In Northampton, Massachusetts, stands the old cemetery where David Brainerd is buried. Brainerd, a pioneer American missionary, died in 1747 at the age of twenty-nine after suffering from tuberculosis. His grave is beside that of Jerusha Edwards, the daughter of Jonathan Edwards, a Puritan theologian of that day. Brainerd loved Jerusha and they were engaged to be married, but he did not live until the wedding.

Imagine what hopes, dreams, and expectations for the cause of Christ were buried in that grave with the witherred body of that young missionary. At that point, nothing remained but memories and several dozen Indian converts! Yet, Jonathan Edwards, that majestic old Puritan saint, who had hoped to call Brainerd his son, began to write the story of that short life in a little book. The book took wings and few across the sea, and landed on the desk of a Cambridge student by the name of Henry Martyn.

Poor Henry Martyn! In spite of his education, brilliance, and great opportunities, he--after reading that little book on the life of Brainerd--threw his own life away! Afterward, what had he accomplished once he set his course toward home from India in 1812? With his health then broken, he dragged himself as far north as the town of Tokat, Turkey, near the Black Sea. There he lay in the shade of a pile of saddles, to cool his burning fever, and died alone at the age of thirty-one.

What was the purpose behind these "wasted lives?"  From the grave of a young David Brainerd, and the lonely grave of Henry Martyn near the shores of the Black Sea, have arisen a mighty army of modern Missionaries. (Leonard Woolsey Bacon)

"Is there some desert, or some boundless sea,
Where You, great God of angels, will send me?
Some oak for me to rend,
Some sod for me to break,

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9/12 matters because it is Monday morning and I have already forgotten. 

 

It is hard to believe that I can return to the ordinary affairs of the day without even a blink of the eye, already violating the solemn and ubiquitous slogan – We Shall Never Forget. It’s not that I have forgotten 9/11 or everyone that was directly and indirectly impacted in profound and subtle ways. I have already forgotten that today should not be the same.

 

As I watched show after show over the weekend where survivors from the buildings were interviewed, first-responders recounted their feelings, or those touched by the tragedy explained the impact – several compelling threads emerged.

 

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A professor I once had used to say “life is inherently tragic.”  He would go on to explain how death is a part of life, and without one, we cannot have another.  Death gives birth to new life.  Life gives birth to something that will one day die.  

In life, we certainly have our fair share of tragedy.  Both of my own parents died before I was 30.  I have no siblings, and in some ways have had to forge my own way through life.  

We have a friend of ours living with us currently who is a recent widow.  One year ago yesterday her dear husband of over 30 years was taken by the horrible disease of cancer.  She has gone through some real and undiluted pain over the last few years, and is now in a process of recovery.

A child gets killed in an accident, or worse, on purpose.  Death, disease, hunger, and struggle appear all around us.  We nearly become numb to this pain.

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So, what do we celebrate when a social villain is killed? I got the news on my phone while I was running around Chuck E Cheese (A local video/ mini-amusement restaurant) with my four year old: Osama Bin Laden Dead; Killed by U.S. Forces. My initial reaction was nothing. What could I feel? A man, who had allegedly done all these horrific things to our country, was now killed. What did that mean to me? Not a damn thing. During the Vietnam war era, hundreds of African Americans carried signs that stated: No Vietnamese Ever Called Me A Nigger!” I have to, in context, say the same thing in regards to Bin Laden: What did he do to me? The nine police officers that brutally murdered friends of mine during the late 80’s are still alive—and well I might add. The police officers that shot and killed a bi-polar elderly African American man because he wouldn’t come down off his roof are still alive and were never brought to trial. The people and entities who brought crack cocaine into my neighborhood and addicted millions for decades to come…are still alive. Therefore, what should I celebrate? The death of an entity? That ideology is still very much alive and well. Moreover, part of that ideology was created in the “heat of passion” when the U.S. was making love with members of guerilla Afghans who would in turn, kill the infidel Soviet Union soldiers, so that we could avoid World War III during the late 70’s and early 80’s and still flex our military muscle—using Bin Laden and his merry men as grunts.

