How Family Tragedies Shape Lives
As with most first-person accounts, President Theodore Roosevelt’s autobiography provides unique insight and observations that would be missing from the full record of his life had it not been written. One extraordinary thing about Roosevelt’s autobiography is what is learned by what he omits. Roosevelt was married to a young socialite named Alice Hathaway. Two days after she gave birth to their first child, she died. Roosevelt’s autobiography makes no mention of Alice Hathaway. Reading it alone would lead one to conclude that Edith Carow, whom he later married, and who became first lady, was Roosevelt’s first and only wife. The absence of any mention of his first wife has led many historians to speculate. Was the loss simply too painful to mention? Was this omission some sort of expression of Victorian values – an avoidance of mentioning weakness or loss? Whatever the reason for this exclusion, nearly all historians agree that Roosevelt excluded from his autobiography one of the most formative events of his life.
“Black care rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough,” Roosevelt would later write. The Harvard-educated New York alderman immediately went west to become a cattle rancher. Not content to remain long in a single occupation, Roosevelt soon moved on to be a New York City police commissioner, a federal official, then a cavalry officer. Eventually he became a governor, and then vice president of the United States. The assassination of President McKinley made Roosevelt the youngest man to ever become president. Roosevelt’s incredibly diverse and “strenuous life” can be appreciated, at least in part, as exorcising grief and coping with loss. It can be fairly stated that family tragedy made the man.
This principle is not unique to Theodore Roosevelt. In fact, it can be observed that several patriarchs and prophets in the Bible were made the same way. Their ministry and usefulness, in the providence of God, arose through family tragedy.
It was not revelations from God alone that made Hosea the memorable and original prophet he was. It was his marriage. Specifically, it was the heartbreak of an unfaithful wife that made Hosea the compelling prophet of the longsuffering and mercy of God.
It was in his marriage that Abraham, the father of those whose faith is counted by God for righteousness, learned to believe. God promised Abraham that his and Sarah’s inability to have children would miraculously end despite their impossibly advanced age. He took God at His word. Later, when asked to offer in sacrifice the beloved son God gave him, Abraham trusted God with Isaac’s life. It was as a father that Abraham displayed faith that would become forever a model for others.
Widowed Ruth’s devotion to her destitute, elderly mother-in-law led her to forsake her own best interest to care for another who offered nothing in return. In this context of family loyalty God graciously worked to bless not only Ruth, but the entire world.
The parable of the prodigal son stirs human hearts as few tales can. A selfish, rebellious son at the last repents and returns to the father he had disrespected. He finds his aged father watching for him, running to him, embracing him, and welcoming him home. It is the family sentiment that teaches and touches.
Joseph and his brothers, Moses’ mother, David, Joseph and Mary — the list of characters whose family pain was the avenue through which God’s grace flowed is long.
There are lessons to be learned through family tragedy that cannot be mastered in a college or seminary. Isaiah wrote, “I and the children the Lord hath given me are for signs and wonders in Israel.” (Is. 8:18) Sometimes the wonder of God is revealed through the hurting home.
We can only hope that Theodore Roosevelt sometime in his life learned that rather than running from black care, we should run with our cares to God.
David A. Oliver is the pastor of Ashley Baptist Church in Belding, MI.