Dear Tristan,
I never really thought about angels. I’d seen a lot of inaccurate things about them depicted on screen. I never had a reason to care about them until you died. Then I had to go on a search in God’s Word and to trusted theologians who had studied the Doctrine of Angels.
I wish you were here so I could tell you all the cool things I found out. BUT, you are there, knowing more about angels in heaven than anything God has revealed to us down here. This is what I wish I could have told you before you died:
Did you know that we just don’t have one guardian angel, but most likely a whole group assigned to us? Did you know that they behold the face of God in heaven for the slightest hint of concern regarding us? As soon as they are needed in our lives, they are dispatched to minister to us.
Only one of the reasons they are sent is to save us from danger. I can clearly see that in how they saved your life. When you opened up to us telling us you wanted to live now, you also told us about your 8 attempts in the previous two weeks. We had no idea about any of them. It’s clear to see now that you were determined to take your life, but God said no. He sent His angels and kept you from dying from carbon monoxide poison 7 times. He kept that overdose from affecting you, 40 pills of Tylenol and Advil. Not a single negative effect! And then, after you had told everyone you wanted to live now and were working so hard to stay alive, suddenly, you just couldn’t stand it any longer and tried one last time. On the 9th attempt, God gave the command to your guardian angels, stand down.
Did you know at that exact moment, 3:40 am, I was wrestling with God? While you were out in the garage, I was in my bedroom, wide awake and praying as I’d never done before. I was also using language I’d never used before, words like angels and swords and chains. So foreign to me! Never once in my life had I asked God to have angels do anything. But God led me to pray for angels to surround you, swords drawn, to break the chains that held you. I thought I was praying for the chains of your misery to be broken so you would be a whole, healed boy on this earth. But God knew it was the chains that bound you to this life of misery and it was time to take you home.
God commanded your guardian angels to stand down. I wonder if they were confused. I wonder if it felt wrong to them not to protect you. I know one thing, they trusted wholeheartedly in their Commander and obeyed Him without the slightest hesitation. They had seen the outcome of their Awesome God’s sovereignty before, how He had plans they knew nothing of.
They had seen His own Son at the hands of evil men, the Most Beloved, the King of Kings, mocked and murdered. They had watched Him give up His last breath when legions of them could have swept in at a word and delivered an all-consuming fire upon His enemies. They had stood down then. And they stood down at your last appointed night on earth, February 8, 2020.
Did you know that I also prayed that God would let me somehow take your pain? I wanted Him to take it from you, and give it to me.
He did. Not in the way I pictured, but He did.
All is not lost when all is lost. All is not finished when the last breath is drawn.
The host of guardian angels assigned to you knew that the God who created you and numbered your days had plans beyond their scope of reasoning and imagination. Please, God, let me trust the same.
(Matthew 18:10, Hebrews 1:14, Daniel 6:22, Luke 4:10 ESV)
Dear God, sometimes I wish I could see what’s going on in Heaven so I could trust You for taking Tristan there. I want him back. But I’m not You. You are You and know everything about why and when and how. Thank you for the Faith to believe You. Thank you for letting your Son endure the depths of suffering before Tristan had to endure his. Give me patient endurance until I can see my boy again. Who hopes for what he sees? Hope that is seen is not hope! Let me glorify you by my hope. In Jesus’ precious name, Amen.
