This past Sunday marked the 9th anniversary of my pastor Brian Croft at Auburndale Baptist Church. During last Wednesday night's business meeting, he shared a couple of simple reflections that he had learned during his time as pastor. He recently posted them on his blog.
Both points he noted are good and very emotional subjects for folks like me who have known Brian over the years, but his second point resonated deeply with me: "The Way God's Blessing Often Flows Out of Sorrow." In every church, there will be painful losses. Whenever members leave a church, there ought to be sadness to see them go, even when it is for good reasons like job or ministry opportunities. Some losses come about through controversy as members either leave the church in bitterness or receive the stern hand of church discipline. Many of these losses, however, will come through the death of members... and some of them tragically so.
In all my years at Auburndale Baptist Church, I never knew such sadness as the stretch of days between November 30 and December 2 of 2011. Our church lost three people dear to us in two unrelated automobile accidents hundreds of miles away. In both instances, a vehicle from the opposite lane lost control and made a head-on collision with the specific vehicle containing the people precious to us. After the first crash, I tried to rationalize it as a simple, occasional tragedy. But after the second crash, the one which killed my dear friend, I could not accept the fact that it was a simple coincidence. I felt as if I and my brothers and sisters and Auburndale had suffered a cruel blow ordained by God himself. As I have confessed in a previous post, I had to deal with a little bit of my own anger toward God for not only allowing such tragedies to happen, but for seemingly being the direct cause of them. I am thankful, however, that the grace of God in Christ proved sufficient for me and brought my heart to dependence upon him rather than resentment.
But I couldn't shake the feeling that God must have a great purpose in order to ordain such a terrible sequence of events. The first thing I did after hearing of the loss of my friend was to take the time to call up various people throughout my life who have made a great impact on me (and who continue to be important to me) and simply let them know that I appreciate and care for them.
I have seen the seeds of long-term transformation in my own life since the events of last December. I try not to ever take the important people in my life for granted or assume that they'll always be around for me. When people I care about get sick or go through hard times, I do what I can to lift them up and encourage them in the Gospel. Life is way too short as it is, and it can change from routine to tragedy in an instant. I do not know what God specifically has in mind for my life, but I hope that I am able to honor the friendship I had with Stacy Ellison by working harder to strengthen the existing and future relationships in my own life. And I hope God, in his kind and wise providence, will put the people in my life that I'll need to be more effective for Him and appreciate His goodness even more.
Therefore, in light of all losses that have occurred in my life since last December, I'm encouraged rather than discouraged. I'm expecting God to do some great things. And I hope I'll get to see them.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Monday, September 03, 2012
Late in the Game, but Still Making Memories
"Cherish every moment with the important people in your life as if it might be the last one, but go ahead and make future plans with them anyway." -[Something I thought up a few years ago]
This weekend I drove down to Tennessee to drive my soon-to-be ninety-year-old Grandaddy around Camden's 15th annual "30 Mile Yard Sale." It's been an annual tradition for our family to set up sales in the garage while I take Grandaddy around town looking for dirt-cheap deals on rusty metal (among other things). He uses a cane for precaution and for when his legs get tired, but he can get along fine without it.
This year, I was fully conscious of the fact that I probably won't get very many opportunities to continue this tradition in the future. Grandaddy has had Parkinson's Disease for nearly a decade, but he still possesses enough strength to maintain a fairly normal life and is still able to do many of the same routine things he has done throughout his life. The last two years, however, have taken its emotional toil on him on account of my Granny's long sickness and eventual death late in July. Grandaddy lives alone in heartbreak, but he hasn't given up because he still treasures the time he gets to spend with the rest of our family.
My mother is the only child of Granny and Grandaddy's sixty-five-year marriage, and my sister and I are their only grandchildren. Needless to say, they pretty much tried to spoil us at every opportunity (not so much in the early years, but considerably more-so since I went off to college in 2001). I cherish every opportunity I have to make a few more memories with Grandaddy for as long as the Lord gives him health and life.
