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October 1, 2001 Dear Gabby,
I’ve
been glued to the media ever since September 11th when America was
attacked by terrorists. I’ve read
the newspapers and magazines, watched the news, and listened to talk radio.
At church last Sunday, my pastor said something that made me angry.
He said that God knew what He was doing when He allowed those evil men to
kill thousands of innocent people in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in
those airplanes. How can God have
anything to do with this? I don’t
believe God was involved at all, do you? Livid
in Los Angeles Dear Livid,
My
sweet mama had a favorite saying whenever bad things happened.
It was, “God has a plan.” I
got so tired of hearing her say that, especially when I was upset about a
tragedy. And when she said it after
the situation with my little sister Susannah, it was almost more than I could
bear. Susannah
was six years and three months younger than I and, goodness gracious, was she a
brat at times. I, on the other
hand, was a well-mannered young lady, following the edicts of my parents to the
letter. If they told me to do
something, I did it. If they told
me not to do something, I didn’t do
it. I believed in following the
rules and not causing any trouble to anyone around me. Unlike Susannah. Telling
Susannah “no” was like giving her permission to go out and do it.
There was something inside her that just rebelled against rules. She
wanted to try everything and couldn’t take someone else’s word for anything.
My mama spent many hours on her knees in prayer for Susannah’s future.
And she worked constantly to mold her youngest daughter into the
upstanding moral Christian young lady with whom God would be pleased. When
it came to church, Susannah did the bare minimum. She attended services, sang in the choir, and even had her
own personal experience with God when she was 13 or 14 years old.
The problem was that her heart was outside church.
Not really into sinful things, so much as wondering what was outside
those four walls, outside our city limits, outside our country, even in outer
space. She found it difficult to help other people because she was
so focused on what she would be doing tomorrow or next month. Susannah
did almost nothing that was expected of her.
And when something was expected
of her, you could be sure she’d ignore it.
Many times, she was rescued from sure disaster by my parents or me.
And then there was that incident with the town’s bad boy Buddy
Cooper… That’s
why our family wasn’t very surprised when she announced one evening at
dinnertime when Harry and I were enjoying mama’s fried chicken and mashed
potatoes with the family, that she was going to learn to fly airplanes.
She admired the women pilots she’d been reading about in the newspaper
(such as Amelia Earhart, Jackie Cochran, and Nancy Love), and she figured flying
would be a way for her to experience the world outside our sleepy little town.
Stanley thought having a sister for a pilot would be spectacular.
Papa gave her token resistance, asking her mildly why she couldn’t just
get married to a nice boy and have babies like God intended.
“Maybe
someday, Papa,” she said breezily, as she went back to eating her mashed
potatoes. Later
I asked my sweet mama what she thought of Susannah’s latest scheme and Mama,
having just finished her prayer time for the morning, replied in her usual way,
“God has a plan.” So,
Susannah learned to fly. The
following year, a company hired her to fly passengers and parcels to far-flung
corners of the United States. During
those years, she continued to give God a token of herself, making sure she went
to church in whatever town she found herself in on Sundays.
And when that gorgeous passenger, Trenton Blythe (of Blythe, Lawson and
Horne, Ltd.) asked her to dinner on a hot summer Sunday night, she declined,
saying she was busy. “What
can you possibly have to do in Des Moines on a Sunday night?” he persisted. “I
promised my mother that I’d always go to church on Sundays,” she answered
him boldly, “and since I was flying you and Mrs. Hewitt to Iowa during the
morning hours, I’ll go tonight.” “Do
you mind if I join you?” Trenton asked her.
“I haven’t visited a church since my father’s funeral ten years
ago.” Trenton
found God that night in a little church in Des Moines.
Susannah found the love of her life in Trenton.
And, at their wedding the week after Thanksgiving, I was able to relax,
knowing that now everything would work out for my little sister.
Now she’d settle down and have babies and we could compare zucchini
plants each summer and Christmas wreaths each winter.
We could grow old together, knitting beside our fireplaces, our husbands
talking politics in the other room. And, as soon as she and Trenton returned
from their wedding trip, she could get started fitting into my mold. The
morning after their wedding, Susannah flew the two of them to Hawaii for three
weeks of relaxation. They left on
December 1, 1941. Trenton never
came home. He was killed six days
later when Japanese planes bombed Pearl Harbor.
He’d left Susannah sleeping and had gone into town to bring some
breakfast back to the little cottage they’d rented. “What
is God doing?” I cried to my mama
when I heard the news. “How can
He be part of this? America being
bombed and going to war, my sister finally finding a good man of God to marry¾and God takes him away from her after one
week? What is God thinking?” My
wise Mama wiped her tears and said the words I was expecting her to say, but
didn’t want to hear¾“God
has a plan.” “Well,
why doesn’t He share His plan with me?”
