The following is adapted from a speaking engagement in Amory, MS on October 14, 2026…
On October 10, 2011, Columbus Day, Paul Buckman came to our house with a hatchet and a gun.
It was our 24th wedding anniversary. My wife fought him like a banshee and got our five-year-old out of the house. Soon after, there were four gunshots, and my wife and our second-born were dead, and life as I knew it was gone forever.
For a long time, the silence that followed that day was deafening. I didn’t want a sermon. I didn’t want a clever theological expose’. I didn’t want to hear irrefutable facts laid out like a legal argument. As if any of that would bring comfort.
No, I wanted an explanation. I sat in the ashes of my life and demanded answers: Why me? Where were you, God? And why did you let the person I trusted destroy the people I loved?
Honestly, it wrecked me theologically, emotionally, and, in some respects, physically. I thought I had a deal with God. I would serve Him, and He would take care of my family and me. When my deal fell apart, I never stopped believing in God, but I did doubt His love, care, and concern for me.
More than that, I was angry. I was mad at God, mad at my wife for dying and leaving me with two kids still at home; I was mad at the church, and even though I didn’t know you, I was mad at you, too.
Did I mention I was mad? It consumed me.
If you have ever stared at the wreckage of your own life and asked those same sorts of questions, I want you to hear me clearly: Your anger is not a sin. Your doubt is not a betrayal of faith. Your confusion isn’t a weakness.
Instead, it is the most human response to a broken world, but it ultimately calls us to wrestle with God.
As I struggled through the darkness, agonized over the whole situation, and was broken by my and my children’s pain, I eventually began to realize that we often look for the wrong things when tragedy strikes.
Yes, we want answers, but more than that, we want God to be accountable. After all, God is God, but ultimately He isn’t to blame. Instead, it’s the brokenness of this world, brokenness caused by the original sin in the Garden of Eden.
When we ask where God is in our suffering, the answer is that He is right there in the wreckage, weeping with us, bearing the weight we cannot lift, and slowly and tenderly growing something new from our grief.
Grace isn’t the absence of pain; it’s God’s presence amid heartache and struggle. And that grace is a gift meant to be shared.
We may never get the answers we want this side of heaven, but we can choose how to respond. We can take our broken pieces, place them in the hands of a redeeming God, and become the comfort, light, and presence a hurting neighbor desperately needs to see.
In the darkest night, look for the One who promises never to leave you, and let Him carry you home.
“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” (2 Cor. 12:9a NIV)
Les Ferguson, Jr. is a minister and faith-based author. He can be reached at lfergusonjr@gmail.com