I told him at Granny's funeral that I want him to live as long as possible. I suppose that was a somewhat selfish request on my part, but I just can't imagine life without a grandparent, and he's my last one left. Even though he gets around well, I tried to stay close to him at the yard sales, because I was so worried he might trip on a tree root or slip in some loose dirt. He almost tripped trying to go underneath a scaffold to avoid some rain, but he caught himself (the old man still probably thinks he's only 75 at times). Nothing makes me feel old like watching out for the folks who raised me as if they themselves were large children.
After I graduated from college, I was frustrated that so much of my life routine still felt the same as it always did. I wanted to move on with life. But now life seems to be changing awfully fast. I'm watching my elder relatives grow old, suffer, and die. I've experienced the loss of some great friends, and a few more friends have had some close calls. But I won't lose heart either. I serve a God who isn't surprised by anything, and I worship a Savior who has identified himself with the most pitiful point of the human condition. I don't fear the sorrowful days that surely await me in the future, but I just don't want them to happen anytime soon. If there is one thing I've learned about relationships in recent years, it's that you really have to make the most of the time God has given you with the people you love the most.
This weekend I drove down to Tennessee to drive my soon-to-be ninety-year-old Grandaddy around Camden's 15th annual "30 Mile Yard Sale." It's been an annual tradition for our family to set up sales in the garage while I take Grandaddy around town looking for dirt-cheap deals on rusty metal (among other things). He uses a cane for precaution and for when his legs get tired, but he can get along fine without it.
This year, I was fully conscious of the fact that I probably won't get very many opportunities to continue this tradition in the future. Grandaddy has had Parkinson's Disease for nearly a decade, but he still possesses enough strength to maintain a fairly normal life and is still able to do many of the same routine things he has done throughout his life. The last two years, however, have taken its emotional toil on him on account of my Granny's long sickness and eventual death late in July. Grandaddy lives alone in heartbreak, but he hasn't given up because he still treasures the time he gets to spend with the rest of our family.
My mother is the only child of Granny and Grandaddy's sixty-five-year marriage, and my sister and I are their only grandchildren. Needless to say, they pretty much tried to spoil us at every opportunity (not so much in the early years, but considerably more-so since I went off to college in 2001). I cherish every opportunity I have to make a few more memories with Grandaddy for as long as the Lord gives him health and life.
I told him at Granny's funeral that I want him to live as long as possible. I suppose that was a somewhat selfish request on my part, but I just can't imagine life without a grandparent, and he's my last one left. Even though he gets around well, I tried to stay close to him at the yard sales, because I was so worried he might trip on a tree root or slip in some loose dirt. He almost tripped trying to go underneath a scaffold to avoid some rain, but he caught himself (the old man still probably thinks he's only 75 at times). Nothing makes me feel old like watching out for the folks who raised me as if they themselves were large children.
After I graduated from college, I was frustrated that so much of my life routine still felt the same as it always did. I wanted to move on with life. But now life seems to be changing awfully fast. I'm watching my elder relatives grow old, suffer, and die. I've experienced the loss of some great friends, and a few more friends have had some close calls. But I won't lose heart either. I serve a God who isn't surprised by anything, and I worship a Savior who has identified himself with the most pitiful point of the human condition. I don't fear the sorrowful days that surely await me in the future, but I just don't want them to happen anytime soon. If there is one thing I've learned about relationships in recent years, it's that you really have to make the most of the time God has given you with the people you love the most.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Teaching Kids about Death and Resurrection
I posted previously about my first reactions to the recent death of my friend, Stacy Ellison. This is the follow-up story about how I went to church the Sunday immediately following his passing.
Despite my grief over the loss of my friend, I had to prepare a Sunday School lesson for three kids, ranging in age from 10 to 12 years of age. I chose the text of John 11:1-44, the famous passage where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. That text is an easy choice, since it so clearly gives Christians comfort with the hope of being raised from the dead ourselves. I was also hoping that these tragic events might make the threat of death a present reality to these precious (and mostly unconverted) little children with so much living yet to do (God willing). I prayed that if any good might come from these sudden deaths, it would be that it might awake unconverted souls to their need for salvation in Jesus.
