Yesterday, January 31, would have been my daughter’s 33rd birthday. Lynda Joy died in a car accident July 4, 2005, at the age of 26. I have never shared publicly what one of her friends wrote after hearing me at her funeral mention Job’s statement: “The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” David Gunderson wrote the following poem and it is on my office wall. I include it here in thanks to him and as a memorial to her.
There was a blameless man who was so godly he would pray
For the sins of all his children at the dawning of the day:
“Perhaps these ones I love have cursed the ever-blessed God;
So I slay this lamb and beg that You withhold Your gracious rod.”
Still, God saw fit to bruise him in His dark, mysterious grace,
But behind a frowning providence He hid a smiling face.
For the Lord is not so simple as to strike without an aim;
The brightly burning furnace is a purifying flame.
There was a tested man who lost his all and then some more.
He buried his face into his hands and bowed upon the floor.
The he cried, “Shall we receive so much that’s good from God above,
But reject His hard calamity that strikes with equal love?”
There was a weeping man who said that God was to be blessed
Both in poverty and riches, both in safety and distress.
So the Lord received His praises both in honor and in shame,
For this broken man found strength to say: “Lord, blessed be Your name.”
There is a throbbing man who is so very dear to me.
And just like the shattered Job of Uz, he’s picking up debris.
His life is now bereft of one that he had so adored.
Still, I hear him say with quivering voice, “Oh blessed be the Lord.”
The Lord is always giving, yet He sometimes takes away.
But the Sun still shines as brightly in the night as in the day.
Dr. Varner, please keep saying, as you feel the piercing sword:
“Oh, blessed be our sovereign God. Oh, blessed be the Lord.”