Eleven years in one town is a long time no matter how you measure it.  It's long enough that you begin to forget some events that happened at the start.  People will mention something to me that long since slipped my mind.  Odds are good that age and the effects of chemo also contribute to this.  Eleven years is also long enough to go through experiences both good and bad.  It seems as if those negative times will always outweigh any positive.  I cannot imagine many small towns having an abundance of crisis or tragedy as takes place here.  People often take ill or even die but never does it seem to add up as much as in my town.  It does not happen in the traditional cycle of three but seems never ending.

We lost yet another young person today at far too young of an age.  I won't go into lots of details but it was a car accident.  Death once again comes too soon in our community.  Maybe it is me who is more sensitive to losses after going through an illness.  Some of it is the leftover guilt that wonders how I survived when others do not.  Logic tells me that there is no answer.  But it cannot slow the question from crossing my mind.  How do we find any semblance of sanity when events like this occur?  My guess is there are many people asking that tonight in our town.  The raw reality is there are few answers to that search.  Accidents happen.  Illness strikes us.  Tragedy strikes.  This is the human story.

Let me say at this point that one of the best things a minister can do is to spend time learning about death and dying.  I don't mean just a few lectures during a semester but to do a separate study devoted to that topic.  We will spend countless hours wrestling with issues that defy explanation.  Not everyone gets their full allotment of years without difficulty.  Sometimes the minister will be asked for more than superficial answers to questions.  What may surprise you is even our biblical quotations may not be enough.  Serious thinking is required to be effective in times of grief.  A tragedy such as this one today does not evaporate in a few days or months.  This is one that stays with you forever.  Today makes all of life different for each one touched by loss.

May we not be so quick or glib in throwing cliched quotations around to those who hurt.  Realize that simply being present can do more than what we say.  People truly mean well but they don't hear how what they say can be hollow.  We can be honest by simply answering that we neither know nor do we have all of the answers.  I don't think we are to be above the hurts of others as much as we can share their sorrows.  God doesn't mind our being truthful when we express genuine compassion.  Nothing we say can make the pain ever lessen much less go away.  That is God's job as He fills the broken hearted.  We can pray with every fiber of our being.  We can be there when others drift away.  We can listen or even join in the sharing of tears.  Jesus once wept due to grief around Him.  So we can be sure that He knows what each person needs in their experience of loss. 

Bro. Trey