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Have you ever felt your heartbreak slowly and completely - when you know it is happening and can’t do anything to stop it?   

 

Today my wife came home from Target around lunch time and told me a story that broke me down.  She had bumped into a friend of ours who gave her the news that a friend of hers who we had met casually at family events was in the middle of a devastating three months.  Her husband had been diagnosed with late stage brain cancer and was given three months to live of which the first thirty days might be bearable.  They have a bunch of kids, boys and girls, and were struggling through the process of preparing for his death.  Creating photos and letters.  Purchasing and engraving meaningful items that each child would have when he passed.  We talked about what to give the boys – what I would give the boys.  We talked about how they were trying to figure out how to make three months or maybe just thirty days somehow matter in the lives of kids 4 to 14 years old.

 

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My husband, Mark, worked in microfinance a couple years ago. Periodically he’d be gone for a couple weeks at a time, traveling to countries on the other side of the world. This seemed like eternity, especially to our children. They love their daddy and his absence was torture to their hearts.

The homecomings were awesome. They’d help clean the house and made sure I was planning a big meal for him. When it was time to head to the airport Anastasia would put on her prettiest outfit and Noah his coolest shirt. They wanted his homecoming to be special.

At the airport we’d wait outside of security, look through the glass doors and randomly check the status of his flight. They'd see Mark walk around the corner and a surge of excitement would rush through their bodies causing involuntary jumping up and down.

I heard a great sermon recently. My sister’s family lives in Atlanta and we all traveled there this year for Thanksgiving. They have been attending a fairly new church called Passion City Church. It’s pretty amazing. Louie Giglio teaches and Chris Tomlin leads the music. Talk about powerful praise and worship. I didn’t want it to end.

Louie’s sermon was titled Fully Alive and it really did a job on my soul. One point really stuck with me and I find myself continually talking about it with others. Louie highlighted Paul’s letter to the Philippians and focused on chapter 1 where Paul shares his struggle to die or not to die. If he were to die he’d instantly be in the arms of Jesus but to remain on earth he’d be able to continue sharing the love of Christ.

I’d always viewed this passage as encouragement for us to be content in all circumstances.

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from a dear friend of mine, William Melendez. He is like no other person I have ever met, his battles unique and his writing, hauntingly good. This is an honest account of his literal fight with death. Being that he wrote this article, we can assume he won that fight, but not without walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

Being a person who suffers from mental illness I have dealt with the vicissitudes of aberrant mental and physical states. Nevertheless, after enduring years of mental illness and several gastric diseases, dear reader, I began to succumb to the lie of a sick man’s philosophy: life, with its ups and downs, was always something that happened to me, and of which, I had no control over. I was clinging to a deflated lifeboat, buffeted in the winds of an unruly sea. Two things controlled the course of my raft, sink or swim: the happenstance of life and the constant intervention of God on my behalf. Mostly, I spent my time praying to God that He would get me through whatever was happening to me. My only contribution to my circumstances seemingly consisted of begging.

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Death recently taught me (again) that words can fail us.

This is a hard fact for me to accept. Here's why: words are my medium. And Metaphors and similes "are my favorite" (That's a quote from my favorite elf. I know, it's not Christmas, and you probably haven't seen Elf in 10 months, but just roll with it.)

Metaphors and similes work for situations like these:

• the infinite is in everything
• worry is like a dancing bear
• dishonesty is like a monkey with cymbals
• uncertainty is like a chaotic circus
• spirituality that grows like a weed

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Time is such a precious thing.

For most of us, it is precious because with live with the knowledge that we do not have a limitless supply of it.  We all wish we could find a 25th hour in the day.  I have petitioned the Lord for such to no avail.  On a larger scale, however, we are oblivious to what "not enough time" really means.

As Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 15:24, the end WILL come.  Time eventually runs out.  The odd thing is that I often live in ignorance of that truth.  I live as if I have all the time in world to do the things I really need to do - things like loving my wife well or building Christ into the lives of my children.   I live with a youthful, though misguided, notion that I am in control of my days and my time.  William Henley's concluding words to his poem, Invictus, resonate somewhere deep within me:

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