Where We Find our Comfort when Tragedy Strikes
We were headed out for a week at the beach, to celebrate our 25th anniversary, when I noticed an email from Harold, a friend of mine from seminary. He had sent it the day before, and it said, “Call me as soon as you can. I have an urgent prayer request.” I called and received the news: He had been hit by a serious heart attack: 100% blockage in one of his arteries. The story of how he even made it to a hospital was miraculous, but there’s another layer to his story that has been pressing on my mind ever since.
Shortly after arriving they took him back for emergency surgery. He is a few years younger than I am and has young kids at home, so he asked the doctor, “How serious is this?” Before the doctor could answer, he added this: “I’m a Christian, so I’m not worried about dying. But for the sake of my family should I say goodbye?” And then in our phone call he began quoting at length from Philippians 1, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain… My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account…” He quoted much more to me than what I captured, and it was these verses that he was meditating on while waiting on the doctor’s response, praying that God would allow him to survive for the sake of his family and their progress and joy in the faith.
The doctor sat quietly for an uncomfortably long time. Finally he said, “This is serious, so I’m going to get to work.” That felt like a non-answer-answer to me, but Harold went into surgery and came out ok. After surgery, the doctor said, “I thought you had about a 30% chance of making it through. But your heart was strong because of how active you are.”
A shocking story at many levels, but the thing that keeps coming to mind is that in the midst of a life-threatening challenge, my friend’s first inclination was to find comfort in quoting Scripture. And not just a short “Jesus wept” verse, no, he quoted at length from a section he obviously had spent time memorizing at some point in his life. This is why we feature a memory verse at our church every month. Because the verses that will come to mind when you need them the most will be those that you’ve already planted in your heart in the easier times. Like a bank account, you can only withdraw what has been deposited.
This month our memory verse also is in Philippians. Check it out here along with all the other verses we’ve worked on this year. Also, if you want encouragement with memorizing, check out this short book that our women studied last D-group session. I found it incredibly encouraging.
Join us this Sunday as we continue in our Study of 1 Peter. Last week we looked at what Peter had to say to wives, and this week we’ll focus on husbands. I’m praying for us all, that as we dive deeper into 1 Peter, we grow in our ability to Find Joy in the Midst of Suffering, and that our example would be a light to all of the South End of Louisville!
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