I was in a fairly serious car accident in the middle of my senior year in high school. On the way to an invitational debate tournament our coach, who was 26 years old, lost control of the car in which we were riding on a snow-covered road between Louisville and Bardstown Kentucky. The car fish-tailed into a head-on collision with a two-and-a-half ton truck. Our coach died en route to the hospital and the rest of us (four students in all) were hospitalized for varying periods of time. I spent 28 days in the hospital and another 6 months or so recuperating.
What took far longer was the effort to unpack what had happened. That took years — spiritually and vocationally. I had grown up with the God-who-moves-goal-posts. All I was sure of was that God wanted me to be hard working and good — as a son, brother, and student. All of that seemed pretty hollow and suddenly meaningless against the backdrop of an accident that could so easily bring life to an end.
The questions tumbled out and lingered in ways that are easier to name now than they were then:
• Was life all about performance?
• Was all that God cared about was being good?
• Why did God let a young, caring woman die?
• Why was I in a back brace for the second time in four years with a broken back?
• What should I do with the anger, frustration, and grief that followed?
• If life wasn’t about being good, then what was it all about?
I had managed to deal with the shattered arm, broken leg, and 28 days in the hospital (or, at least, I thought so). But another back brace and hospital bed brought me to an all-time low. Being carried by my father and friends up and down stairs — never mind graduating in a wheelchair with nearly everything in a cast — undermined the story I had been telling myself about life and about God.
One of the things that is easily missed about stories is the way in which they give our lives meaning and frame our spiritual convictions. In some sense, every great religion is a story and every spirituality is an implied story — stories about why we are here, what we are meant to be and do, the central spiritual challenges or needs that shape our lives, the way in which our personal stories fit into the larger human drama.
Tomorrow…more about what life-giving spiritual stories do and don’t do.
Tomorrow my sermon comes from Isaiah’s story (chp 6) and although there is much to be said of the Holy, I keep coming back to the story. We find ourselves in places where we struggle with Who God is and who we are and WHY we are. And it’s all woven together. Isaiah sees God and in so doing sees himself and discovers What God Wants For his Life and walks away with more questions than answers and so much mor to discover.
You brought up a painful part of our past. I doubt that you knew this but I had had an argument with Rob and refused to go to the debate. To this day, I have no idea what that disagreement was about. When I heard about the accident, I blamed myself. (and why I do not know. It was my fault!!) I pass that spot on Bardstown Road a lot, going to and from FC to Bardstown now. I always think of how much life means to me. I wasn’t there, but I made it to ST. Jos and saw all of you. I hope that at some point, you knew how much I cared for all of you. I came so close to losing my friends. Now, I realize that occurrences like this happen for a reason. Took me years to figure out that everything happens for a reason. It all happens in God’s time. IN GOD’S TIME!! We do have much to discover and understand about the all powerful God we serve. He is always with us; no matter what happens, He is there. Thanks be to Him for His presence. It has made my life so much more peaceful. He has carried me when I fell. Thanks for the reminder today…I am not 100% sure, but I have the feeling that the anniversary of that date is sometime this month…