For the sake of my emotions, I decided not to mention Stacy or his family directly during the course of the lesson. After reading through the biblical text with the kids, I proposed a three point summation of the passage:
1. Lazarus was a friend of Jesus.
2. Lazarus died.
3. Jesus resurrected him from the dead to live again.
I tried to make the kids aware of two facts. First, that the second point ("this man died") is a fate that awaits all of us assuming that Jesus doesn't come back first. And secondly, that the third point ("Jesus resurrected him") is dependent upon the validity of the first point ("He was a friend of Jesus"). My goal was to communicate to these children that if they want to have a hope in life beyond death, then they must be a friend of Jesus, which I chose to define as "Trusting in Jesus alone for salvation."
It's a message I had presented to these kids many times over the past five years, but that Sunday I emphasized it with greater passion than ever before. On account of the death of my relatively young friend of 37-years-old, I was conscious that none of us has any guarantee on how long we will have to live before that dreaded day of earthly death falls upon us.
In my previous post, I stated that the nature of Stacy's kind of "accident" unnerved me. Just two days earlier, a Texas pastor and his wife (Jackson and Barbara Boyett) who had been friends of our church also lost their lives in a head-on collision in which an oncoming vehicle slid into their lane. At the time, I tried to justify their deaths with arguments like, "I sure do know how dangerous those country highways can be. When cars reach high speeds and drivers get lulled into distraction, bad things tend to happen." And then I heard about Stacy's crash. Apparently it wasn't the result of cars traveling at high speeds and apparently it wasn't the result of a distracted driver. From what I've read, a the driver of a pickup truck moving across a busy metro bridge in a 35 MPH zone suffered a seizure, pushed down hard on his gas pedal, and slid across into an oncoming Ford Taurus, which my friend was driving. There's just no logical explanation for why Stacy was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It just seems like it was destined to happen. I don't know if there is any significance as to why these dear folks died the same way in such a short amount of time, but it felt like cruel irony. I felt like God was just trying to get my attention by saying "When it's your day to die, there is no avoiding it or explaining it away."
As I read through John 11, I was struck by the emotional rebuke that Martha appears to give to Jesus in verse 21. She said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." It's a subtle rebuke, but it's absolutely true. Jesus knew of Lazarus's ailments yet intentionally delayed a visit for two days promising that "it is for God's glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it" (verse 4). The human side of me wants to know what Jesus was doing that would have been so important. What human friend would sit around while his friend lay dying? What human father would intentionally delay going to help his suffering son? If only for an instant, Martha appeared to be angry at Jesus. Given the perplexing nature of the recent deaths of people connected with my church in Louisville, it was an anger with which I could sympathize... if only for a moment.
Yet, though Martha's faith may have been weakened with the death of her brother, it was still strong enough to confess that "I know even now that whatever you [Jesus] ask of God, God will give you." This was not a "health and wealth" mantra, but an expression in her confidence in the unbreakable union of Jesus and God the Father. Even though we may not always like how God's providential will unfolds in life, we have to trust that God works through all things for the glory of Christ and "for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28). It was an immediate rebuke to my own disappointment with God's providence over the past week.
Getting the focus back on the Sunday School lesson, I simply exhorted those precious little children to ensure their eternal destiny by putting their complete trust in Jesus to save them from their sins. In order to be raised from the dead, they needed to become friends of Jesus. As I thought of the grace Jesus had shown to Stacy, I thought also of the grace Jesus has shown to me in forgiving my sins and giving me a new heart. It was at this point that the emotions I had suppressed all weekend finally got the best of me. I had to hand over the remainder of the lesson to Matt Miller, my co-teacher, because I could only weep like small child who had just stubbed his toe on a door. Matt challenged the kids again not to delay matters of eternal salvation.
I genuinely hope and pray that the sudden deaths of the Boyetts and Stacy Ellison might give the rest of us cause to think more seriously about the salvation of ourselves and others. Ultimately, the most important question we have to answer is whether or not we're a true friend of Jesus Christ.
