Last Monday our family attended the memorial service of a fallen soldier. He died in an IED explosion in Iraq.

It was a celebration more than it was a funeral. The young man was homeschooled, a Christian and 21 years old. His parents had the peaceful confidence that their son was now rejoicing on the streets of gold in Heaven.

But what's left behind are the days and years in which the mother and the rest of the family and friends are left to grieve knowing his presence will never return to this earth. These times will come and go by slowly.

God has used this family and the death of their son to be a witness so that maybe people who hear of this family's tragedy will seriously think about the things of God.

This morning in my quiet time I read a devotion by Elizabeth Elliot, a wife of a martyred missionary that expresses this truth. It told of such struggles that have been endured throughout Biblical history and how God can use them. Here it is written out:

If God is almighty, there can be no evil so great as to be beyond his power to transform.
That transforming power brings light out of darkness, joy out of sorrow, gain out of loss, life out of death.

Sometimes we boggle at the evil in the world and especially in ourselves, feeling that this sin, this tragedy, this offense cannot possibly fit into a pattern for good. Let us remember Joseph's imprisonment, David's sin, Paul's violent persecution of Christians, Peter's denial of his Master. None of it was beyond the power of grace to redeem and turn into something productive. The God who establishes the shoreline for the sea also decides the limits of the great mystery which is evil. He is "the Blessed Controller of all things." God will finally be God, Satan's best efforts notwithstanding.