If You Have Lost a Son:

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 24009, 5 July 1941, Page 15

If You Have Lost a Son:

I WRITE on beh ilf of all parents of men in the Services who have made the great sacrifice. And 1 write as a father of a son, aged 19, who was killed on February 2 while on service as a pilot-officer with the Royal Air Force. Young, keen, vigorous, and enterprising—such they were. And before they had done more than taste the first sips of life it was over. We are puzzled and sore. We complain and repine. It is easy to be bitter and resentful. "What a waste I" we say. "Why does God allow it? How can God bear it?" Or selfishly we ask: "Why am I picked out for such a sorrow as this?" "Why does God allow it?"'—a natural question. But why docs God allow any evil in peace-time or in war-time, in nations or in individuals, to go on?

Only because He cannot stop it without using force, and to use force would be to take away the free-will He has given us. All through He is trying to persuade men to use their own freedom rightly. But if men will not listen to Him, He cannot control them. He can only go on bearing the consequences of our wickedness and stuoiditv, seeing men making a mess of His world, seeing the sorrow and heartbreaks which result, and unable to make things different while men go on refusing to follow liis way rather than their own And it means a heartbreak to God. Tho Crass of Christ tells us that. We may well wonder at the depth and extent of the agony which men cause God to endure. We are stricken fathers and mothers, wives and sweethearts and friends, but remember tint God is ft stricken Father. He can bear our sorrows with us, for Ho understands it all. He, too.

saw a Son die. Afflicted in our afflictions—that is God. As for the boy, realise this. He had tasted the fresh juice of life. He is spared from tasting its stale and bitter dregs. He is snatched away from the evil that might come.

You know vour own loss. There is a hole in your home and your heart. God help you. But do not talk of waste. For death is not the end. Life goes on. 1 have always been certain of that. The universe does not make sense if the grave is tho end of man's life. But I never felt so certain of it as when I stood by my son's grave. My boy, full of zest, rejoicing in life and his promise unfolding all that growth which I loved to see in him— God had given and fostered for the uso He might make of him. Do not believe that God has thrown it all away just when it was coming to fruit. God wastes no spiritual possibilities in any of us. He has a use for him, and He won't let it be unrealised.

By Dr. A. W. F. BLUNT, Bishop of Bradford

Hie boy has higher flights to reach; a fuller life to li\e. He is more alive now that when ho was hero. He is seeing more, knowing more, and enjoying more. One can remember him in ono's time of prayer, and have no doubt he remembers us So it i.s with me. So it may he with you. And, if you show yourself worthy to do so, you will meet him again. Some day we shall be able to be our best selves, and how can that happen if there were no others for us to be with? No man can ever be his best self by himself. So hold on, although your heart is sore. Hold on to a loving Gorl to whom your son is dearer even than ho is to you. He lent him to you for a time, and He has taken him now to a more worthwhile life. Some day, please God you and he together shall share in the'joy of that life and that joy shall be for ever.