With A Heavy Heart

It is with a heavy heart and a lump in my throat this morning that I write this post. For those of you who don't know a friend of mine from school from the theatre department, from my theatre family was killed in a head on car collision Saturday. He and the other driver in the accident were driving down a two lane highway in indiana (he on his way to a family reunion) when my friend Adam went to pass a Semi and didn't see the car in the other lane they both attempted to avoid each other pulling out and colliding head on in the ditch. Please be in prayer for the family of 5 that was in the other vehicle. The mother and father of the three children in the back seat were last in critical condition and the children's status was never released.

Adam was flown Careflight to a hospital and a few hours after the accident he passed away from his injuries. So one of my best friends texted me yesterday at 730am which would have been 630am her time to see if I had heard the news... one of the most sobering texts I have received in a long time. "B...did you hear about Adam?" (B is Julie's nickname for me) To which I responded no and she immediately called me. Our theatre department is a family, mess with one of us you better be careful because we have each others backs. I don't mean that to sound threatening it's just to represent how we look after each other. I don't know ho I could have survived college without my theatre family students and professors alike. So with this news we are all breaking and the Crowhort is probably taking it the hardest because they spent the last three years studying, learning and growing together to finish up with their MFAs back last month. My heart breaks for my friend's loss and breaks for the hurt that so many of my wonderful and dear MFA friends are experiencing.

A little over a year ago Adam's father was killed in a car accident as well. He was devastated and we all hurt for him. We even set up a giving account where people could contribute to helping to bury his father and send him home for the funeral...here we are a little more than a year later with a giving account set up once more for our friend, our own brother's funeral. I want to say a few things about the character of my friend Adam before I go on in this post to reference some things I am learning this morning about death.

A Character of Life

I met Adam when he was a first year MFA student and I was a Junior in College. The first show we worked on together was Three Musketeers. I was the Assistant Stage Manager and he was one of the main supporting roles. Adam was a humorous guy. He liked to tease the BA's especially the girls because he found them to be more gullible, knowing we would fall for his dry sarcasm and humor or just for the tap on the shoulder-walk away-pretend it wasn't you joke. Adam would tease me about taking me out on the date that he had never asked me out on. He also joked about how he felt we were growing distant after we had just finished an entire show we worked together on for several months. "Adam...we just spent the past several months working on a show together!" hahaha. He joked about me leaving him alone with the kids...that we didn't have. He was always one to walk up to a group of us talking and put his arm around one or two or three people and stick his head into the conversation. He and some of the other guys had a game where they called dibs on everyone and everything so yes even myself along with so many other girls of the department got called "dibs" on. "Dibs on Gabe!!!!" - Adam "What does that even meeeeean?! Hahaha" -Me ::Adam Shrugs Shoulders::

Adam was a giving person, a true 21st century good samaritan. A friend of mine had mentioned to someone within ear shot of him that she was frustrated that she didn't even have money to buy lunch and he whipped out a $10 and handed it to her not even knowing who she was. Adam had the biggest arms and the biggest hugs coming from a big guy with an even bigger heart. Adam made sure that no one person went unnoticed or unrecognized. I can remember on several occasions where he praised me for doing a good job even clapping for me as he walked by. "Keep up the good work Gabe." -Adam. I don't think I appreciated that as much as I should have. Adam saw when people were having a rough day, he knew just by looking at them. He was quick to listen and be there for the people he cared about. Although he was scared of leaving school and heading out to LA he was determined to make the leap of faith with his fathers encouraging words "I'm betting on you even if no one else is" and knowing God had his back. My friend Tim put it this way: "If you haven't made the world a better place, then what difference does it make. Thank you Adam for inspiring us to live fully, love passionately, and laugh without hesitation." If I could say anything that would encompass him, that right there would ice the cake.

So...death. A bittersweet taste on my tongue with that one word. & can I just take a moment to mention that it is magnificently stormy outside. The storm is a reflection of my heart, moments of eruptive thunder and pouring rain and then stillness for a moment. I am still between disbelief and realization. Yesterday was long. I went to church because I knew that Adam would have encouraged me to, he was also an ordained minister. I came home after lunch and fell asleep waking up still exhausted and eyes still tired and worn out. Tears come and go as they please.