I stormed. “His
ways are above our ways. And, even
if He did tell us what He was doing, we wouldn’t understand it.” “Well,
at least Susannah will be home soon and we’ll be able to comfort her,” I
said, more subdued. But
Susannah didn’t come home. Instead
she volunteered for the Women Airforce Service Pilots. For the next three years, she flew planes for the war effort
with other WASPs. We got the
occasional, hastily scrawled letter in the mail from some exotic locale like
Cheyenne, Wyoming or Shreveport, Louisiana. One time, mama even spoke to her on
a long-distance telephone call down at The General Store. About
the time I finally got used to having a sister in uniform, an officer of the
army knocked on my mama’s door. I
was there that day, helping her can two bushels of green beans.
I still want to scream inside when I remember the words he said to us
that day. I didn’t catch them
all, but what I heard was enough¾“plane down…no survivors…brave young
lady…very sorry.” My
little sister was gone. After
I’d cried in my mama’s arms, and cried in my husband’s arms and cried by
myself and cried at the memorial service, my tears dried up and I stopped crying
altogether. I didn’t cry for four
years and twenty-six days. I was
furious at God. God
is big enough to create the universe. Why
didn’t He stop the horror? How
could He have let something so horrendous happen to my little sister Susannah?
He could have saved her¾if He’d wanted to. Of what use was her life?
Why did God create her in the first place if He was only going to take
her at the tender age of 26? She
had shown such promise in her last few years.
She’d turned her life around and was in the process of making something
out of it. This
time, I didn’t ask the questions of my sweet mama. (I knew what she would say.)
I didn’t ask them of Harry. I
didn’t even ask them of God. I
just walked around, pretending to live, while inside, I grew colder and more
angry. I’d get up in the morning
with an aching jaw from gritting my teeth all night. I pulled away from my friends.
I went to church because it was expected of me, but I refused to let God
reach me. I didn’t eat much.
I didn’t sleep much. I
didn’t smile much. I didn’t do
anything much at all. I just
survived from one day to the next. When
the war ended, I was glad. But I
was too mad at God to dance in the street like everyone else.
I attended the victory celebrations and sang the songs and waved my flag.
It felt meaningless. I was
just going through the motions. My
sister was gone and I didn’t understand why it had to be that way. Then
the first letter arrived. It was
from a fellow WASP named Marlene Watson. It
was followed almost immediately by a visit from a war veteran, Mr. George
O’Neill. After that, we received
more letters. Over the next few
years, a couple dozen people contacted us about Susannah. They each had a story to tell, and all of the stories had a
similar theme running through them. It
seems that when Susannah lost her husband, she didn’t grieve like the typical
woman of that era. Instead, she
made the decision to surrender to God. She
resolved to stop running from Him and decided to let God order her life as He
saw fit. She was brokenhearted and
angry, but she stiffened her back and told God that she was finished doing
things her own way. She was going
to follow Him. This was a new
experience for Susannah, and she was filled with such joy amid the grief. One
person after another told us how Susannah had led them to the feet of Jesus
during her last three years. They
talked about what an amazing example she had been. She not only flew planes for the United States of America,
she also spent hour after hour visiting the wounded in the hospitals.
She wanted to reach the people for Jesus before they died.
Many of them lived to tell us the stories.
One became a preacher who led countless people to God through his
ministry. One was a doctor who
worked both to save people’s health and to reach out to their eternal souls.
Many survived to become godly examples to their own families in their own
towns. Only God knows how many
people she reached by her life and death. Those
people introduced our family to a Susannah we didn’t know.
We’d considered her a maverick, a free spirit.
We hoped she’d surrender to God all the way when she was a teen, but we
didn’t know if that would ever happen. And,
just like Susannah always did, she did the unexpected (with God’s help.)
God sent her tragedy and she reacted by reaching for Him.
When God sent me tragedy, I had reacted by
turning away from Him. Now, Mr. Livid, I’ve lived on this earth for many, many
years. I’ve seen wars and peace,
tragedy and triumph. I’ve
experienced health and sickness. If
God blesses you to live as many years as I have, you’ll learn the lesson my
mother repeated so many times. “God
has a plan.” Sometimes,
after many years have passed, you’ll figure out some of that plan.
Other times, understanding eludes you forever.
I look back on Susannah’s short life and see the working of the Lord.
She flew planes so she could meet Trenton. She fell in love with Trenton and married him so that when
she lost him, she’d finally be open to His beckoning and be available to lead
people to Him. I don’t know why
she had to die. Some of it makes
sense and some of it doesn’t. Who
knows what’s in God’s plan in relation to these recent events?
All I know is what my mama said and my sister lived, and that’s my
assurance that indeed, God has a plan. Sincerely
Sincere, ninetyandnine.com ©
2001, ninetyandnine.com --------- Gabrigail
VanBurden
has been offering advice for longer than most of you have been alive. Email your
practical Apostolic life questions to Gabby@ninetyandnine.com and be prepared
for some straight answers! |
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