Grieving With Hope
Okay, I don't have too much time before we pull out for home, but I need to get this down...
Yesterday was our last day, and it was pretty much a free day. So we woke up a bit later than usual for breakfast, and then headed up to the Angel Oak for some group pictures. Then we came back and played a bit on the beach before lunch, after which we were pretty much free to do whatever we wanted for the rest of the afternoon. Some of us played out in the ocean, others played some more rounds of Spades in our conference center, while others just came up with their own activities. We did that until dinner at 6:30, which was followed by a volleyball tournament on the beach. I got to play in that because my sister wasn't feeling too good (stomach bug). It got fairly intense at times, but overall we managed to have a good time.
Okay, sad news. Near the end of the games, one of the girls named Katie Thackston was called off the court to talk to her sister and family. I only learned what was going on while we were assembling for worship time, but as the remainder of the group came in slowly and with tears in a lot of their eyes, I knew something was wrong. As it turned out, Katie's grandmother had just passed away. I know she was distraught; I saw several of the girls formed a circle around her and were praying for her even while she was crying. We knew we needed to get her back to her family, so Will and Gareth, two of our older students, volunteered to drive her back upstate to meet her dad and relatives, and Alvin and Kendell Sell went with them.
The rest of us assembled in the chapel, and to put it mildly, we were grieving really hard. Lots of people were crying, girls and boys, other had their heads in their hands, some were praying by themselves, etc. Ryan Godsey managed to begin the service by addressing what had happened immediately, and by sending up an assembly of prayer for Katie and her family. We prayed for about 10 to 15 minutes. Then we did our best to get through the announcements and tournament results, although it was obvious those were the last things on our minds at that point. Then we opened the floor for testimonials. A girl named Chantelle, who is very close to Katie, offered to speak. She addressed a lot of the same feelings we had in our hearts about the situation, and she reminded us that we should take from this a valuable lesson: not to take life for granted, because none of us knows how long we have on this Earth. She was in tears halfway through her talk, and I knew she was fighting to hold it together. Many others shared similar statements; our thoughts continued to be with Katie, as well as Will and Gareth who were driving her all the way back to Columbia, and then coming back to camp in the middle of the night.
After that, the praise band stepped forward. For the first time since my junior year of high school, I didn't want to sing. I didn't feel like singing. I don't think any of us felt very upbeat about it. And yet Josh Murphy, the leader of the band, offered up a brief message of hope to cling to as we tried to sing one song, "Blessed be the Name of the Lord." He touched on the power and truth behind the lyrics found in the bridge.
You give and take away,
You give and take away,
My heart will choose to say,
Blessed be Your Name.
Being reminded of that simple truth, however much it hurts, gave me the strength to sing. It was extremely hard, though. Eventually, everyone else joined in. Once the song was finished, our speaker, a teacher named David Thompson got up to do the message for the evening. I knew he was trying his best to keep the students focused and himself composed at the same time. But there was a lot of power behind his message, based on Hebrews 12:1. I knew that God was supplying him with the strength to speak, and us with the fortitude to listen as best we could. We finally let out sometime after 10:00 for our last couple of hours before bed. A lot of us just stayed close to each other, hugging, conversing, praying. I went over to comfort Chantelle, the girl who had spoken to everyone during worship, because I knew she was grieving especially hard. We all were, in our own way. Most of us just made the rounds and checked in on each other, or otherwise stayed together in the conference center for the remainder of the evening. There were a lot of tears, lots of hugs going around. After a long while, we did finally manage to lighten our mood somewhat with some laughter and a few more games of Spades, just trying not to grieve too heavily. That lasted until about midnight, when we finally did go to bed.