Our Loss, Adam's Gain

I'm sure you have heard people say in the past "God's got another angel up there" or "It's our loss but Christ's gain" both are things I have heard in the past when going through bereavement. But, this time I am choosing to see it as Adam's gain. Yes, I still believe that it is Christ's gain but I also want to take the time to recognize that Adam gained a whole heck of a lot when we left this earth. I am in no way belittling the gain of Christ I just also want to recognize the significance of what Adam himself has gained. It's easy to say they are in a better place and not think in depth about what that means. It needs to be talked about, we should be discussing it, especially when it hurts. So I did some research on death this morning and came across this relevant magazine article from 2008 that talks about death being the servant of God. I was like, huh, interesting perspective and you know what...I agree. God sent Christ to this world to conquer death and by conquering death as He did, death became a servant.

It's a bit of a read but honestly I don't think I could cut anything out so stick with me for a moment and read the below quoted pieces from Relevant Magazine, see if it doesn't strike a heartstring with you as it did with me:

"Death divorced from God becomes a power unto itself and becomes master of humanity rather than servant. Only through the re-mastery of death can death cease to be an enemy and return to its place as servant of God and humanity. Death is what Christ came to reconquer and is the means by which He conquered. Death became servant to Christ so that it might once again become servant to humanity. It served the true human so that it might serve all humans."

"Death is the gateway to life. Death is the boatman who ferries us from this life to more life. Death is the servant now. For one must lose his life to save it. We are baptized into death so that we might rise with Christ. We are joined to Christ’s death so that through death we might be joined to Christ’s resurrection and new life (Romans 6:4-5)."

"New life is not found through any other means than death. Resurrection implies death and it is resurrection that we seek. New life in Christ is not merely the prolonging of this life but it is a completely new life unlike this one. New life requires death. Death is the gift, the means, through which we are granted new, resurrected life with Christ."

"Lordless death is the great enemy, not death itself. Christ, who submitted to God, submitted to death and in doing so received life and death’s allegiance. Christ cannot die again because death has no mastery over him (Romans 6:9). Death returns to its proper function as servant of God and is rightly ordered humanity’s servant as well. Natural immortality is horrendous and hopeless. Death gives us hope for new life. Death, when with God, is hope. It is hope of resurrected life. It is the gift of God to humanity, abused by humanity during the Fall, then given back at the Cross. Paul continues to warn that sin and corruption lead to death (Romans 6:23;8:6) but to lordless death, not Christ’s death, which brings eternal life in Christ."

"J.R.R. Tolkien illustrates death as gift and the corruption it underwent better than I ever could in his epic The Silmarillion:

The sons of Men die indeed, and leave the world; wherefore they are called the Guests, or the Strangers. Death is their fate, the gift of Iluvatar, which as Time wears even the Powers shall envy. But Melkor has cast his shadow upon it, and confounded it with darkness, and brought forth evil out of good, and fear out of hope." 

"Charles Williams, a personal friend of Tolkien, once wrote “The definition of the Fall is that man determined to know good as evil.” One example of this is to be seen in humanity’s view of death. A good was seen as an evil. A gift was seen as a curse. A servant was seen as an enemy and became just that. Christ laid down his own life freely to death and in doing so mastered death. In his mastering of death he gave death to us once again to be our servant. Christ says, “He who believes in me will live even though he dies,” (John 11:25). Christ goes onto say “whoever lives and believes in me will never die,” (John 11:26). I believe Christ speaks of the life that only comes from death. As Christ cannot die again, neither can those who are united with Christ’s death. Death is not the end of life but the means to it, for Christ says, “Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it,” (Luke 17:33). To defeat death one must die. To be born again one must die. To live one must die. Therefore, die before you die. There is no chance after."

So there you have it my friends. I myself want to remember to see death as a servant of Christ. I made the choice to die to myself a long time ago but it's not just a one time decision that I can make and not continually work on. Dying to oneself is a lifelong commitment and it's hard! I believe that is what Adam did in his time here on earth. He died to himself and accepted Christ's defeat of death so that when death came to him he would gain life. Death is a daily walk, not just a one time occurrence. Death is servitude. Death is choosing life. Death is not the enemy. 

On a lighter note: The 5 Stages of Grief as told by Giraffe from Robot Chicken:
WARNING: Bleeped Out Offensive Language Content Viewer Discretion is Advised Not Suitable for Children