The Final Question

The test was this morning– Algebra, Room 304, Mr. Erickson’s class. But for Eden Asher, life had long since stopped being a series of predictable equations that she could solve with ease.

She sat at the back of the classroom. The window was cracked just enough for the early spring wind to snake in and toy with the edge of her exam paper. Her pen remained steady in her hand as she stared blankly outside the window. The room buzzed with the scratching of pencils, the occasional sigh, and the tapping of feet as time passed. But Eden’s page remained blank, just like her mind.

In the corner of her desk, she had scratched one word in angry bold and heavy letters: “WHY?”. Her mind was not focused on the test in front of her, but the one that she couldn’t solve. There was no formula for grief. No equation for resurrection.

Two months ago, her younger brother Micah died in a hit-and-run. He was only 14. It happened after a basketball game, late at night. No witnesses. Just a body lying on the cold ground. It was crazy to Eden how it all happened. How it ended up that way. How she was the one to find him, only a little too late.

He was the one who prayed before every meal, even at McDonald’s. The one who carried her backpack home from school when her spine felt like it would snap under its weight, and even when she’d joke about it being heavy. The one who said, “Don’t worry, Eden. God’s got you,” like it was fact, not faith.

Now he was a memory, increasingly blurred in her dreams, buried in a plain wooden casket six feet beneath a patch of rain-soaked earth. And Eden was still here—breathing, eating, walking to school. But none of it felt real. Not since the world tilted and cracked.

She hadn’t prayed since the funeral. Silence felt better than empty words and unanswered questions.

____

When she sat in church the Sunday after Micah’s burial, the words of the sermon sounded like static. As they read from Psalm 34, the phrase, “God is near to the brokenhearted”, evoked an anger she’d never felt before.

“Near?....What a joke.” she thought.

Was He near when Eden pressed her palms into the chest of her dead brother, screaming for him to wake up before the paramedics pulled her away?

Was He near when her mother curled up on the living room carpet and didn't speak or eat for days?

Was He near when Eden knelt on the bathroom floor, dry-heaving from grief and asking the mirror why it wasn’t her instead?

No. God wasn’t near. He was absent. Silent. Or worse—imaginary. This thought angered her even more.

That afternoon, Eden didn’t stay home. As soon as they all arrived, Eden opened the car door and kept walking, despite the calls of her worried parents. She walked past the bus stop, past the church where she’d once led worship 4 years ago, past the bookstore where Micah used to wait for her shift to end. She ended up on the edge of town, at the narrow, winding road where the trees thinned and the trucks passed fast. Where she was sure no one would find her.

She stood at the edge of the asphalt, toes grazing the faded yellow line, the wind plucking at her coat like invisible fingers. She didn’t cry. She didn’t tremble. She only whispered the same word over and over in her head like a song with one note: Why?

A truck was coming. She heard it in the distance—low, steady, inevitable.

She took a step forward. And then—

A voice.

Not a thunderclap. Not a divine echo. Just a voice. Human. Low. Kind.

“Eden.”

She spun around.

A man stood there. Barefoot. Dusty jeans. A simple white shirt that rippled in the wind. His eyes were brown, but deeper than brown—like melted mahogany. He looked on the younger side of adulthood. Familiar.

“Do I know you?” she asked, voice cracking.

“Yes,” he said, eyes soft. “And I know you.” She stared, confused—there was no recognition, only the strange ache of familiarity.

She looked back at the road in silence, watching the truck approach in the distance. “Listen, I just want to be alone right now.”

“I understand…I’m not here to stop you,” he said gently. “I’m here to sit.”

She looked back at him.

He lowered himself onto the gravel shoulder and looked up at her. Eventually, he patted the ground beside him. She didn’t move. But the truck had passed. The moment was broken.

“What are you–?” she whispered, not ending her sentence.

“Not what. Who.”

Curiosity got the best of her and she sat.

He wasn’t that close to her but somehow the heat from his arms were radiating towards her. Gently he placed his hand on the part of her arm that Micah would routinely touch when he thought she was troubled. It was his attempt at making her feel better. Feel less alone. And now this stranger…

“How–” the thought burst and then the flood came—words she hadn’t planned, sobs she hadn’t allowed, pain she hadn’t voiced. She told him everything. How much she missed Micah, how her heart was heavy with guilt for not praying and that she knew Micah would be cross with her for that, how she envied people who still believed, how she thought about death not because she wanted to stop breathing, but because she didn’t know how to keep living... How she blamed herself for not being with him…

When she was done, he didn’t give her answers. He gave her silence. Not the hollow silence of grief—but the full, listening silence of presence.

Then he said, “It’s being taught to think of faith as a test, a multiple-choice exam with one right answer. But from what I know, faith isn’t an exam, Eden. It’s a relationship. A mutual understanding, just like any other.”

She blinked through tears. “So I can ask God questions?” He smiled. “You already have.”

She was dumbstruck, violently wiping her eyes to see better. At first of course she thought that this was just a crazy guy in the woods. Her body began to fill with adrenaline. It didn’t matter who he was before, but somehow, the words that he just spoke were utterly clear. There was no doubt that the man that sat next to her knew things he shouldn’t know and his presence was extremely calming. Inhumanly so…

She looked at him, really looked. “Are you… Him?”

The question hung in the air like fog.

He didn’t answer. Not with words.

The wind stopped. The trees held their breath. Even the birds fell silent.

“I’m heartbroken, Eden. Not at your doubt—but at your pain. Pain is after all, a test of faith.” After a bit of silence, he stood and held out his hand. “Come. Walk with me.”

She hesitated, then took it. His palm was warm. Calloused. Real.

As they walked down the road, she realized something strange. The world hadn’t changed. The road was still cracked. The wind was still cold. Micah was still gone.

But something inside her—something that had been frozen—was beginning to thaw… slowly.

Years later, Eden would tell her story. She’d call it The Final Question. Not because she found all the answers— but because on the day she meant to end her story, she met the One who’d been writing it all along.

And He didn’t fix her pain.`

He entered it.

And stayed.