Despite my grief over the loss of my friend, I had to prepare a Sunday School lesson for three kids, ranging in age from 10 to 12 years of age. I chose the text of John 11:1-44, the famous passage where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. That text is an easy choice, since it so clearly gives Christians comfort with the hope of being raised from the dead ourselves. I was also hoping that these tragic events might make the threat of death a present reality to these precious (and mostly unconverted) little children with so much living yet to do (God willing). I prayed that if any good might come from these sudden deaths, it would be that it might awake unconverted souls to their need for salvation in Jesus.
For the sake of my emotions, I decided not to mention Stacy or his family directly during the course of the lesson. After reading through the biblical text with the kids, I proposed a three point summation of the passage:
1. Lazarus was a friend of Jesus.
2. Lazarus died.
3. Jesus resurrected him from the dead to live again.
I tried to make the kids aware of two facts. First, that the second point ("this man died") is a fate that awaits all of us assuming that Jesus doesn't come back first. And secondly, that the third point ("Jesus resurrected him") is dependent upon the validity of the first point ("He was a friend of Jesus"). My goal was to communicate to these children that if they want to have a hope in life beyond death, then they must be a friend of Jesus, which I chose to define as "Trusting in Jesus alone for salvation."
It's a message I had presented to these kids many times over the past five years, but that Sunday I emphasized it with greater passion than ever before. On account of the death of my relatively young friend of 37-years-old, I was conscious that none of us has any guarantee on how long we will have to live before that dreaded day of earthly death falls upon us.
In my previous post, I stated that the nature of Stacy's kind of "accident" unnerved me. Just two days earlier, a Texas pastor and his wife (Jackson and Barbara Boyett) who had been friends of our church also lost their lives in a head-on collision in which an oncoming vehicle slid into their lane. At the time, I tried to justify their deaths with arguments like, "I sure do know how dangerous those country highways can be. When cars reach high speeds and drivers get lulled into distraction, bad things tend to happen." And then I heard about Stacy's crash. Apparently it wasn't the result of cars traveling at high speeds and apparently it wasn't the result of a distracted driver. From what I've read, a the driver of a pickup truck moving across a busy metro bridge in a 35 MPH zone suffered a seizure, pushed down hard on his gas pedal, and slid across into an oncoming Ford Taurus, which my friend was driving. There's just no logical explanation for why Stacy was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It just seems like it was destined to happen. I don't know if there is any significance as to why these dear folks died the same way in such a short amount of time, but it felt like cruel irony. I felt like God was just trying to get my attention by saying "When it's your day to die, there is no avoiding it or explaining it away."
As I read through John 11, I was struck by the emotional rebuke that Martha appears to give to Jesus in verse 21. She said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." It's a subtle rebuke, but it's absolutely true. Jesus knew of Lazarus's ailments yet intentionally delayed a visit for two days promising that "it is for God's glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it" (verse 4). The human side of me wants to know what Jesus was doing that would have been so important. What human friend would sit around while his friend lay dying? What human father would intentionally delay going to help his suffering son? If only for an instant, Martha appeared to be angry at Jesus. Given the perplexing nature of the recent deaths of people connected with my church in Louisville, it was an anger with which I could sympathize... if only for a moment.
Yet, though Martha's faith may have been weakened with the death of her brother, it was still strong enough to confess that "I know even now that whatever you [Jesus] ask of God, God will give you." This was not a "health and wealth" mantra, but an expression in her confidence in the unbreakable union of Jesus and God the Father. Even though we may not always like how God's providential will unfolds in life, we have to trust that God works through all things for the glory of Christ and "for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28). It was an immediate rebuke to my own disappointment with God's providence over the past week.
Getting the focus back on the Sunday School lesson, I simply exhorted those precious little children to ensure their eternal destiny by putting their complete trust in Jesus to save them from their sins. In order to be raised from the dead, they needed to become friends of Jesus. As I thought of the grace Jesus had shown to Stacy, I thought also of the grace Jesus has shown to me in forgiving my sins and giving me a new heart. It was at this point that the emotions I had suppressed all weekend finally got the best of me. I had to hand over the remainder of the lesson to Matt Miller, my co-teacher, because I could only weep like small child who had just stubbed his toe on a door. Matt challenged the kids again not to delay matters of eternal salvation.
