I am in Seattle tonight sitting in Harborview Medical Center Trauma Surgery ICU on the 9th floor. I’m sure most of you know by now I am sitting here with Margaret Stroup. She was shot in the abdomen by a disgruntle employee Wednesday before Thanksgiving Day.
The clock on the wall reads 23;21 which means it’s 11:21 pm. It is still hard to believe I am here and Margaret is there and you are reading this! It’s all just too, I don’t know… It’s like this isn’t supposed to be yet here we are. Reality is Margaret should be in Soldotna getting ready for Christmas and Church tomorrow. Jerry her husband should be in Virginia working away at their friends Jewelry Store. I should be sitting on the couch with my wife watching the 10:00 news hearing about stuff like this not experiencing it!!!!!! It’s like not real, BUT IT IS!!!! We are here in Seattle and you are at home or Starbucks or the office or where ever you are reading this. Weird just doesn’t describe it all. None of us could have ever imagined early on that Wednesday morning we would all be here in the midst of this seemingly nightmare. Yet here we are.
Millions of questions seem to run through my mind as I’m sure they do yours. If you are reading this purely from a spectators position then maybe all this doesn’t make any sense to you. However if you are a member of the cast in this unfortunate Drama then I think you understand at least a little where I am coming from. I mean to say it doesn’t make any sense is to be so redundant and yet that is what I seem to be doing tonight. Being redundant and may be just rambling as well. The questions just seem to come in waves. Most of the time I just accept reality and go forward as I know we must do. However to sit here and watch Margaret lie there in that bed so very sick is just so wrong! But then I understand all the answers that we must embrace: It is what it is! Life isn’t fair. No one deserves any of the wrong that happens in the world. It’s God’s will!!!!!! (I think I understand that one but man is that a tough one. I’ll talk more about that one later.) It rains on the just and the unjust. And soooooo many more.
I will be honest with you all. I just don’t understand it all. I know I’m supposed to be the “spiritual answer man” but I just don’t have too many complete answers tonight. Someone in Sterling reminded me of all the stuff that happened in Soldotna/Sterling back in the 80’s in a 16 month period. I so don’t understand it all. There are just so many. I was talking with the nurses here in the ICU today and they remembered Cody Honrud. We talked about him for a bit. There are just so many. Today I was talking with a mother from one of the islands here in Puget Sound. She was telling me her 16 year old son had a snow board accident on a jump he and some friends made. He landed wrong and broke his neck. He is now apparently a quadriplegic. Is that crazy or what.
The key for me I think is this; I will never know the answer to all these millions of questions and neither will you. If I focus on the things I don’t know and never will know then I will become totally useless. Which is what I think the “dark side” wants me to do. I can allow my mind to go places that it has no business going. In case you aren’t aware I am not God and neither are you. One of the little did-dies that has helped me over the years is this: I don’t understand how a black cow eats green grass and gives white milk and yellow butter, and if you cut her open you get red blood! Now I have thought about that one for years. However just because I don’t understand it, it doesn’t keep me from drinking milk and eating butter. Life is filled with so many paradoxes and oxymoron’s and conundrums that if I think about them too long my head hurts.
So I have chosen to focus on the things that I think I do know. Now there isn’t enough room and time for me to list all the things I do know. However humor me for just a bit more, please. I do know there is a God. I do know that I am not God! I do know that all this planet and humans and animals didn’t come out of a swamp all by themselves or that the incredibly complex human body wasn’t created by an “explosion” in a cosmic never never land. Get real. It takes a whole lot more faith to believe that than in a Creator, Hello!!!! I know there is a book called the Bible. I know that it is Historically accurate. It is archaeologically accurate. It is the most amazing book ever written. I submit to you if it is historically and archaeologically accurate then it is spiritually accurate as well.
According to the Bible, God created a perfect world and put man in it. God gave man what the Bible calls a “free will”. Satan deceived the first man and woman and sin and shame entered the perfect world that God had made. Sin has infected man from that day to this. The reason we are here in this hospital tonight is because of that gift God gave to us human beings called “free will”. I like to do what I want and so do you. However when my selfish actions conflict with someone else or even my own well being we have varying degrees of tragedy. Here we are along with so many more victims of this thing called “free will”. I know there are accidents and “stuff just happens” but the free will of man is certainly got us here tonight.
Too long, too much for one sitting, just too much period perhaps but if you made it this far maybe you understand a little better. Maybe you are more confused than before? I hope that’s not the case but thanks for listening. I think I feel better!
