What Is God's Will In All of This?

I'm going to wax philosophical on you here, which is not usually my style, but these questions have been nagging at me since this started. With the appeals exhausted and Terri Schiavo drawing ever nearer to death, I've been pondering some non-political thoughts in regards to this situation. What is God's will in this whole mess?

I should offer the disclaimer that I'm not a pastor and wouldn't begin to call myself any kind of religious scholar. There are certainly other folks out there who have a lot more training and experience than I, and I would certainly encourage you to check out their thoughts. You might start with Blogotional, Sheep's Crib and 21st Century Reformation.

Both sides of the argument seem to think they know what God and Terri would want (and they assume that both would be in agreement about what that would be). Yet I not sure I've heard anyone on either side argue that what they really want is for God's will to be done in this matter.

How can we who have argued to save Terri be assured that continued life was God's will for her? And how can those who are so anxious to see her die argue that death is God's will? From my experience, God's going to do what He's going to do, with or without our help.

Could it be that the messenger of Terri's demise, Michael Schiavo, is so disgusting, and the method of her death is so disturbing, that we refuse to accept the possibility that this might have been God's plan all along? We'd hate to think that God would choose this way to work, but we can't see the big picture as He can. Could this be His way of waking up the country to the culture of death that seems to infect our society? I don't know.

For a Christian, death is not the worst possible outcome, for we believe that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. For the non-believer, death is a whole different matter because it means an eternity separated from God's love. I don't know enough about Terri's life before her accident to know about her spiritual condition, or if she may have been able to make peace with her maker even after her brain damage. It's all pretty overwhelming to try and figure out what death holds for Terri and which course of action would really and truly be better for her.

Maybe some day God will fill us in on what His plan and purpose were for this tragic situation.