us?” 

Instead of asking Why did this happen – ask:  “What way will we bear our suffering?”

Instead of asking Why did this happen – ask:  “Where are we in proximity, vulnerability, and intimacy and relationship with God through this?” 

Instead of asking Why did this happen – ask: “How will we live so that God is surely glorified, and the goodness of God is surely revealed in us through even this?”

Because maybe in many ways – it all comes down to this one question: 

If we had a God small enough to understand,  how could He be a great enough God to stand with us, against all that we face?

Just because you can’t see the why or the way — doesn’t mean that there isn’t one. 

And we don’t so much need to pray to see the way through -– as much as we need to just pray to see more of the One Who is the Way Himself. 

So that – God would get all the glory through even this story. 

Tuesday night, after the strong north wind died down, and only the smoke curled up from the ash heap of the stone house and their dreams….

After we all sat with the stark reality that, though Levi and Aurora, right at the beginning of the renovations, had sought out insurance for the old stone house, but due to the initial dilapidated and extreme deteriorated state of the house, no insurance company would offer insurance until any renovation was complete… so now we were all sitting here uninsured, sitting on the heartbreaking ash heap of a complete and devastating loss.

God can give the gift of seeing that…  only what’s done for Jesus will last.

As we gathered around Levi and Aurora as a family to pray… Levi found his voice, as he reached over to hold Aurora’s hand: 

“Lord, Aurora and I have absolutely nothing, not really one iota, left in this world, but You’ve given us the gift of seeing today that…  only what’s done for Jesus will last.”

And Levi clears his throat, and I choke up … 

Because there on the wall behind us all is a little framed print that I found in a thrift store decades ago, words that have always hung in our living room, the same words that hung in the hallway of Levi’s grandparents’ home, the very same words that I prayed every night over Levi, over every single one of our children every night of their childhood: 

Only one life 

Twill soon be past 

Only what’s done for Jesus will last …

And now,  here is Levi, beside his bride Aurora, with every single thing they have in this earthly world incinerated into papery ash on the second week of Lent… 

And this is the real love story that will survive fire, that, even when you lose every last earthly thing in the world, you can still pray, like a love song sung into strong northwest wind, words that can ignite your heart into the strongest light:

Only what’s done to glorify Jesus will last, will be all that survives fire –– all else is only but ash. 

Only one life 

Twill soon be past 

Only what’s done for Jesus 

will last …

And Levi squeezes Aurora’s hand. 

And we all brim, and nod though our hearts are breaking, and The Farmer can see it:

The boy named Levi became the man of God that we’d always prayed that he’d someday be, the kind of man who can leave it all to follow Jesus, who can say on the day his house burns down to the ground, and he and his brave bride have nothing left: 

Only what’s done to glorify Jesus will last, will be all that survives fire –– all else is only but ash. 

All this suffering in our life…. is only so that …. so that… God gets glorified — and it’s only that glorifying of God that will ultimately last.

It’s our suffering, that can so glorify God, that produces the only thing that will ultimately survive fire.

And in a strong north wind in Lent, the ash of all kinds of dreams blows away, and within, there’s a love, resting on the rock of Love Himself, rising and it can outlast all things.

From our family to yours…

Many of you have so tenderly asked how you can help? Our daughter-in-love, Melba Voskamp, generously set up a fundrasier with GOFUNDME, to help Levi and Aurora — but only, always, just as the Lord leads. Each of you — your withness, with us, and your witness, for us — means more than you can ever imagine & what holds us together through trauma, is each of you being the hands and feet of Jesus to our family. We can never thank God enough for each of you showing up. Pray for our family?