I genuinely hope and pray that the sudden deaths of the Boyetts and Stacy Ellison might give the rest of us cause to think more seriously about the salvation of ourselves and others. Ultimately, the most important question we have to answer is whether or not we're a true friend of Jesus Christ.
Friday, December 09, 2011
What I Did When I Learned My Friend Died
Today marks the one week anniversary of the tragic, all-too-soon death of one of my good friends of the past seven years. Stacy Ellison died at the age of 37 after injuries sustained in a car crash on the Louisville Second Street Bridge. Stacy leaves behind his wife, Kim, who he loved and cherished, his little girl, Ali, and his infant son, Titus. He also leaves behind so many friends and family members who loved him dearly.
The Ellison family showed me great love, care, and joy during my time in Louisville. When an ice storm knocked out power across most of the city a few years ago, they housed me and my then-roommate for nearly half a week. I considered Stacy and Kim to be like my really cool, slightly more mature cousins. Stacy was my buddy; we watched NASCAR together, played in the same fantasy football league, and we once played a little Microsoft Kinnect (the last time I was over at his house). Stacy was a good Christian man, a deacon in our church, a faithful husband and father, and, of course, he was my friend.
A little over a month ago, he made me laugh so hard when he pretended to use his son as a Yoda puppet. I got so excited I had to leave the church fellowship hall because I was distracting the kids from their lesson. That was classic Stacy Ellison.
The details of his death have been a source of grief, mostly because it doesn't appear that there is anything he could have done to avoid it. Stacy was driving north from Louisville into Indiana in a Ford Taurus on a beautiful, somewhat comfortable December afternoon. A Silverado truck was coming south in the opposite lane. Because of extensive maintenance projects on the bridge, the speed limit was posted at around 30 mph. An eyewitness who was following the truck claims he was following the speed limit and the truck seemed to be doing about the same speed. Suddenly, everything went crazy...
The truck began to swerve out of control, accelerated wildly, hopped the dividing curb, and careened into the lane of oncoming traffic. Stacy's Taurus was the lone car that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The vehicles collided head-on. The two passengers in the truck were badly hurt, but Stacy suffered unsustainable injuries and died within the next hour. Medical examiners believe the driver of the truck suffered from a "medical emergency" that caused him to lose control of his vehicle. The witness said the driver appeared to be suffering from a seizure that likely resulted in his foot smashing down onto the gas pedal, causing the terrible chain of events that claimed the life of my friend.
When I heard about Stacy's death after a call from another dear friend, I felt like I should do something to make the situation better... but that was just desperate longing to try and regain a sense of control in my life. After an hour of scrambling across the internet and across town to inform some friends of the terrible news I had learned, I returned to my apartment, unaware of what to do next.
It is my personal belief that Stacy and Kim knew how much I valued their friendship, yet I cannot recall any occasion when I bothered to verbalize that sentiment. It's the kind of thing I sometimes have trouble saying with a straight-face, maybe because of how overly-sentimental it sounds or perhaps because I don't want to find myself tearing-up unexpectedly. But one thing that left a pit in my soul was the fact that people I care about could go to their grave (and to meet God) never knowing the depth of appreciation that I had for them.
That night, I did the only thing I could do. I called up numerous people (some family, some friends) who have been important in my life over the past few years. I didn't call everybody who I probably should have called, and sometimes I only got their voicemail services, but I did manage to tell the people who answered the phone three simple words, "I appreciate you." I tried to express the nature of that appreciation, but I'm sure my attempts to do so only scratched the surface.
I am so thankful for the people that God has placed in my life, at different times and in different places, that have made my life better for knowing them. Often, we don't have as much time together as we expect, but that doesn't make the time spent together any less sweet. One thing I learned after the death of my friend, Stacy, is that I have to value the important people in mind. Hopefully, I can let them know how much I truly appreciate them.
