I got a somber phone call from one of my best friends a few hours ago. This morning her two-year-old nephew -- who was in her wedding with me a few short months ago --  was rushing out the front door to give his mommy hugs and kisses as she left for work when he slipped and fell. He struck his head on the porch steps and died instantly.

When his mother called 911 and the police arrived to take a report, they discovered she had a warrant for an unpaid traffic ticket... so within moments of watching her youngest child die, she was placed under arrest.

Please be in prayer for my friend and her family as she drives to Tennessee to be with her brother and sister-in-law in this time of unthinkable sorrow.

Kyrie Eleison.

Interviewer: What if anything would you like to say to the families of the victims?

Broadnax: (stares at the camera for a moment) F*ck 'em. Straight up.

In a jailhouse interview with Fox news, nineteen-year-old James Broadnax confesses to killing Matt and Steven. (NOTE: Footage is uncensored; discretion is advised.) The unspeakable irony, as Mister Nygren learned at the funeral yesterday, was that Matt and Steven were only at the studio so late because they were putting the finishing touches on a song they'd recorded together... called "We All Die Before Our Time."

In their public statements, the grieving families have expressed pity towards Broadnax and his cousin (who was present but didn't pull the trigger). I'd like to say that pity was my first or even overwhelming second response, but... I'd be lying. I wanted justice. Not even the I-hope-you-get-life-without-parole kind of justice, I'm ashamed to admit. More of the blind-outrage variety that causes mobs of otherwise sane people to do unjust things in the name of justice. Realizing that carrying out that sort of thing would make me no less cold-blooded than the murderer himself, though, I had to start praying that God would show James Broadnax the kind of mercy that I wanted Him to show me.

Broadnax tells the interviewer that his life has been hell, and that he intends to die, whether at his own hand or the state's. "I don't want [a] life [sentence]," he says flatly. It bears mentioning, though,  that at the end of the video -- mere moments after the chilling retort quoted above -- the stone-cold-killer facade crumbles. Broadnax appears to be fighting back tears as he slams down the receiver, rises abruptly from his chair and exits the visitation booth.

Watching him, I am finally overcome with pity as I realize that he, too, died before his time...

Almost twelve years ago, outside the front door of the renovated house where our oddball singles group met, a teenager with twinkling eyes pulled me aside to talk after the crowd began to disperse. Having heard me lead the music that night, Matt wanted to talk to me about his own future in music. I confessed I didn't know much of anything about making a career of it -- I was a self-taught guitarist who liked to sing, but I wasn't pursuing a contract or anything -- but gladly obliged when he asked if he could sing for me. He had a marvelous voice, and I didn't mind telling him so... but it was the sound I heard behind his voice -- his conviction and hunger to do more with his music than his years would yet allow -- that told me he would be someone to watch.

Four years later I heard the sound again -- not in a song, but in a conversation between Matt and my husband about our new recording studio. Having been laid off from my telecom job with a severance package generous enough to allow it, we'd bought a Mac, a ProTools setup, some fundamental recording equipment and enough bright purple soundproofing foam to give Barney the dinosaur an inferiority complex. Matt was full of questions, stunned at how little it really took to create a start-up studio, and bore the unmistakable look of a man who was determined to make it happen for himself.

In 2006, we and that fateful day in our apartment were mentioned -- though not by name -- in a news article where Matt was being interviewed about the recording studio he'd recently opened. Sadly, it appeared again in the news yesterday when the story broke that he and Stephen Swan, his sound engineer and good friend, had been gunned down in front of that same studio.

I firmly believe that Matt, for all the struggles he may have had here, is now in the presence of the only One whose approval of his music or work ever mattered... and God bless him, those long struggles are over. He leaves behind a twenty-two-year-old widow, a son just a month younger than my own and a daughter who will be two this fall.

Your prayers for his family, the Swan family, and even especially for those responsible would be greatly appreciated.

For those of you who don't think God has a great sense of humor, please click here.

"Humor is a rubber sword - it allows you to make a point without drawing blood."
-- Mary Hirsch

(This is a very long entry, because it addresses a subject for which I have far more questions than answers. In hopes that it will help you in your own struggles, though, I'm inviting you into mine. --Ed.)

 
Click here to read the story in yesterday's news about the couple whose 11-year-old daughter died Easter Sunday after her parents, who believed God was going to heal whatever had been causing her health to decline over the weeks leading up to her death, refused to seek medical care for her.

I have very strong but very mixed feelings about situations like this one. I am furious with the parents. I'm appalled that none of the friends who begged them to get a doctor did more to intervene. I'm grieved at their loss of a child. I'm afraid for their spiritual wellbeing, since their particular theology teaches that if their daughter died from illness, they must have been in sin or lacked faith. I'm afraid for what will happen to them if they go to prison. 

I have personally been witness to supernatural healings -- injured muscles instantly mended, malignant tumors discovered to have "mysteriously" disappeared or to have been transformed into benign swellings -- that only involved medical personnel inasmuch as they were able to confirm through examination that what we'd prayed for had taken place. To deny that those things happen, then, would make me a willful liar.

At the same time, I disagree completely with the teachings followed by the parents of the now-deceased little girl -- that all physical illness is due to sin, curable by asking God's forgiveness and offering prayers with a sufficient amount of faith. There are entire sects built on this belief, and I cannot imagine how depressing it must be to serve as a pastor of such a group... since, following that logic, one must be failing as a spiritual leader if all one's congregants eventually die.
(In case you're wondering... they do.)

This subject strikes at the heart of my questions about God's sovereignty and goodwill towards creation. If God intended for someone to die but faithful believers prayed -- or, for that matter, the paramedics arrived just in time -- would His ultimate will be thwarted? Or if God wanted to heal someone through prayers but none were found with sufficient faith to offer them, would He sigh and reluctantly pull the plug?

Drawing a more concrete example from the previous entry: if a tornado is imminent, should I leave my son and husband sleeping upstairs and trust that because of my prayers, God won't let them be harmed? Conversely, is it lack of faith in God's ability or willingness to save us that causes me to prepare for threatening weather?
Is it none of the above?

In addition to the [otherwise] inexplicable healings I've seen, I've been in a now-infamous car wreck that, by all accounts, should have killed one or more of us. Given how fast we were traveling, the way we crashed and the number of potentially lethal objects thrown around in the car with us, the fact that we came out with only a couple bumps and bruises among the four of us makes no sense whatsoever.

The difference between the life-altering or potentially fatal circumstances I've brought up and the one addressed in the news article is that unlike the girl's parents, none of us refused the practical means of intervention that were available to us. The friend with vanishing tumors wasn't rejecting medical treatment for his cancer; he had recently been diagnosed and was a few days from starting chemo when we prayed for him. In the midst of the car wreck, I did indeed cry out to God but sure as hell didn't take off my seat belt as we launched into the air.

There comes a time when the line that separates faith from folly becomes impossible to see... and sometimes, that's because it's behind you.

********************* 

There's more coming, but it's well past my bedtime. Feel free to comment, but before you reach for the torches and pitchforks, please bear in mind that I'm not done going where I'm headed.
I'm not even in the handbasket yet. :)