I will never forget last night. Despite all we've done this week, all the work we've accomplished, how 'on fire' we have been about praising God, last night was the real testament of this group's faith. The more I think about it, the more I realize this. Satan will use anything, anything, to try and turn us from our walk with the Lord. And I know that last night, with the tragic news we received, right at the end of our week of hard work and service, it was perfect. It was a perfect opportunity for Satan to come in and try to destroy it, to tear it all apart. But I will say this...judging by how our group responded in the wake of the news, Satan's plan failed. We didn't fall apart. We didn't get bitter or rail at God or each other. Instead, we came together in our chapel and we prayed with every last ounce of our strength. Satan tried to use tragedy to split us, but tragedy brought us even closer. The group dug in even deeper, praying aloud to themselves and with each other. Even when the mood was far from cheerful, we managed to sing praise to God after He empowered Josh with the brief message he shared to raise our spirits enough to fuel our voices. The Holy Spirit was with Mr. Thompson, who was able to speak even with the tragedy that had happened. We still needed to hear the message, and he delivered it with great conviction.
This is real, hard truth. God loves us deeply and unconditionally, and He wants us to seek and follow His will for our lives. But that doesn't mean our lives as Christians will be a bed of roses; not at all. It will be a bed of thorns. Sometimes we are blessed beyond imagination, and sometimes tragedies happen that cause us to grieve deeply. God does not promise a life that will be perfect and happy even though we follow Him. As Christians, we know Satan will attack us any way he knows, any flaw we have, and he'll use it. He'll even use the death of loved ones to try and turn us from our faith, to try to convince us that God doesn't care about us and having faith isn't worth it. But that's not true. God does care. His will works in everything, even tragedy, even though it's difficult to see it at the time. God wants us to grieve, but as people who have hope. I'm sure Katie knows that although she has lost one of the most important people in her life, she also knows without a doubt that she'll see her again one day when she meets the Lord in Heaven. That's the kind of hope that only God provides: the promise of eternal life that was paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ. I pray that we'll keep clinging to that hope, even after this sadness fades and things settle back to normal, and that we'll never let it go.
Well, that's about it. Please, please keep Katie Thackston in your prayers, and her family and relatives as well. Pray also for the adults and students who traveled with her and who had to come back to camp in the middle of the night. And pray for the rest of our group for safe travel back to Greenville. We're pulling out around lunch. Thank you very much. God bless.
Yesterday was our last day, and it was pretty much a free day. So we woke up a bit later than usual for breakfast, and then headed up to the Angel Oak for some group pictures. Then we came back and played a bit on the beach before lunch, after which we were pretty much free to do whatever we wanted for the rest of the afternoon. Some of us played out in the ocean, others played some more rounds of Spades in our conference center, while others just came up with their own activities. We did that until dinner at 6:30, which was followed by a volleyball tournament on the beach. I got to play in that because my sister wasn't feeling too good (stomach bug). It got fairly intense at times, but overall we managed to have a good time.
Okay, sad news. Near the end of the games, one of the girls named Katie Thackston was called off the court to talk to her sister and family. I only learned what was going on while we were assembling for worship time, but as the remainder of the group came in slowly and with tears in a lot of their eyes, I knew something was wrong. As it turned out, Katie's grandmother had just passed away. I know she was distraught; I saw several of the girls formed a circle around her and were praying for her even while she was crying. We knew we needed to get her back to her family, so Will and Gareth, two of our older students, volunteered to drive her back upstate to meet her dad and relatives, and Alvin and Kendell Sell went with them.
The rest of us assembled in the chapel, and to put it mildly, we were grieving really hard. Lots of people were crying, girls and boys, other had their heads in their hands, some were praying by themselves, etc. Ryan Godsey managed to begin the service by addressing what had happened immediately, and by sending up an assembly of prayer for Katie and her family. We prayed for about 10 to 15 minutes. Then we did our best to get through the announcements and tournament results, although it was obvious those were the last things on our minds at that point. Then we opened the floor for testimonials. A girl named Chantelle, who is very close to Katie, offered to speak. She addressed a lot of the same feelings we had in our hearts about the situation, and she reminded us that we should take from this a valuable lesson: not to take life for granted, because none of us knows how long we have on this Earth. She was in tears halfway through her talk, and I knew she was fighting to hold it together. Many others shared similar statements; our thoughts continued to be with Katie, as well as Will and Gareth who were driving her all the way back to Columbia, and then coming back to camp in the middle of the night.