The Ellison family showed me great love, care, and joy during my time in Louisville. When an ice storm knocked out power across most of the city a few years ago, they housed me and my then-roommate for nearly half a week. I considered Stacy and Kim to be like my really cool, slightly more mature cousins. Stacy was my buddy; we watched NASCAR together, played in the same fantasy football league, and we once played a little Microsoft Kinnect (the last time I was over at his house). Stacy was a good Christian man, a deacon in our church, a faithful husband and father, and, of course, he was my friend.
A little over a month ago, he made me laugh so hard when he pretended to use his son as a Yoda puppet. I got so excited I had to leave the church fellowship hall because I was distracting the kids from their lesson. That was classic Stacy Ellison.
The details of his death have been a source of grief, mostly because it doesn't appear that there is anything he could have done to avoid it. Stacy was driving north from Louisville into Indiana in a Ford Taurus on a beautiful, somewhat comfortable December afternoon. A Silverado truck was coming south in the opposite lane. Because of extensive maintenance projects on the bridge, the speed limit was posted at around 30 mph. An eyewitness who was following the truck claims he was following the speed limit and the truck seemed to be doing about the same speed. Suddenly, everything went crazy...
The truck began to swerve out of control, accelerated wildly, hopped the dividing curb, and careened into the lane of oncoming traffic. Stacy's Taurus was the lone car that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The vehicles collided head-on. The two passengers in the truck were badly hurt, but Stacy suffered unsustainable injuries and died within the next hour. Medical examiners believe the driver of the truck suffered from a "medical emergency" that caused him to lose control of his vehicle. The witness said the driver appeared to be suffering from a seizure that likely resulted in his foot smashing down onto the gas pedal, causing the terrible chain of events that claimed the life of my friend.
When I heard about Stacy's death after a call from another dear friend, I felt like I should do something to make the situation better... but that was just desperate longing to try and regain a sense of control in my life. After an hour of scrambling across the internet and across town to inform some friends of the terrible news I had learned, I returned to my apartment, unaware of what to do next.
It is my personal belief that Stacy and Kim knew how much I valued their friendship, yet I cannot recall any occasion when I bothered to verbalize that sentiment. It's the kind of thing I sometimes have trouble saying with a straight-face, maybe because of how overly-sentimental it sounds or perhaps because I don't want to find myself tearing-up unexpectedly. But one thing that left a pit in my soul was the fact that people I care about could go to their grave (and to meet God) never knowing the depth of appreciation that I had for them.
That night, I did the only thing I could do. I called up numerous people (some family, some friends) who have been important in my life over the past few years. I didn't call everybody who I probably should have called, and sometimes I only got their voicemail services, but I did manage to tell the people who answered the phone three simple words, "I appreciate you." I tried to express the nature of that appreciation, but I'm sure my attempts to do so only scratched the surface.
I am so thankful for the people that God has placed in my life, at different times and in different places, that have made my life better for knowing them. Often, we don't have as much time together as we expect, but that doesn't make the time spent together any less sweet. One thing I learned after the death of my friend, Stacy, is that I have to value the important people in mind. Hopefully, I can let them know how much I truly appreciate them.
Saturday, February 05, 2011
My Recent Posts
It's been about a year since I've posted here, but I have written a few things on the internet!
"Why I Would Not have Supported Martin Luther King Back in the Day" (It's not as controversial as the title sounds)
"Christ, the Lion Who Keeps Getting Bigger" (I waited 2 years to post this after writing it...hmm, not sure if it was worth it, but it's an emotional subject for me).
How 8-bit Ninja Turtles helped make me a better person.
Three posts in a year? Man, the internet sure is dead these days...
"Why I Would Not have Supported Martin Luther King Back in the Day" (It's not as controversial as the title sounds)
"Christ, the Lion Who Keeps Getting Bigger" (I waited 2 years to post this after writing it...hmm, not sure if it was worth it, but it's an emotional subject for me).
How 8-bit Ninja Turtles helped make me a better person.
Three posts in a year? Man, the internet sure is dead these days...
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