Recently I have gazed back at my life. Maybe I do so because the house grows quiet from the family jostle. As the kids move into wider places, I have finally focussed a realization which I want to share.
Less than one month before my 14th birthday I raised my lever action 22 cal rifle to take a bead on a skittering squirrel. Sitting 20 yards down hill Rick was lowering his rifle after a couple missed shots. In that moment I realized that my cousin sat too near to my line of fire. In that fraction I chose to move the rifle with my finger still on the trigger. BANG! He was gone to heaven before the ambulance could even arrive.
A reasonable life after killing a cousin would have made me a lonely little man, mostly broken yet soldiering on. I would have expressed extreme cynicism and sarcasm so that few would want to be around me. Which would have been fine with me, I would have rather be hermited away from others. Surrounded in a wall of depression I might have lived out my days isolated from everyone.
A worst case scenario would find me drowning in alcohol in a ditch after fatally hitting a tree at high speed.
Look what God encouraged instead. David Souder, Larry Youse Jr. and I led a prayer meeting in our public school that reached many kids with the hope in Jesus. I sang in our church group, The Revelation Singers. We toured a bunch of churches and shared that same hope with many more. I graduated college and seminary and pastored in multiple churches.
In my first church I met my wife at my thirtieth birthday party and we have enjoyed almost 24 years together and been granted the privilege to raise 4 kids. I have taken more than one youth group on missions trips to Chicago, South Dakota and Tijuana. I enjoyed singing in the Houghton College Choir my senior year (which took a lot of voice lessons to get there). I have met many great saints of the church most unsung now.
I have certainly struggled over the years. Depression shoves into my life repeatedly. The sheer weight of it has turned many a day into a marathon of push just to get the basics of living done. Other days my thoughts are a battle between self condemnation and moderation. The weapons of the one barely blunted by the right reason of the other.
A few years into my first assignment in Canada, I began hearing voices. At this I sought counseling. After several sessions with a caring Christian counselor I dealt with one of the more painful aspects of Rick’s death. The voices ceased without return.
My poor young bride had to console a tearful groom as many old pains felt safe to surface during our first few years of marriage. My most recent counseling experience allowed me to step off “The Healing Journey” Bible Study in a small group over the course of a year.
With a distance of 41 years I need to right some theology. God didn’t cause Rick to die, my mistake did. If I had waited one more second and involved one more thought, I likely would safely brought the gun down. I panicked for the right reason, but with the wrong result. For years I tried to convince myself that God wanted Rick dead. I don’t believe that now. It may have been a case like Job where God said, “Look at that Ed Ross.” Then after the shot God responded, “Sit down, Satan, that was way more than enough.”
I think even more likely God cried as Rick was hit. I believe God teared for Rick and his pain. I believe God wept for the upheaval of all involved. Then I believe God decided that as far as He was able this shot was only going to be the end of one life. Thank you, Lord.