After that, the praise band stepped forward. For the first time since my junior year of high school, I didn't want to sing. I didn't feel like singing. I don't think any of us felt very upbeat about it. And yet Josh Murphy, the leader of the band, offered up a brief message of hope to cling to as we tried to sing one song, "Blessed be the Name of the Lord." He touched on the power and truth behind the lyrics found in the bridge.
You give and take away,
You give and take away,
My heart will choose to say,
Blessed be Your Name.
Being reminded of that simple truth, however much it hurts, gave me the strength to sing. It was extremely hard, though. Eventually, everyone else joined in. Once the song was finished, our speaker, a teacher named David Thompson got up to do the message for the evening. I knew he was trying his best to keep the students focused and himself composed at the same time. But there was a lot of power behind his message, based on Hebrews 12:1. I knew that God was supplying him with the strength to speak, and us with the fortitude to listen as best we could. We finally let out sometime after 10:00 for our last couple of hours before bed. A lot of us just stayed close to each other, hugging, conversing, praying. I went over to comfort Chantelle, the girl who had spoken to everyone during worship, because I knew she was grieving especially hard. We all were, in our own way. Most of us just made the rounds and checked in on each other, or otherwise stayed together in the conference center for the remainder of the evening. There were a lot of tears, lots of hugs going around. After a long while, we did finally manage to lighten our mood somewhat with some laughter and a few more games of Spades, just trying not to grieve too heavily. That lasted until about midnight, when we finally did go to bed.
I will never forget last night. Despite all we've done this week, all the work we've accomplished, how 'on fire' we have been about praising God, last night was the real testament of this group's faith. The more I think about it, the more I realize this. Satan will use anything, anything, to try and turn us from our walk with the Lord. And I know that last night, with the tragic news we received, right at the end of our week of hard work and service, it was perfect. It was a perfect opportunity for Satan to come in and try to destroy it, to tear it all apart. But I will say this...judging by how our group responded in the wake of the news, Satan's plan failed. We didn't fall apart. We didn't get bitter or rail at God or each other. Instead, we came together in our chapel and we prayed with every last ounce of our strength. Satan tried to use tragedy to split us, but tragedy brought us even closer. The group dug in even deeper, praying aloud to themselves and with each other. Even when the mood was far from cheerful, we managed to sing praise to God after He empowered Josh with the brief message he shared to raise our spirits enough to fuel our voices. The Holy Spirit was with Mr. Thompson, who was able to speak even with the tragedy that had happened. We still needed to hear the message, and he delivered it with great conviction.
This is real, hard truth. God loves us deeply and unconditionally, and He wants us to seek and follow His will for our lives. But that doesn't mean our lives as Christians will be a bed of roses; not at all. It will be a bed of thorns. Sometimes we are blessed beyond imagination, and sometimes tragedies happen that cause us to grieve deeply. God does not promise a life that will be perfect and happy even though we follow Him. As Christians, we know Satan will attack us any way he knows, any flaw we have, and he'll use it. He'll even use the death of loved ones to try and turn us from our faith, to try to convince us that God doesn't care about us and having faith isn't worth it. But that's not true. God does care. His will works in everything, even tragedy, even though it's difficult to see it at the time. God wants us to grieve, but as people who have hope. I'm sure Katie knows that although she has lost one of the most important people in her life, she also knows without a doubt that she'll see her again one day when she meets the Lord in Heaven. That's the kind of hope that only God provides: the promise of eternal life that was paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ. I pray that we'll keep clinging to that hope, even after this sadness fades and things settle back to normal, and that we'll never let it go.
Well, that's about it. Please, please keep Katie Thackston in your prayers, and her family and relatives as well. Pray also for the adults and students who traveled with her and who had to come back to camp in the middle of the night. And pray for the rest of our group for safe travel back to Greenville. We're pulling out around lunch. Thank you very much. God bless.
posted by david @ 3:58 AM
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