Promised? ~ Carson Nott

In 2020, I spent nearly the entire year playing video games indoors, and occasionally half-heartedly doing schoolwork. I’d spend my day not really thinking much of anything, just attending the Zoom meetings that I had to, and hanging out with my friends online when I was done. I understand that my reality during the COVID-19 lockdown was definitely different than that of many others—that the pandemic was a living nightmare for many of my peers around me. But for myself, it was introverted bliss.

In July of that same year, Juan de Jesús Garcia died in the desert, having just crossed the border into Arizona. He died from hypothermia, in a cold night surrounded by shrubs and the unfeeling earth beneath him. He was right next to a road, which could have been his lifeline and saved him from death. Instead, it was not meant to be. Juan was not inside a warm home, surrounded by family and friends. He was climbing a wall and crossing a desert. And he did all of this while only being a year and a half older than me. If he were alive today, he would be the same age as many people at Pres House.

In a ceremony on the Thursday morning of our trip, we planted a cross for Juan where his body was found. It was the largest one we had seen up to that point, boldly red and emblazoned with his name. And his age. 16. That single number is what caused me to stumble in my head, thinking back to what I was doing around the time of his death. That such completely different existences could exist under God’s eye is still something I am grappling with. I experienced so many incredible events on our trip that made me completely rethink my own experiences and faith, but there was not anything that affected me like this. It chilled me far more than anything else.

It is commonly asked by Christians at some point in their lives: Why does God allow bad things to transpire? The problem is, I don’t feel that I actually know why, and this trip did not give me easy answers. I don’t understand why someone like me had to die in a human pursuit of ambition. The easy answer is to blame our government, which is a very reasonable thing to do as they manufactured the problem in the first place. What I don’t understand is why did God not give Juan, a child of God, God’s blessing? Why did he make it over the wall, but not get to experience his victory of survival? Why did a family have to be robbed of a son, brother, or grandson? This is the one piece of it all that I still haven’t figured out, and I don’t know when I will.

Carson Nott (he/him) is a junior studying music performance (cello) and linguistics.

Photo: The cross planted in honor of Juan de Jesús Garcia.