Two stories of death

Sounds ominous? Let's just say I warned you.

There's this family in Westminster/Broomfield. A couple with 5 kids, the youngest is on a ventilator, and he was the type of kid that wasn't supposed to live very long. The church I attend on Sunday nights found out about the poor living conditions that the family suffers--a double wide trailer-type home; a flood that rendered the kitchen useless within months of moving in. The dishes are literally washed in the bathtub. The carpet probably was molding. The mom can't work because she needs to take care of the child hooked up to the ventilator, whose name by the way, is Messiah.

So the church did something about it by asking everyone to give one dollar. No more. The idea is for us to see how our small gifts, when we work together, can make a major difference.

Two weeks passed for the family's home to be renovated, and the family got to stay in a (donated) hotel room during the wait. The kids had never swam during the winter time (which you can do with a hotel pool that's indoors!), and the pictures of their joyous faces would just melt you inside. The video that showed the transformation of the household was reminiscent of the tear-jerking Home Makeover.

So all these renovations take place, and various families of the church also decide to spend time with this family. Just hang out, play with the kids, get to know the mom and the dad. None of them had been to church in a long time. Suddenly, there's a sense of community that makes them rethink coming to church.

Then Messiah died.

Screeching tires as a car comes to a halt. Wait.. really?!?

The mom's reaction is astounding: "You know, if this had happened two weeks ago, I don't know how we would have handled it. Because [Messiah's death] happened now, I at least have a bunch of loving people to surround me. It's still hard, but it's a whole lot easier than it could have been."

So then I'm driving a borrowed minivan to the airport and back. Except then I get a phone call from Ev asking me to pick a woman up from the airport to bring her to a Denver hospital. Confusing, but okay. Then, her flight is a bit delayed and I end up looping the lot to the point of exhaustion. I'm at the point where I'd rather just go home.

She finally calls, an hour later, and I pick her up at the Southwest sign. She looks pretty tired too.

"What happened?" I ask.

"Oh you don't know?"

"Nope. Basically I'm just following orders. But if you don't want to talk about it, I understand too," I say.

She's willing to tell, and the next 45 minutes or so is her telling the story of where she is in her life right now. Ready for it?

She and her husband moved to Sacramento last fall to work at a new church, after having lived and worked in Illinois for 13 years. Think of it this way: whatever stressful event she was about to divulge is compounded with living in a new area with possibly very little support, even if you happen to work in a church. It's not the church's fault, it can just be that way when you're new.

So then this Haiti earthquake happened, and, I'll now call her Marci, as that is her name.. Marci's son and son-in-law are on the ground there working away to help rescue those who are stuck, to move people to hospitals with more doctors for treatment, etc. etc. The work is good, but the communication is poor. What I'm trying to stress here is how alone she must feel.

Because, you see, her daughter was at the conference (for which I've been driving folks) in Denver this weekend. She was scheduled to lead a breakfast, but she didn't show up. People called, knocked on her hotel door, all to no avail. Finally dad stepped in. He was also at the conference, and he got security to open her room. There she was.. unconscious.

At first, dad explained to Marci that everything was going to be okay. In a few hours, the story changed, and Marci took the first flight she could out to see her daughter.

I don't know the ending. I get the sense though that when God has a message for us, sometimes it is unrelentingly painful. He seems to set us up so that all we have is Him. Sometimes that feels unfair. Sometimes all you can feel is the grace covering you.

Marci sounded so strong when she was explaining everything. "I suppose when it rains, it pours," she had said.

I thought about how often I feel like I've been soaked. I replied, "And yet, He always knows what He's doing."

There are times when I really believe this. I mean, these past months have been like walking through a fire--I feel like God is molding and refining me, to steal from Sunil Sardar's message this past Sunday morning. Pain is inevitable. How will we respond? Not just with the pain in our own lives, like maybe Marci was feeling, but how will we respond to the pain of others, as with the family in W/B?

Will we borrow their pain, to alleviate some of the burden from our brothers and sisters? Or will we just sit back and watch. Or worse, act like it's not happening at all. That is the second death--the inability to show compassion on others as we were meant!