Musings of the SciFiPastor

Our family experienced a tragedy this week. My wife’s uncle (her father’s twin brother) committed suicide Tuesday afternoon. He had wrestled with severe depression in recent years.

Such a waste. Such a heart-wrenching tragedy.

I have a small part in the memorial service tomorrow. As many funerals as I have done, I’ve never had the responsibility of ministering after a suicide. What do you say? How can you bring comfort in such circumstances?

I attended such a service several years ago, and listened as a dear friend, a pastor I deeply respect, masterfully ministered God’s grace to a grieving family. He didn’t gloss over the tragedy. He didn’t preach the deceased into Heaven or Hell. But what he did was focus on the fact that, “The most High God is also the most Nigh God.”

I think that is the greatest truth we can experience in such difficult times. We don’t have all the answers, but we have access to the One who not only has the answers but IS the ultimate answer.

You may have heard some folks talk about suicide like it is a one-way ticket to hell. I don’t believe that for a second. I believe that someone who takes his or her own life is suffering mentally and emotionally just as genuinely as another suffers from physical ailments such as broken legs, cancer, or any other malady. God’s grace is big enough for our weakness, and only He can judge a person’s heart.

My wife said something very profound after she heard the news of her uncle’s death. She said that she wants people to remember her uncle for how he lived rather than for how he died. He was always a good husband and father to his wife and two daughters. He was generous and compassionate. He was also very intelligent.

One thing my wife asked me to do in the service tomorrow is to be sure to use her uncle’s favorite word. Eleemosynary. It means charitible. Loving. That’s a good word to describe his life. So tomorrow my focus is not going to be on tragedy and heartache. It’s going to be about an eleemosynary life that greatly impacted my wife and many others.

Ronald, we’ll miss you, buddy.

Today is a very important day in the life of my family. Today we signed a contract for a two-and-a-half acre bit of real estate. That’s right – our very own piece of the planet, baby!

There are still some details to sort through, but things are looking good so far. We are so excited! We’ve never owned property before, so this represents a significant change for us. Up until this point, we have either lived in rented houses or apartments, or we’ve lived in our own home on rented property.

One reason this is so significant for us is that for the first time, we feel that we are putting down roots. For all of my wife’s and my married life, we have lived with a transition-oriented mindset. “We’ll take this job just until we go to school. We’ll live here until we finish this degree. This will do until we get into a ministry position…” Those have been the sentiments of our sixteen years together.

However, we have pastored at New Life Assembly now for almost eight years, and we have come to the place in recent years that we no longer are holding our breath waiting for the next change. Now, of course, we have no idea what the Lord’s plans are, and each of us must be willing to follow wherever He leads. Nonetheless, I’ve now invested about a tenth of my life in this church and community, and I’m thrilled that we now have the opportunity to dig in and put down some roots.

Our church family is being so helpful through this process, too. It is so wonderful to have a group of caring people with whom we can share our lives.

Planetary ownership is so much better when you have friends!