Anne Atkins

Day and night I cry out before you; turn your ear to my prayer.

You have taken my loved ones from me, says the psalmist, and my eyes are dim with grief.

When Job lost everything, his own wife mocked him: why not curse God, and die? Even God offered no comfort, no answer, no explanation.

But no explanation would have helped. What possible reasoning could reconcile us to the absence of two children? What philosophy could teach parents how to endure such a terrible night of waiting? What theology could have given this morning's hope, or arguments ease the ongoing pain,? It's all meaningless, says Ecclesiastes; everything is meaningless. Better a house of mourning than feasting, and sorrow is better than laughter.

For all the criticisms of our society, few of us are indifferent this morning to two families who are strangers to us. We don't understand, we don't suffer as they do. But we do care, however inadequately; we share their fresh relief, and their newborn hope that the girls are alive and well. My teenage niece, for instance, whom I've never known interested in current affairs, has been turning to the news several times a day.

And how right that the fate of two young girls should eclipse all other stories: wars and rumours of wars, floods and global brown clouds. These can indeed cause terrible tragedy, and we rightly take them seriously. But we also know they're no more important than the safety of two ordinary children. Aren't two sparrows sold for a penny? Not one of them falls to the ground without God's knowledge. Surely the One who numbers every hair on your head couldn't be careless of a ten year old child?

So we naturally ask where He was through the night; why He does so little in the face of suffering. When Herod attacked the children in Bethlehem. When the voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted.

Where was God when Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane; when He pleaded with Him, Take this cup from me; when He sweated tears of blood?

Sometimes there aren't any answers. Or the answers we get are worse than no answers. The cup did not pass from Him. But He prayed, and He wept, and He put His life in the hands of God.

And in the fear and agony, God was there. He was there in the tears, and the watching, and the waiting through the long night. He was there in Person, in a frightened Man, clinging to hope and facing an uncertain future.

Day and night I cry out before you; turn your ear to my prayer.