Trusting God for the final answers,
Pastor Alan
December 21, 2008 at 8:13 am |
Alan,
No one knows, and you are only the messenger!
We just gotta BELIEVE! Don’t make it complicated.
Can’t wait until you are home, and Margaret is much better. You are an amazing man, your heart so full of love for others. I can tell you are tired, yet ya keep on. Will so miss you this morning. Haven’t done this without you for many years! Hope you have a BEAUTIFUL day!
Love,
Laura
December 21, 2008 at 7:06 pm |
Allan,
We read your blog and surley understand the question WHY!! It is incomprehensible to understand why one person cannot control their own anger. Not only has he harmed the Stroup’s life — he also has a family that he has that he has ruined. We (I) were raised that for every thing that we did there was a reaction–good or bad–people don’t seem to think about that any more.
We want to thank you for being part of our lives–THANK YOU!
Eddie & Ruthie
December 21, 2008 at 7:55 pm |
Hi Pastor,
It sounds like we need to give you some strength and love. Know you are an amazing pastor, when I lost my way…I never forgot how blessed that every time you seen me, you’d say…I’ve been thinking about you, when you coming back? We’ll always have a spot there for you!
It made me feel not forgotten. We have not forgotten you, you are amazing to us. I learned today you have not been apart from your wife on holidays. I’m sorry. I guess us that have always lived that life, do not even know how you feel being so far from your family during the most wonderful time of the year. I know what I’m trying to say, I hope it is coming out the right way. You know how my words sometimes get all turned around! I am in high hopes that you get to be with your family for your Christmas open house. I also admire you for being there w/Jerry and Margaret. Having you there, I just know..I have a comfort. Hard to explain. You have known me a long time. When in your blog you said this is unreal, or whatever you said in your own words..your right, I sometimes have thought same but different things. It just does not seem that we can be really living this, but we are.
I remember walking into Margaret’s office not to long ago, and telling her…Do you ever feel like your life is just going the right way? I remember her response..I’d like to keep that to myself right now. When I left her office, I felt as proud as I did, maybe even more than when I walked in. Maybe I’m rambling, But you need to know…you are awesome, admirable and we all know that. There have been some churches i’d go to, and never get the message, when I walked into the Church of God with you as the Pastor…I left thinking how does that man know my life? I understand the way you preach and I get a message. I can’t talk for anyone but me. I think the world of you and hope you know that. You keep the strength Pastor, I know you have got to be tired…Just know…the way you have to touch people’s lives is a true god send.
Thad did very well today, he hit some things right on. You’d been proud of him. I hope this makes since to you.
Out of every bad thing, there becomes a good. Margaret and Jerry Your wonderful people and in the right hands. I know that. I thank the lord everyday for the blessings we all have to be thankful for right now. Pastor, your one of them.
Love to all of you. I hope this get’s to you in the way..I’m trying to say it. It’s a good thing! Love ya! Michelle P.
December 22, 2008 at 10:55 pm |
So many of us are “caterpillars” of the church–we come, we sit, we listen–sometimes we even HEAR. And then we crawl back out and go our own way. Then there are the “pillars” of the church–the ones who are always there when needed, doing the right thing, seflessly sharing whatever gift God gave them. It sounds as though your congregation has a lot of pillars who are carrying on in your absence. You can praise the Lord for that kind of backup, and it’s okay to brag!
We look to the messenger of God as the one with the answers, but really the pastor is a mirror–reflecting back to each of us what our individual relationship is (or isn’t) to God. But who comforts the comforters? Who tends the wounds of the messenger? I think these long nights with the Stroups have been a version of a wilderness experience for you, and one day you will realize that the sum of the good and the bad comes out to a positive number, not a negative one. Praise the Lord that He doesn’t just dump all sunshine on us for a day, and then all gloom and doom the next–He mixes them up so we get some of each every day. It’s healthy to take time to reflect and share your thoughts.
Have you seen The Passion of the Christ, the film by Mel Gibson? We saw it in the theater with friends, and I was spellbound. I kept thinking of the verse that says…”and He became sin for us”. He didn’t just take it on, he didn’t just examine the sins laid out before Him. He became the savage killer, the jealous husband, the prostitute, the thief, the miser–on and on the list goes. He experienced it in every fiber of His being. So when I tell the Lord my troubles, He doesn’t just listen–He is engaged in hearing my heart, sharing my feelings and thoughts because He has BEEN THERE.
Before I wear out your eyes, I would like to share that my life verse is from Isaiah–They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall walk and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint–and the song about that verse adds, Teach me Lord, to wait.
April 4, 2009 at 7:15 pm |
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