Andrew Allard, 1 Year Later

A year ago I blogged the story of Andrew Allard. Andrew, in short, was a young teen who was on fire for God who passed away suddenly about a year ago. Check out the revisits here and here.

Suffering is inevitable.
Stupid Garden of Eden.
But I am still amazed at how people can find God in the midst of the pain.

Kevin Twombly is the Generations Pastor at Grace Capital Church, Andrew's church in New Hampshire. In honor of Andrew, Kevin asked Andrew's Mom and Sister to guest blog. Great posts, sharing insight into how a family copes with loss, finding God even when God doesn't make sense. Check the quote from Andrew's sister, Abbie.

When Andrew passed away, I could have easily blamed God, hated God, or even turn my back on God altogether. Too many questions existed without a trace of answers that could be found by human insight alone. I searched for answers in places beyond myself and my own thoughts, and could not find any there as well. And yes, that was a fancy way of saying I could not find the answers in even God, the only place I knew to look. Yet in the midst of all the confusion and lonesomeness, God wrapped his arms around me and gave me a peace, a tranquility, that was unlike anything I had ever felt before. My heart was not overwhelmed with the sorrow this world expected me to feel. At times I felt guilty because I was not as broken as the people around me that were affected by the loss as well. Instead of pointing the finger at God and blaming him for taking Andrew away from me, I chose to ’sing hallelujah’ and ‘see the good in broken things’; and to my surprise, there were more good things than I expected.

God, thank you for the continued lessons to be learned from Andrew's life. May his life continue to impact people for Your kingdom.

Comments

[Jesue said]

Jesus return based on matthew 1'17-matthew 24'34-I'm not a date setter-but Jesus said we would know as if it was at the door-so always look for him-all that said matt, 1'17-says 14 generations unto the christ-from the capture of Israel-well that happen in 586 bc.so 14 x what is 586-14 x 42 is 588-subtract 586-from 588-and we have the birth of christ-2bc.NOW WE KNOW HOW LONG A GENERATION IS [42]YEARS-NOW READ MATT.24'34-THIS GENERATION WILL NOT PASS AWAY WHO SEES JERUALEM IN THE HANDS OF THE JEWS-AND WHAT YR. WAS THAT-1967-PLUS 42-IS 2009 AD.THIS COULD BE THE YR OUR LORD RETUNS....